My latest post on Substack about the politics of groups.

Thinking about improvisational groups and speculative pragmatism.

Starting with experience and working with emergent method:

Latest post on pragmatic and process approaches to change.

Ex-Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan William's challenge to AI during his talk about recognition at the Oxford Literary Festival: how was dinner?

Thinking about the ordinary, every day practice of courage in groups: enduring the inevitable uncertainty of social life. chrismowles.substack.com/p/thinking-a...

This year’s Complexity and Management Conference 5-7th June 2026 is entitled ‘What does it mean to say the world is complex? Implications for practice,’ and we are delighted to have Jean Boulton as our key note speaker. And the booking page is here: www.eshop.herts.ac.uk/pd/2632/comp...

On inadequate metaphors in organisational life. chrismowles.substack.com/p/pulling-le...

Different perspectives on what's important in organisational life. chrismowles.substack.com/p/an-organis...

Linking the local and the global. chrismowles.substack.com/p/who-are-we...

Booking for this year's Complexity and Management Conference 5th-7th June 2026 is live: www.eshop.herts.ac.uk/pd/2632/comp... The title of the conference is: 'What does it mean to say the world is complex? Implications for practice.' We are delighted to have Jean Boulton as our key note speaker.

Is supervision a unique relationship, or does it say something about about professional relationships. in general? chrismowles.substack.com/p/thinking-a...

I was invited onto the OrgDev Podcast with Garin & Dani. We talked about a great range of things: the role of anxiety and emotions in organisations, the limitations of grids and frameworks, on what we mean by being accountable to one another. youtu.be/yY2zVyXfAt0

Assessing complexity-mindedness. open.substack.com/pub/chrismow...

You can watch my session at the Complexity Lounge here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG83... History, relationships, argument, all matter in the production of thought collectives.

Ethical dilemmas and being critical at work. chrismowles.substack.com/p/noticing-a...

How uncertainty is unevenly distributed in society. chrismowles.substack.com/p/the-politi...

From KPIs to group mindedness. chrismowles.substack.com/p/improving-...

How consumerism turns qualities into quantities. chrismowles.substack.com/p/playing-th...

On the importance of thinking without a bannister. chrismowles.substack.com/p/its-all-ve...

The business of talk. chrismowles.substack.com/p/organising...

Reinterpreting the past in the present, in anticipation of the future. chrismowles.substack.com/p/always-goi...

Thinking about the importance of experiential groups as a particular method for developing our humanity open.substack.com/pub/chrismow...

You can find a link to the talk given by @carolynpedwell.bsky.social to this year's Complexity and Management Conference and my response here: complexityandmanagement.com/2025/06/19/t...

Before fascism becomes a movement, it must circulate in everyday life. open.substack.com/pub/chrismow...

Ah, that's what theyre for.

Book now for the Complexity and Management Conference, 6th–8th June. Our subject the transformational possibilities of our everyday routines , the stable instability of social life. @carolynpedwell.bsky.social is our guest speaker. Early bird rate ends soon. www.eshop.herts.ac.uk/pd/2363?code...

An interesting piece on aesthetics, political atomisation and ideology: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I was interviewed recently by Philip McKenzie for his Deep Dive podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/3zXR... In the podcast we range far and wide over the implications of taking the complexity sciences seriously in our understanding of what is going on.

When the weather’s like this, maybe on the cusp of spring, hats, coats, gloves feel a bit ridiculous.

'When human beings are dependent on others for the most essential needs, the most moral response ought to be gratitude. But dependency also tends to trigger resentment and anger, which I think is part of the contemporary British condition'. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This year’s Complexity and Management Conference, 6-8th June 25 has Prof Carolyn Pedwell as keynote. The conference is entitled: Transformative possibilities in the everyday – habit, affect and the unconscious. You can book here: www.eshop.herts.ac.uk/pd/2363?code... The fee includes all costs.

The Complexity and Management Conference 6-8th June 2025, entitled 'Transformative possibilities in the everyday – habit, affect and the unconscious', is booking now. The currency of the conference is conversation in large groups and small. complexityandmanagement.com/2025/01/14/c...

Winter walk

Inside-out thinking brings 'out there' in here, and pays attention to in-the-moment socialisation processes in order to think more broadly about the patterning of human bodies. medium.com/@chris_39461...

Listened to an entrepreneur blather about the savings HE would make in the public sector which simply amounted to setting higher targets for savings. The one thing he opposed, working from home, is the one thing that evidentially makes people more productive. More prejudice than insight.

'Speaking and listening is like breathing out and breathing in, and psychological troubles come when people start holding their breath, when they cannot take in what others are saying or let out what they are feeling and thinking. Voice is an instrument of relationship...' also Carol Gilligan.

'The place of not knowing is a risky place, it involves making oneself vulnerable to discovery, letting go of control in the sense of being willing to be surprised or to be wrong, and people have all sorts of fears about what will happen, about being out of control or overwhelmed.' Carol Gilligan

Much talk in the media that the UK govt doesn't speak human and that it should appeal more to the emotions. However, the feelings that other parties appeal to are resentment, grievance and sometimes fear of others. The language of fairness and justice is room temperature in comparison.

For anyone interested in buying this book, Complexity and Organisations: researching practice, Routledge are currently offering it on sale for 25% off. A bargain. www.routledge.com/Complexity-a...

Some opponents of the Assisted Dying Bill imply something sinister about 'the state', as though the state doesn't also assist in educating us, in paving the roads, in funding healthcare. The primary relationships will not be with the state, but with proximal others.

In tandem I’m reading We Have Never Been Woke by @musaalgharbi.bsky.social . Salutary taking the two books together.

The ubiquitous use of ‘tool’ as I mentioned in a previous post rather than symbol in this case

Reading Disaster Nationalism by @leninology.bsky.social and finding it very engaging.

Published today: Complexity and Organisations: researching practice. if you want to read about the role of grief and loss, culture and belonging, doubt, shame, disappointment, compromise, non-human actors, the politics of endings and ethics, then this volume will be of great relevance.

Why is everything a ‘tool’ (not in the slang sense). Language is a tool, feelings are tools, sometimes relationships are tools. Do we live in such an instrumental age?

The word that I hear a lot in the Business School is 'aligned' ('doesn't aligned'). Such and such doesn't align with my values. It sounds like subliminal systems theory speaking. What's wrong with; I disagree with...?

Just got a brilliant unsolicited offer to invest money in property with a guaranteed 18% annual return. Too good to miss, right?