Training & development cultural lessons from Sioux Lookout
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Training & development
Watching out for too-near hippos at night and too-curious monkeys by day, I’ve been fortunate to do my training work all over the globe. From -72 Celsius/-96 Fahrenheit to +44 Celsius/111 Fahrenheit I’ve run the gamut of intriguing work places and spaces. Recently I found myself in a tiny plane, hop skip and a jumping […]
Tags: culture, first nations, sioux lookout
How do you cross the street? Depends on your perspective
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture
What could be easier than moving from one side of the street to the other? Look left Look right When there’s no oncoming traffic, cross the street Right? Not so fast. Crossing the street, like many other daily rituals in our lives, is influenced by that massive lens through which we see the world … […]
Tags: culture, life lenses, perpsective
I’ve returned to high school, a harumphing bad example of access/inclusion
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Training & development
I’m back in school. High school that is. A few evenings ago I found myself perched on a somewhat tottering chair, holding handouts in one hand and a cookie in the other. I was peering over my reading glasses at the figure in the distance, the principal, as he spoke into the darkened room to […]
Tags: access, differentiated learning, inclusion
There are years that ask questions and years that answer
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development, Diversity & culture
In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God author Zora Neale Hurston writes there were years that ask questions and years that answer. Besides being a sentence that made me jolt to a stop and ponder, it’s a great way to frame the new year. Which will it be for you? Which worldview will broaden […]
Tags: answers, perspective, questions, their eyes were watching god, worldview, zora neale hurston
Time for audience participation (that means you): we see what we expect to see
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Creativity & innovation, Diversity & culture
I love traveling by train so when I found myself on the platform in Amsterdam looking for the right platform I was like a kid looking forward to an ice cream cone on a hot summer’s day. (The fact that I was headed to Paris didn’t hurt either.) Despite a well-organized system though I couldn’t […]
Tags: John Lubbock, life lenses, perspective, telus, thalys, worldview
20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture
Know what Toska means? How about Jayus? Jason White wrote an article about ’20 awesomely untranslatable worlds from around the world for Matador Abroad. Toska and jayus are two of 20 untranslatable (or at least tough to translate) words from other languages. Toska is a Russian word meaning “great spiritual anguish, often without any specific […]
Tags: facts, head life lens, heart life lens, intuition, jason white, life lenses, matador abroad, perspective
The blind leading the blind … literally
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development, Diversity & culture, Training & development
Remember the old joke about 3 blind men describing an elephant? One man, holding the tail, describes it entirely differently than another man who is touching its truck, which is yet again different from the man touching its tusk. Perspective. It can be a potential killer. Limited perspective can kill ideas, creativity, critical thinking, innovation, […]
Tags: blind, life lenses, perspective, seeing clearly
10 tips for trainers part one: bumblebee butts & booty
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Diversity & culture, Teambuilding, Training & development
It’s my birthday tomorrow and as tomorrow’s not a usual day for posting I thought I’d give you a gift today. Ever since I hit the earth some 4+ decades ago I’ve not had to wait for Christmas to open gifts so I thought I’d share the bounty with you, my dear blog reader, with […]
Tags: access, bee, birthday, bumblebee, delicious, flickr, humor, humour, inclusion, popular education, praxis, self-care, tip, tips, youtube
Seeing clearly through the eyes of Lydia Nakayenze
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Communication, Diversity & culture, Travel
Lydia Nakayenze is as colourful in character as the outfit she’s wearing below. Originally from Uganda, she’s living and studying in Germany at the moment. I met her at the Women’s International Networking conference in Paris, where she spoke to me about her ideas on seeing clearly. It’s easy for our vision to be cloudy. […]
Tags: Lydia Nakayenze, perspective, seeing clearly, self-assessment, WIN conference
Seeing clearly through the eyes of Eszter Debreczeni, HR lead for Microsoft
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Diversity & culture, Training & development
Eszter Debreczeni is Human Resources lead for Central and Eastern Europe, Microsoft. I met her recently at the WIN conference in Paris, where inspired by Life Lenses™ a self-assessment designed to help us identify how we see the world, she spoke to me about her ideas on seeing clearly. Clarity of vision is key. Key […]
Tags: assessment, eszter debreczeni, life lenses, perspective, seeing clearly, self-assessment