David Yau & Associates

Robin Williams in 'Good Will Hunting' This post is to reflect on the relationship between humour and me in helping conversations.    On reflection, I used to hold a slightly negative view on producing humour in helping conversations.  It is a kind of cheat — a way to avoid the real work, or to collude with the clients, or even to entertain them for the ‘5’ rating.  Humour, I believed, was what you used when you do not want to face something important. Looking back, that beli

Our words don’t just describe reality – They create it.

I find myself asking this question more and more often in my coaching work.  Asking this question (with a tone out of curiosity and...

It has been a long while since I last wrote.   So much things have happened and there are a lot to reflect on. Let me first reflect on a...

I happened to come across again these 2 movies after I wrote my last post on 'Appreciating Defense'. The main characters in the movies...

It was a difficult case of intact team development. Aspiration Bridge Company (pseudonym) is a foreign-owned financial services company...

(Photo source: Flora Baker @ twitter.com) 2021 has been a busy year. With the quieter Jan, I am going to catch up with my reflection...

I reflected on the concept of ROLE in the last post – Why me again fixing the Wifi? I come across recently an unusual example in...

One day I found myself attempting to fix the Wifi at home again.  I was somehow annoyed with it.  ‘Why me again?’…. And I have already...

(Source: press.ikidane-nippon.com) An executive made a casual remark in a recent intact team development workshop, 'Smoking (together)...

[Photo source unidentified. Please advise if anyone knows. I will add the source accordingly] Numerous articles on the internet have...

(The psychological game – NIGYSOB – ‘Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch’) This is another post which probably only my Cantonese readers...

My take on collusion (e.g. pleasing participants in developmental interventions) has been changing in the last few years. First, I was...

Many many years ago, there was a village where no one has ever eaten anything from the sea. A few village men accidentally caught a few...

[Photo source unidentified. Please advise if anyone knows. I will add the source accordingly] I learnt to use the ‘Immunity to Change’...

Really…. why team? Complementary competencies…. A sense of belonging…. Cross-learning opportunities… there are many answers to this...

It was Day 2 of the Gobi race and we were somewhere midway in the 96km race. Right in the middle of the day, all were tired and some...

Experiential learning to an extreme – a leadership development program in the form of a team walking race for 96km in 2.5 days over the...

To a certain extent, I regret that I was major in Economics in university. Economics assumes that people are rational i.e. individuals...

I had a day of individual and team coaching sessions last month. I arrived early to settle myself in my coaching room. The first song...