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 A free e-newsletter spotlighting systemic thinking and innovations in leadership, management, and organizational development. Please forward to your colleagues. 
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We at Pegasus are both devastated by the catastrophe in Asia and East Africa and heartened by the scale of the global relief effort. As we progress in the new year, with its challenges and promises, tragedies and triumphs, may we find the wisdom and courage to truly collaborate to create a more humane, more sustainable tomorrow. |
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FACE
TO FACE Why Collaboration Is Key to Sustaining Our Future Adapted from a Talk by Dennis Meadows |
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LEARNING
LINKS From Relationship Tension to Task Tension |
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PEGASUS
CONFERENCE CORNER |
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FROM
THE FIELD Organizational Readiness When Disaster Strikes |
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FACE
TO FACE Why Collaboration Is Key to Sustaining Our Future Adapted from a talk by Dennis Meadows The book The Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III (Universe Books, 1972) was a key catalyst of the worldwide environmental movement. Its look at the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet became the cornerstone of a global debate on how to achieve a sustainable future. Twenty years later the authors followed the book up with Beyond the Limits, which showed that humanity was already overshooting Earth's limits. Now Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update makes a compelling case for the vital need for a Sustainability Revolution. At the 2004 Pegasus Conference, during his keynote presentation, Peter Senge invited Dennis Meadows to share some insights into the forces that are shaping the state of the world today and the ways that people are actively collaborating to produce change. The following article was adapted from Dennis's talk. Peter's entire keynote presentation—including Dennis's comments—is now available through the Pegasus web site.  Changing our world. It's so easy, when you're sitting here in
this little microcosm on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, in the United States, to forget what's really going
on with the rest of the world. You could start to have the illusion
that everything's going okay. In fact, the rest of the world is in
big trouble.We have over 2 billion people on the planet living on less than $1 a day. The next 2 billion don't make much more than $2 a day, and the gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger. There isn't a continent on the globe where resources are being managed sustainably. There are locations of course where it's happening, cities where the air is getting cleaner, rivers where the fish are coming back. But if you look across continents—forests, agricultural soils, groundwater, the air are deteriorating. We've caught most of the fish in the sea, we've used up a lot of water, and it goes on and on. I won't belabor the point. I think we all know that we have a big job ahead of us. A Big Gap I've been looking at these issues off and on for the last 30 years. The most recent results of my study have been published in the book Limits to Growth: A 30-Year Update (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004), which is the focus of a new Pegasus video (view clips from the video). It's been an interesting challenge to look forward to the next 100 years, to understand something about the issues this century presents, and then to try to articulate that understanding for people genuinely concerned about doing something constructive and concrete right now. A big gap exists between understanding and action. Today I will share a couple of points that help me bridge that gap. Read the complete interview Learn more about the 2005 Pegasus Conference Explore resources by Dennis Meadows |
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LEARNING
LINKS From Relationship Tension to Task Tension by John W. Gunkler At the beginning of any new working relationship, the anxiety of meeting new people and getting used to their working styles can often hinder a team's productivity. Relationship tension is inevitable, as people wonder what is expected of them or whether other group members will listen to and respect their views. But only when relationship tension subsides can task tension take its place. Task tension is the positive feeling enjoyed by an individual or group with an interesting job to accomplish; it usually builds as people work together on a problem, reaching a peak as they approach the solution. Relationship tension decreases when team members work on earning each other's initial trust, for example, by showing honorable intentions about collaborating, making and keeping promises, and taking the appropriate time to discover commonalities with new coworkers. When relationship tension flares up—from a disagreement or a seeming violation of trust—one way to intervene is by following L-S-C-P-A: • Listen: Actively listen for the feelings that lie behind what the person is saying. • Share: Restate, in your words, what the other person is feeling and saying. • Clarify: First ask permission to go deeper into the situation and then ask both fact-finding and feeling-finding questions. • Present: Suggest options for how to proceed. • Ask for Action: Ask the person what she thinks is the best way to proceed. The unspoken anxiety that often accompanies new working relationships can mire people in long-lasting and potentially paralyzing conflict. Establishing trust, acknowledging common bonds, and actively attempting to understand a new colleague's point of view can help liberate the team's collective energy to dig in to the task before it. Read the complete article, or see LEVERAGE, No. 32 (August 1999). Subscribe to The Systems Thinker® Newsletter |
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PEGASUS
CONFERENCE CORNER
Feedback
from a 2004 Conference Participant
Special
Room Rates Available for Host Hotel
2005 Conference Call-for-Proposals |
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FROM
THE FIELD |
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| Copyright 2005 Pegasus Communications. Leverage Points® can be freely forwarded by e-mail in its entirety. To obtain rights to distribute paper copies of, reproduce, or excerpt any part of Leverage Points, please contact permissions@pegasuscom.com. | ||||||||||||||||
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Bringing
Spiritual Intelligence to Collaboration
by
Danah Zohar
Communities
of Learning in K–12 Education: Giving Students
the Tools to Become Productive Citizens
by
Deborah Meier
The
Arc of Success: A Company Thrives by Reaching
Beyond Its Own Boundaries by
Cristiano Schena
Recipe
for Success: Integrating Nonprofit and For-Profit
Organizations to Uplift a Community by
Melissa Abdullah, Wendy Powell, David Rome,
and Julius Walls, Jr.
Transformational
Collaborations to Sustain Our Global Society
by
Peter Senge
Pegasus
is pleased to announce this new entry in its
One on One Video Series.
Limits
to Growth: The 30-Year Update by
Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows
(Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004)
The
Systems Thinking Playbook
The
15th Annual Pegasus Conference will be held on November 14–16,
2005, in San Francisco, California, USA. Register now through
February 18 for only $950. Also, take advantage of a special
subscription price for The Systems Thinker Newsletter—only
$89 for a one-year subscription when you register (regularly $109).