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A HANDBOOK FOR THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY IN OUR NEW ORGANISATIONAL WORLD


THE ARC OF THIS BOOK IS THE INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY, A JOURNEY OF MANY
STAGES OF SELF-IDENTITY AND SELF-GROWTH WHICH HAS BEEN THE SUBJECT MATTER OF
STORYTELLERS, ARTISTS, SAGES AND PHILOSOPHERS THROUGH THE CENTURIES, AND MORE
RECENTLY OF DEVELOPMENT PSYCHOLOGISTS.

Surprisingly, notwithstanding all this attention, it is still not well known or
understood by the general population. As the author, Kate Cowie, worked with
this fact in her practice as an executive coach, educator and organisational
practitioner, she become convinced that there was a need to attend to this: to
provide a map of the human adventure and so help individuals ‘find their way’
along their personal development pathway, an opportunity which has implications
both for themselves and for the organisations in which they work.

The author had six objectives for Finding Merlin:

 * To offer a summary of the different stages of the human development road, and
   so help individuals identify where they are now on their own pathway of
   growth, and what would help them to progress further.
 * To describe the different challenges (intellectual, social, moral, emotional,
   psychological and even spiritual challenges) which present at different
   stages of the journey, with a particular focus on those experienced during
   adulthood, to enable people to move forward as a fully integrated Self.
 * To describe the impact that personality has on the way in which individuals
   confront the challenges they face.
 * To enable those who choose to press forward with their development to
   identify the guidance and support they need to take the difficult (meaning
   truly developmental) path when they encounter the next fork in their
   development road.
 * To explain the importance of the organisation as a ‘holding’ context (an
   environment which may promote or stymie an individual’s development), and to
   offer a new proposition of interdependency.
 * To provide practical suggestions to chief executives, organisational leaders,
   boards of directors, organisation development practitioners, human resource
   professionals, learning and development specialists, and talent and
   capability managers to help them with their responsibility for creating the
   conditions which will allow both people and their organisations to develop to
   their fullest potential.

The book is very much an integral work. The author seeks ‘the pattern that
connects’ the theories of the orthodox modern, postmodern and even
post-postmodern researchers to equip readers and, through them, their
organisations to make their greatest contribution to the renewal of our failing
global systems in our increasingly interrelated and interdependent world.

Buy


A REVIEW OF FINDING MERLIN

This is an important book. Kate Cowie has re-invigorated the (until now almost
lost) humanistic thrust of mid 20th century organizational behavior thought
leaders by integrating their ideas with contemporary emerging global awareness.
She does this by re-introducing a well-researched, highly systematic,
comprehensive and updated adult identity development perspective. She brings
insights from both modern organizational theory and recent neuroscience to bear
on the problem (and the opportunity) of human social, spiritual and moral
development in organizations. She makes a hard-to-argue-with case for expanding
the old paradigm of human resource development and of organizational development
to include a new level of "world-centric" thinking and being.

Throughout the book she uses the evocative metaphor of the legendary
magician-mentor Merlin, King Arthur's leadership coach. Each of us need help and
guidance, if we are to pull the sword of wisdom out of the stone of our own
being and claim our king-ship - our full human maturity. This is a problem not
just of individual learning but of individual and institutional becoming. Kate
shows how, by becoming Merlin to their organizations, the leaders of the future
can empower their teams and others to go beyond the confined logic that passes
for strategic management but has, in fact, led us to the tragedy of the commons.

She makes the business case for developing a broader, enlightened
Self-interested way of thinking and being in our organizations. This mind-set is
better suited to this brave new world of turbulent markets, diverse settings,
and increased complexity, where thoughtful interconnectedness may hold the key
to individual, group, organizational, and planetary survival.

Those of us who think about organizations and leadership needed someone to take
on this challenge, whether we were aware of it or not. Kate has done it and,
hopefully, a whole new practice of organizational and leadership development may
follow from this achievement.

DAVID KIEL, DR. P.H., LEADERSHIP COORDINATOR, CENTER FOR FACULTY EXCELLENCE,
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, CO-AUTHOR OF IF YOUR LIFE WERE A BUSINESS, WOULD
YOU INVEST IN IT? (MCGRAW HILL, 2003), STEWARD, RESEARCH COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE,
THE NTL INSTITUTE.



“I enjoy your imagery and that from way back - but most of all I am awed by the
range of thoughts and reading you have put together, and into such precise and
sequenced forms and special designs.  Exacting and relentless.”

ROLF LYNTON, EMERITUS MEMBER OF THE NTL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED BEHAVIOURAL
SCIENCE AND FOUNDING DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH
CAROLINA.

 

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About the Author


KATE COWIE

Kate is director of The Chaos Game, a team of international consultants who
specialise in helping organisational leaders to develop and implement strategic
change solutions in response to rapidly shifting and increasingly chaotic
conditions.

Kate has worked with leaders at all levels in business, government and
not-for-profit organisations, supporting them as they develop others, build
stronger teams, prepare their organisations for the challenges ahead and, as a
result, become more effective in the exercise of their leadership.

Kate spent her corporate career of 15 years with Royal Dutch Shell working in
its different business in various locations in the UK and overseas. She is a
Member of The NTL Institute for Applied Behavioural Science, serving as
co-steward of its Global Community of Practice, and is the founding editor of
its practitioner’s journal, Practising Social Change. Kate lives in
Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

 


DEDICATION

to Ken Ideus, by Kate Cowie.

 

 

About the Contributors 


TED TSCHUDY 

Ted Tschudy is an educator and consultant whose career spans more than forty
years.

He is currently an adjunct professor in two Master's programmes in Organisation
Development. As a member of The NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science, he
has conducted numerous public and client-sponsored programmes in human
interaction, organisation development and team development. He currently serves
as co-steward of the institute's Global Community of Practice.

 


M. FRANCES BALDWIN

M. Frances Baldwin is principal consultant at Designed Wisdom, Inc., a boutique
consultancy for learning, change and development.

She has worked extensively within large corporations, and is also known for her
teaching, speaking and consulting on conversational leadership, the unique
capabilities of women as leaders, and managing interface in organisations. She
is an emeritus member of The NTL Institute for Applied Behavioural Science and a
senior practitioner at The World Café Foundation.

 


SUE HOLLINGSWORTH

Sue Hollingsworth has been a storyteller since 1994, and is based at the
International School of Storytelling in the UK.

In 1996 she co-founded the first consultancy in Europe to use storytelling in
organisations to develop leadership, team-building and presentation skills, and
has worked widely in the UK, Europe and South Africa, mostly with large
multinational corporations. She has recorded for BBC Radio 4, and is the
co-author of Storytelling with Heart and Craft: An Interactive Workbook.

Awareness, Wisdom and Choice Kate Cowie and M. Frances Baldwin created a
personal development programme based upon Finding Merlin which has been very
well recieved by past participants. Click here to learn more. The programme is
scheduled to run in London in October and in Croatia in November.

 

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Finding Merlin Blog

31 May 2013
The Universal Quest >>

18 September 2013
Reigniting the Fire of the Profession of Organisation Development >>

29th November 2013
Redefining Leadership in the Flat World >> 

14th January 2014
The Real Tragedy of Youth Unemployment >>


Copyright Finding Merlin by Kate Cowie © 2013 All rights reserved