What we offer

Let me be your thinking partner:

Complexity can feel overwhelming and confusing.  Sonja brings her years of practical experience and expertise alongside yours to help you make sense.  We can never assume we know the answers, but we can get “in the boat” with you and be a fellow wayfinder.

Sonja strongly believes that enabling people in the organisation to make sense of their environments and decide on their “next wise action” is more sustainable than employing external consultants.

“When I meet with Sonja I always make sure I have my notebook handy, as I don’t want to miss her advice and suggestions. Sonja has supported me and my team for over 18 months now in various roles that have included speaking at leadership events on the topics of complexity and agile leadership, facilitator, and thinking partner. Sonja’s experience and thought leadership in the fields of complexity, agility, culture, and change management have been most valuable to me when it comes to thinking about how best to help the organisation respond to the increasing unpredictability, interdependence, and complexity we are facing. I really appreciate her ability to see the “wood for the trees” and help me think deeply about the challenges we face with her sometimes controversial, always valuable suggestions.” – South African banking client

Contact Sonja today to find out more and schedule your Thinking Partner sessions.

One of the biggest challenges organisations face today is unlearning the ways of seeing, being, and doing that made them successful in the past.  In a fast changing world, we need to become change fit, future fit and complexity fit.

We offer learning journeys (virtual and in-person) to build complexity fitness practices into the core of your team or organisation.  Find out more here.

We also offer catalyst workshops where we engage groups in a fun learning experience, exploring use lenses from fields as diverse as the performing arts, ecology, architecture, and psychodynamics to catalyse new ways of seeing and being.  These are usually delivered as a series of 4 workshops of 2-3 hours each.

“Thank you so much Sonja for sharing your knowledge, wisdom, experience, insights, and perspective with us over the past few months – I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey you have taken us on, and I have learned a lot along the way.  You are a superb facilitator/coach and you are incredibly adept at enabling a group to explore complexity – you have a wonderful manner and you are skilled at breaking down complex situations and making them much easier to navigate/comprehend. Thank you – I look forward to working with you again next year!” – UK based client

Contact us now to book your slots.  Unfortunately, space is limited as we can only accommodate a limited number of groups per year.

How do I lead when I don’t know where I am going?  Even before the COVID19 pandemic, I heard this question a lot.  Now it is even more salient.  The days of leaders who knew the answers and who knew exactly where they were going are over.  The problem is many leaders don’t know how to lead differently.

“Leaders will no longer be seen as grand visionaries, all-wise decision makers, and ironfisted disciplinarians. Instead, they will need to become social architects, constitution writers, and entrepreneurs of meaning. In this new model, the leader’s job is to create an environment where every employee has the chance to collaborate, innovate, and excel.”

Gary Hamel (Moonshots for Management, HBR 2009 (https://hbr.org/2009/02/moon-shots-for-management)

Speed, interdependence, and complexity have created a world where no single individual can understand the adaptive challenges we face, never mind having answers.

“Instead of directing chess pieces around the board and mulling over every single decision, leaders instead should act as gardeners— tending the environment, shaping the ecosystem, growing the organization that can adapt and win.” – General Stanley McChrystal

Most leaders realize that old ways of leading are simply not cutting it anymore, but are at a loss as to how to lead differently.  They all know that the world is increasingly complex with seemingly endless trade-offs and paradoxes, but they are stuck in old mindsets and habits. Before leaders can think and act differently, they need to become aware of and question these assumptions so that more options become available to them.  Often the only way to achieve this is through potentially disruptive learning experiences (not just exposure to new information).

We offer custom-designed leadership journeys for leaders across all levels of the organisation..  In these journeys, we employ well-researched methods and practices rooted in complexity theory, cognitive science and various other fields.

Each journey is a unique combination of theoretical input; practical application; and transformative and disruptive experiences.  We partner with the very best thought leaders from around the globe to make sure our content is relevant and of high quality.

If you are tired of the same old same old, and you want the very best new thinking, contact us today to co-create a leadership journey for your leadership cohort.

Many change efforts are frustrated by the lack of actionable real-time insight.  Wouldn’t you like to be able to scan the below-the-surface human dynamics in your company or market, the same way a sonar scans the ocean floor?  To make the hidden visible.

We map the storyscapes, the narrative landscapes that shape your company and markets.  We do this by gathering stories at scale using a tool called Sensemaker®.  We have used it for among others

• Culture mapping
• Consumer insights and market segmentation
• Diversity scanning
• Innovation
• Risk & resilience (horizon scanning and weak signal detection)
• Leadership Journeys & 360 degree feedback
• Learning Journals e.g. journaling key insights during learning interventions and conferences
• Innovation
• Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
• Safety Culture
• Enabling and supporting decision-making
• Crowd-sourced scenario planning and strategy
• Narrative-enhanced Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• User requirements capture
• Customer & Brand Experience
• Academic and other research
• Attitudinal audits e.g. to ethics & safety as a lead indicator or risk

Contact us for a demonstration.

Sonja is a sought after speaker at conferences and corporate events.  Because of her work in applied complexity, she is able to speak on a wide variety of topics, with complexity as the golden thread.  These include:

• Wayfinding in uncertainty
• Habits of mind to thrive in complexity
• Complexity Fitness
• Diversity and belonging
• Narrative and meaning

These talks work well as conference keynotes, but also for Exco and other leadership breakaways.

If these topics don’t completely suit your needs, feel free to contact us for a custom-designed talk.