Richard Boston & Karen Ellis 
Upgrade [EPUB ebook] 
Building your capacity for complexity

PART 1: Why and how to read this book 
1 Why we need these four capacities
2 What does an ‘upgrade’ really mean? 
3 How best to use this book 

PART 2: What each of the upgrades looks and feels like 
4 Perspective-shifting: getting better at understanding other people’s worlds 
5 Self-relating: getting better at understanding and managing ourselves 
6 Opposable Thinking: getting better at handling polarities and dilemmas 
7 Sense-making: getting better at handling complexity

PART 3: Where you’re at and what to do next
8 Recap and self-assessment 
9 The journey behind and ahead of you
10 Where to from here?

PART 4: How to upgrade each of the four capacities 
11 Upgrading your Perspective‑shifting capacity 
12 Upgrading your Self‑relating capacity 

13 Upgrading your Opposable Thinking capacity
14 Upgrading your Sense‑making capacity

PART 5: Mining this book for more
15 Helping others upgrade 
16 Where you’re at three months on… and what comes next

•••

Acknowledgements 
Appendix 1: Additional notes and references
Appendix 2: Values
Appendix 3: Personality and the four capacities
Appendix 4: The upgrades in a nutshell
Appendix 5: Finding the right practices

Karen Ellis has 30 years’ experience as a management consultant, 20 of which she has spent focused on individual and organisational change. For the past 17 years, she has been heavily involved in the field of adult development. She started her explorations with Harthill and the frameworks developed by Bill Torbert and David Rooke, then — as a bricoleur by nature — she extended her knowledge and practice across the field, integrating the work of a bewildering array of authors and researchers. Her private sector clients have included Barclays, Danone, Fujitsu, Sony and Virgin Media. She has also worked extensively in the public sector — for instance, with NHS Leadership, the Civil Service College and the Leadership Centre for Local Government — helping senior leaders develop their capacity to lead in highly ambiguous and uncertain environments. Karen has an MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies from the University of Surrey.