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December 17, 2002 Issue 33


"Creative leaders find ways of stepping into the shoes of other people and asking, 'How would I feel and what would I want if I were this person?'"
—Gay Hendricks and Kate Ludeman

"What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure, which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence."
—Henri Frederic Amiel


Pegasus's Greatest Hits
Enjoy samples from the best audio and video recordings from the Pegasus Media Library. This new section features 2- to 10-minute clips of Pegasus Conference recordings or Pegasus productions. This month listen to excerpts from Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, Adam Kahane, and Joseph Jaworski from their multi-part plenary session A Changing Paradigm for Leadership in the 21st Century: Linking Reflection and Action at the 2002 Pegasus Conference, Leading in a Complex World: Systems Thinking in Action. Listen!

2003 Pegasus Conference Preliminary Presenter Application Deadline:
January 8th

Changing Our Organizations to Change the World: Systems Thinking in Action
 October 8-10, 2003
Boston, Massachusetts
We are looking for presentations, both application case studies and tools workshops, which explore how we can create sustainable organizational success and change the world for the better.

Please Note: We have very few available slots this year. Therefore, we have changed the proposal process. We are first asking for preliminary, abbreviated, short proposals, which are due on January 8. We will review these and make a first-cut. If your proposal is selected, we will notify you on January 10 and ask for a more detailed and extensive proposal, which is due on January 21. Because of the tight timeframe for the second stage, please be sure you can meet the January 21 deadline before you submit your preliminary application. Let us hear from you soon! Get all the details.

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Books and Resources on Appreciative Inquiry

The Essentials of Appreciative Inquiry: A Roadmap for Creating Positive Futures by Bernard J. Mohr and Jane Magruder Watkins
This new volume in our Innovations in Management Series introduces Appreciative Inquiry, a highly adaptable philosophy and process for engaging people in building the organizations and world that they want to work and live in. Bernard J. Mohr and Jane Magruder Watkins share stories of AI in action and give a detailed explanation of five processes that you can use to guide an appreciative inquiry in your workplace or community.
Order print version #IMS018, $10.95
Order PDF version #IMS018E, $10.95
Volume discounts available

A Guide to Appreciative Inquiry
by Bernard J. Mohr
This handy two-sided pocket guide describes a powerful new vehicle for accelerating organizational change through the exploration of unconditional positive questions. It includes a diagram and an explanation of the 5D cycle (Definition, Discovery, Dream, Design, Destiny), a case study, and insight into the conditions that support Appreciative Inquiry. Laminated and sized at 5-1/2" x 8-1/2", it conveniently fits in a daily planner.
Order #PG22, $5.00, volume discounts available

Appreciative Inquiry: Igniting Transformative Action
by Bernard J. Mohr
Does your organization tend to focus more on problems and conflicts than on human ideals and achievements? Bernard J. Mohr discusses how Appreciative Inquiry—asking questions that highlight the best practices in your organization—can serve as a wellspring for organizational transformation. He outlines a five-phase discovery process that engages people in building an effective organization, in economic, ecological, and human terms.
Order #120101R, $6.00, PDF article

Jane Magruder Watkins is also author with Bernard J. Mohr of Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination (Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2001).


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Pegasus Communications provides resources that help people explore, understand, articulate, and address the challenges they face in the complexities of a changing world. Since 1989, Pegasus has worked to build a community of practitioners through The Systems Thinker® Newsletter, books, audio and videotapes, and its annual Systems Thinking in Action® Conference and other events.
FACE TO FACE
Taking a Positive Approach to Change—Appreciative Inquiry: An Interview with Jane Magruder Watkins
LEARNING LINKS
Learning As a Biological Process
FROM THE FIELD
Justice: To Punish or Restore?
 



FACE TO FACE
Taking a Positive Approach to Change—Appreciative Inquiry: An Interview with Jane Magruder Watkins
by Kali Saposnick

The expression "You find what you look for" often describes those naysayers with an unerring capacity to identify what's wrong with a situation. Negative energy usually bogs everyone down and impedes the search for a solution. But what happens when people champion the positive? In most cases, tremendous forward momentum and enthusiasm emerge.

A unique approach to organizational challenges called "Appreciative Inquiry (AI)" captures this energy. It focuses on the best in people—their greatest successes and peak experiences—in order to produce extraordinary results. "AI is a perspective on the world," says Jane Magruder Watkins, organizational consultant and author of the newly released The Essentials of Appreciative Inquiry: A Roadmap for Creating Positive Futures (Pegasus Communications, 2002). "Rather than being a specific technique, AI is a process that easily aligns with many methodologies. If you want to do strategic planning, team building, or any type of organization development, AI can help you do it with accelerated speed and effectiveness."

Identifying Peak Experiences
How does AI work? First, an organization chooses to adopt a positive perspective as the basis of change. Then key stakeholders select a topic of inquiry, create an interview guide of questions related to the topic, and conduct one-on-one interviews with members of the larger organization. In the interviews, participants are asked to tell stories about peak experiences they've had at work; for example, the most fun they've had in the organization, the best team they were ever on, or the most exciting strategic planning process they ever went through. These questions help align people with what they most value about themselves, their coworkers, and their organization. Even questions such as "What would you like to see in your organization?" are crafted to elicit not complaints but rather a positive vision of what people might create together.

"The goal of AI is to get at the holistic nature of our experiences, not just the facts of what happened," explains Jane. "Through these interviews, people get in touch with what gives life to the organization-and in a very short time. Whether you have 10 or 1,000 people participating, this process has the advantage of quickly allowing all voices to be heard. As you can imagine, a powerful energy is generated." Because these interviews focus on creating a dream for the future, they catalyze significant action toward improving performance and realizing that vision.

Read the complete article.

For additional books and resources on Appreciative Inquiry, see "Pegasus Highlights."
 



LEARNING LINKS
Learning As a Biological Process
by Kenneth L. Thompson

New discoveries about the synergy between the mind and body indicate that our capacity to learn—and therefore to innovate—is greatly affected by our biological processes. For example, recent research suggests that powerful but subtle chemical states influence virtually all of our cognitive functioning. Low-level stress produces cortisol, a hormone that stays with us for hours and interferes with learning and memory. Stress also breaks down the neural networks that keep us in touch with ourselves and those around us.

Despite this new knowledge about consciousness, many of us fail to capitalize on the human brain's remarkable capacity to learn in tandem with the body, especially in our working lives. The information age has converted us into a sedentary culture that has forgotten how to balance contemplation and action. For this reason, more and more organizations are turning to "experiential learning" to increase their capacity for innovation. Experiential learning is a way of designing activities to engage as much of our physiology as possible in the learning process. For example, facilitators might use energizers—brief activities to get participants' blood and creative juices flowing at the outset of meetings—or leadership teams might practice working with risk and fear by rappelling from rocky cliffs.

Although people may initially doubt or scorn the effectiveness of these types of activities, many organizations have found that they help participants increase their skills, understanding, and capacity to better meet the complex challenges that lie ahead. They recognize that creating robust systems—be they organizational, national, or global—requires a rich infusion of experience to reinvigorate our natural learning processes.

Read the complete article, or see The Systems Thinker,
Vol. 12, No. 7 (September 2001).

 



FROM THE FIELD
Justice: To Punish or Restore?

After we've been harmed, what kind of justice do we need to feel satisfied and whole? Many societies believe that those who commit crimes should be punished in some way. If somebody hurts another person, the individual at fault should pay a serious price.

The idea that justice equals punishment is prevalent in the United States, which has the world's largest penal system, with approximately 3 percent of the population currently imprisoned. Yet many Americans still feel justice is not being served. The real problem may be that our criminal justice system offers only one kind of justice: "retributive justice"—that is, exacting satisfaction for a wrong by punishing the wrongdoer.

But most victims say what's more important is healing, wholeness, and, above all, information. They want to know the truth about what happened, to hear the offenders admit what they did was wrong, and to know why they behaved in that way. Material restitution often becomes secondary to seeing offenders change how they act. Victims also want their community to condemn the behavior as wrong, not blame them for what happened, and assure them that it won't happen again.

In other words, what most victims want is "restorative justice." A growing grassroots movement believes that by focusing on retribution, we will only perpetuate the very crimes the victims want to prevent from happening again. But if instead we focus on addressing and changing the social conditions that generate crime, we can truly provide victims the justice they deserve.

—KS

Source: Louise Story, Carolyn Boyes-Watson, "Restoring the Future by Restoring Justice," Boston Research Center for the 21st Century Newsletter, Fall 2002/Winter 2003

 



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