WE LOVE OUR CUSTOMERS SALE!

Around April 1, Pegasus will be resuming in-house Customer Service. All order processing and fulfillment will be conducted through our own staff and storage facility. As a result of these changes, we'd like to ask your help in moving our inventory!

From now through April 1, take 20% OFF all Pegasus products. Make purchases on our web site or by calling 1-800-272-0945. (This discount will not appear in your web shopping cart total, but will be reflected in the charge to your credit card. It may not be combined with other discounts and excludes newsletter subscriptions and conference registrations.)

FACE TO FACE
Leading Change Through Self-Transformation: An Interview with Ann McGee-Cooper

PEGASUS CONFERENCE CORNER
2004 Conference to Be Held at Hyatt Regency Cambridge

LEARNING LINKS
Contest to Rename The Systems Thinker Newsletter

What's in a name? Maybe a free registration to the 2004 Pegasus Conference!

A rose is a rose is a rose. And a rose by any other name is just as sweet. Nonetheless, with these nifty literary allusions in mind, for several months the Pegasus staff has been contemplating a possible name change for its beloved flagship newsletter, The Systems Thinker.

Since its launch more than 14 years ago, the editorial focus of the newsletter has subtly broadened to encompass the best innovations in management—innovations that can work in tandem with the tools and concepts of systems thinking to strengthen the impact of our contributions at home, in our workplaces, and in our communities. And while systems thinking remains the core perspective of the newsletter, we wonder whether a new name that more vividly reflects the constantly evolving thought and groundbreaking practices that grace its pages might support the spread of systems thinking to an even wider community than it already has.

Learn more about the details of entering the contest, and view two complete issues of The Systems Thinker to get a sense of the newsletter's incisive content.

We invite you to send your ideas for a new name by April 15, 2004. If we find a name we like better than The Systems Thinker, we'll give the person who submitted it a FREE REGISTRATION (a value of $1,595) to the 2004 Pegasus Conference in Boston, Dec 1-3 (or, if you have already registered, we'll refund your registration fee). Learn more about this premier annual international conference on systems thinking and organizational change.

FACE TO FACE
Leading Change Through Self-Transformation: An Interview with Ann McGee-Cooper
by Kali Saposnick

Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates, Inc. (AMCA) is a creative problem-solving consulting team that works with clients to create extraordinary lives and organizations through self-transformation and servant-leadership. In the following interview, cofounder Ann McGee-Cooper describes some of the ways that leaders can create profound results in their organizations by making a commitment to personal change.

Think of a time when you worked on an exciting project with a group of people whose creative, collaborative energy unleashed powerful solutions to stubborn problems and identified new business opportunities. Now think of what happened after your group achieved these remarkable results. Were you able to sustain your success and infuse that creative approach into other projects and the larger organization? Or was your enthusiasm scorned and ultimately quelled?

Many of us have puzzled (even agonized) over why people who call for innovation retreat to the status quo when the actual change starts being implemented—sometimes even sabotaging or belittling the innovators they initially admired. Ann McGee-Cooper, who has focused on creative problem solving and the politics of change for more than 36 years, offers a key insight into this phenomenon. She says, "The deep gap between the need for innovation and people's resistance to it exists because creativity always challenges our present assumptions. While we might be open to new ideas, the threat of having to actually alter how we think and behave because of them often triggers an 'immune response'—a negative reaction to those who can, for example, cultivate wildly successful teams that love coming to work."

Continue reading the interview

View additional resources by Ann McGee-Cooper

PEGASUS CONFERENCE CORNER

Updates
This year's 2004 Pegasus Conference, Building Collaborations to Change Our Organizations and the World: Systems Thinking in Action, will be held on December 1–3 at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. Special pre-conference skill-building sessions will be held on Tuesday, November 30. The full program will be available shortly. Watch this space for details!

Conference Registration Information
For a limited time only, register for the 2004 Conference for $995. Register on our web site, or call 1-781-398-9700.

SPECIAL OFFER! When you register, you will receive 10% off Pegasus products purchased on our web site, from the day you register until the conference starts on December 1, 2004. (This offer is not applicable to other conferences or newsletters and cannot be combined with volume discounts.) The sooner you register, the sooner you'll start saving on your Pegasus purchases, so sign up today!

FROM THE FIELD
How Goals Guide Our Behavior

Most of us like to think we are learners, able to grow, change, and break new ground for ourselves. Yet few of us realize how frequently we limit our growth by the goals we set. Most of us have been programmed to focus on "performance goals" at the expense of "learning goals." That is, we are concerned more with being judged as competent and impressing others than with improving ourselves. These concerns, in turn, guide our self-perceptions, actions, and achievements.

When we focus on performance goals, we are mostly occupied with end results. We tend to play it safe, do tasks within our capacity, and avoid mistakes. We feel devastated by poor outcomes, attribute success to our high level of ability, and blame failure on others.

When we focus on learning goals, we are mostly occupied with personal development. We tend to acknowledge our imperfections and use setbacks to clarify areas for improvement and skills to expand. We regard failures as opportunities to learn and fuel for achieving our goals.

While performance goals are useful for doing easy, familiar tasks, they tend to trigger our fear of not measuring up to expectations when we are faced with difficult or new challenges. In a larger context, they generate jealousy, fear of judgment, and competition, creating an unsafe space for people to learn.

Learning goals, on the other hand, use results not as statements of self-worth but as tools to evaluate progress toward the goals. Rather than unsettling us, new and difficult tasks motivate us to take on increasingly greater challenges. When we focus on learning, we operate less at the mercy of others and become the source of our own creativity and initiative.
—KS

Source: Jennifer Crocker and Noah Nuer, "Performance vs. Learning Goals," La belle equipe Gazette, the Learning as Leadership Report, Vol. 8, September 2002