Monthly Archives:
April 2011

Who is Ron Laurie?

I am a consultant and facilitator who loves to learn and explore both the outer world and the inner world of what it is to have a human experience. I am also extremely pragmatic and love the challenge of business and the working environment.

Why do you do what you do?

I do what I do because I am always learning. I feel at my best and purposeful when I am engaged to look for patterns amongst the multiple perspectives, thinking and doing of groups and then assigned to design interventions that align them to organisational systems. I get at great deal of satisfaction when working with individuals and teams who discover personal growth when they find new ways of looking at the challenges they face and they realise they are capable of more than what they thought possible and are inspired to take action.

What are your strengths at a consultant?

I listen, deeply. In fact, it has been the basis of my success as an effective contributor to organisations. After I listen deeply to the issues, challenges and dynamics in organisations I then deploy my strong theoretical and abstract problem solving skills. This enables me to create solutions and provide direction. I then have the ability to create leaning and growth interventions that reach in and engage others in an experience that enables them to solve the challenges for themselves.

What’s the most interesting part about your line of work?

I find the rich … Continue reading →

A book review by our MD Ron Cacioppe

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

- George Bernard Shaw

Even the world‘s most optimistic leaders can become daunted when they look at today‘s massive global challenges, including poverty, environmental pollution, terrorism and climate change. Many people throw up their hands in despair, retreat behind their protective gates, and hope they can somehow ride out the storm while the world cracks apart. In contrast, social entrepreneurs do not run away from trouble. They develop workable solutions to the world‘s most pressing problems. In this book on social entrepreneurship, John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan examine the activities and accomplishments of inspirational leaders of social businesses. John Elkington was one of the first and most prominent corporate sustainability advisers, while Pamela Hartigan is the Pamela Hartigan is the Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University’s Said Business School.

Many social entrepreneurs are focusing their efforts where the bulk of the world‘s population will be by the 2030s: the swarming megacities. Every year, some 70 million people leave their rural homes and migrate to cities. It is estimated that, by 2030, there will be some 2 billion squatters in the world—most living in what Robert Neuwirth has called ―shadow cities,‖ or megaslums and are creating a huge hidden economy. ―Squatters are the largest builders of housing in the world,‖ … Continue reading →