Adam Kahane’s new book - ‘Collaborating with the Enemy’ - is a must for anyone having to collaborate with diverse others whatever the context. Indeed, it should be recommended reading on leadership programmes where there is a need to work across organisational and/or cultural boundaries. With the economic situation as it is, collaboration is fundamental to the sustainability of services.   To begin with oneself...' is a maxim that can trip glibly off the tongue, but Adam takes us below the surface. With honesty, humility and pragmatism he shows why we must change ourselves before we can reach out and fully connect with others who don't share our view.   "Collaborating with others, especially others who we do not agree with or like or trust us, requires us to join with them as equals".   ‘Enemyfying’ Many of the case studies in the book relate to ‘high stakes’ fraught and sometimes...

Over eight years on and he still speaks about it. How he sat with his wife as she took her last breaths. Their two sons had joined them at the hospital after the urgent phone calls. Two daughters lived too far away. They wouldn't have got there in time.

He reflects on how, when both sons arrived at the hospital, he said in a hushed tone to his wife "that's them both here now, pet". She had been drifting in a semi-coma, unresponsive, for some hours but he describes how she squeezed his hand seconds before slipping away. He's convinced it was her way of saying good bye.

Who could argue with him? Who would want to? It was the final instalment in the story of their lives. The most poignant moment in fifty-five years of marriage.

Listening to radio 4 while driving yesterday, I was engrossed. It was a phone-in programme about the NHS being 'weaponised' as the UK hurtles towards another general election.

Pretty much everyone phoning in said political parties should stop point scoring. But few thought it would be possible to extricate the NHS from politics. Elections are won and lost on whether or not public services like the NHS are delivering what the electorate expect them to.

What jarred though was the words being used. In the past the NHS was a 'political football' now it is being 'weaponised'.

When did that shift in language happen?

And importantly, what does the shift to such violent nomenclature suggest? Are we becoming immune to the meanings of words? And if so, how does this affect our psyche?

'Bed blocker' was the other term at the centre of much debate.