No Silver Bullet – working beyond the myth of fixability

It was brilliant to have Steve Hearsum as our guest for GameShift’s March pop-up, talking about his book No Silver Bullet. We recommend Steve and his book, and there’s a link below if you’d like to buy a copy.

As usual we’re not going to summarise the event here, it was way too rich for that and there’s a recording available for you to revisit the session. We do want to reflect briefly though on what we, Chris and Philippa, took from the session. We have some observations and some important learning to bear in mind. Here goes …

We loved the engagement in this session with a group of about 20 people, a very strong level of participation, with the chat busy with questions and comments on experiences, and lots of spoken contributions. The session had a spirit of genuine shared exploration. Much credit to Steve and to everyone involved for creating this.

We’ve known Steve for a long time (at least since Steve was at Roffey Park) and share many of his concerns about “traditional” consulting and executive education – and both of us have been part of large consulting firms that had a “silver bullet” or two on offer. We’ve created in GameShift a vehicle for doing what feels to us like the necessary work for today. It’s messier work, often deep in the guts of organisations, working alongside people who know they can’t control everything and yet are still on the hook as leaders.

We don’t think of ourselves as offering “silver bullets”. Yet when Steve talks about some of the underlying collusions that maintain the silver bullet industry, the avoidance of shame, the clamouring for safety and a familiar comfort blanket, it’s hard to avoid the sense that every consultant, however honest and bereft of shiny new models, is still in the business of creating a trusting alliance that allows the work to be done. In this there will always be the risk, at least, of a collusion of comfort in how that relationship plays out. It made us reflect on where we think we have held this fragile edge skilfully, and where we have done so less wisely.

We came out of it with refreshed questions about our own practice and about the work we do, a renewed energy for inquiry, for peer-scrutiny, and rigorous reflective practice, and with gratitude for Steve and his work.

We know that Steve is up for reflections and conversations about this session, and you can contact him here, or via LinkedIn. You can get his book here.

Here is the recording of the pop-up with Steve.

We are also thrilled about our next pop-up on April 24th. It features Professor Rob Briner in conversation with the ever brilliant Julie Drybrough, and will be exploring “What is an evidence based approach to practice and why do we need one – in HR and in management”. To find out more and register please visit this link. It’s going to be great, do come and invite your colleagues and contacts.

See you again soon.