The Elephant in the Room

The Elephant in the Room

by Lotte Svalgaard
Released March 2023
Publisher(s): Productivity Press
ISBN: 9781000849233

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

This book addresses the challenge of focusing on, holding on to and acting on what we notice ‘in the middle of it all’. Maintaining a simultaneous focus on task and process – what we do and what we notice – is what I define as ‘double awareness’.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-Title
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. About the author
  7. Introduction
  8. Reader’s guide
  9. Testimonials
  10. THEME 1 DOUBLE AWARENESS
    1. 1 What is double awareness?
      1. The importance and challenge of reflective spaces
      2. The double task
      3. Challenges related to the double task
      4. The challenge of the reflective space
      5. Why is the reflective space in the middle of it all so essential?
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      6. Recommended reading
        1. About anxiety and learning
        2. About reflection-in-action
        3. About the double task
        4. About action learning
        5. About leadership in the middle of it all
        6. About ‘soft is hard’
    2. 2 Being mindful of what is above and below the surface
      1. Process awareness of what is below the surface
      2. Practising mindful awareness
      3. Emotion as data: above and below, inner and outer
      4. Reading and carrying
      5. Engaging our assumptions
      6. Deep underlying assumptions as competing commitments
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      7. Recommended reading
        1. About working below the surface
        2. About basic assumptions and competing commitments
        3. About mindful leadership
    3. 3 Difficult feelings, negative capability and defences
      1. Embracing and examining all sorts of feelings
      2. The challenge of not-knowing
      3. Defences and defensive routines
      4. Anxiety, doubt and uncertainty as aspects of learning
      5. Practising negative capability
      6. On the look-out for defence mechanisms
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      7. Recommended reading
        1. About negative capability
        2. About the meeting between psychodynamics and mindfulness
        3. About defensive routines
        4. About the alternative learning circle
        5. About working with defence mechanisms
  11. THEME 2 MINDFUL AVOIDANCE
    1. 4 The practice – and consequences – of mindful avoidance
      1. Wilful blindness
      2. The challenge is not mindlessness
      3. How can we tell that we are practising mindful avoidance?
      4. Why mindful avoidance?
      5. Navigating without data
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      6. Recommended reading
        1. About presence and wilful blindness
        2. About defences in performance cultures
        3. About mindful avoidance
    2. 5 Emotions as disturbance and loss of control
      1. Putting emotions into words
      2. Keeping emotions pent up
      3. The short-term reward of pretending everything is fine
      4. Worrying about emotional and relational messiness
      5. The pressure to act quickly …
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      6. Recommended reading
        1. About working with emotions in organizations
        2. About purpose … and the challenges involved in finding it
    3. 6 Not-knowing as a competence
      1. Questions as a condition for learning
      2. Acting means fixing
      3. How can we act on not-knowing?
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      4. Recommended reading
        1. About not-knowing
        2. About double-loop learning and defensive routines
  12. THEME 3 MINDFUL ACTION
    1. 7 Truth
      1. Insight into truth in the moment
      2. The past is included in the present moment
      3. Making data accessible
      4. The feeling of succeeding with mindful action
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      5. Recommended reading
        1. About Theory U
        2. About working with awareness
        3. About asking questions rather than looking for answers
    2. 8 Transparency
      1. Transparency and clarity
      2. Being authentic
      3. From splitting to transparency
      4. Mindful action does not mean acting on everything that moves
      5. Rock the boat, but not so hard that you fall out of it
      6. Mindful alertness
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      7. Recommended reading
        1. About authenticity and integrity
        2. About working with awareness
        3. About power and politics in organizations
    3. 9 Trust
      1. From doubt to trust
      2. Daring to embrace vulnerability
      3. How trust emerges and is maintained
      4. Having control
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      5. Recommended reading
      6. About trust
      7. About vulnerability
      8. About holding
  13. THEME 4 FROM AVOIDANCE TO COMMITMENT
    1. 10 Identifying and avoiding mindful avoidance
      1. Mindful Logs
      2. Assumptions versus facts
      3. Life stories and role biographies
      4. Immunity to change
      5. Awareness in action
      6. From brainstorm to question storm
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      7. Recommended reading
        1. About methods for distinguishing between facts and assumptions
        2. About methods for developing awareness in the moment
        3. About working with defences
    2. 11 Mobilizing the three Ts
      1. Meaning as you see it
      2. Reflective spaces as a daily routine
      3. Putting emotions into words
      4. Handling taboos
      5. Dynamic tension
      6. Transparent rather than polite feedback
      7. Setting the pace
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      8. Recommended reading
        1. About your purpose and meaning
        2. About reflective spaces as a daily routine
        3. About putting emotions into words
        4. About dealing with difficult taboos
        5. About action that makes a difference
    3. 12 Consequences for leadership and organizational development
      1. Moving from sequential to simultaneous tracks in design
      2. Practising double awareness
      3. Your own negative capability
        1. Points from my research
        2. Reflection: what is your personal experience?
        3. Reflection: what is your experience as a group?
      4. Recommended reading
        1. About focus points in the design of development programmes – how and why
        2. About how to work below the surface
  14. Final reflections
  15. Index

Product information

  • Title: The Elephant in the Room
  • Author(s): Lotte Svalgaard
  • Release date: March 2023
  • Publisher(s): Productivity Press
  • ISBN: 9781000849233