Recharge with these continuing education opportunities

Several colleagues and clients have asked about places to recharge, regroup and rejuvenate. Here's a list of continuing education opportunities for change agents, leaders, creatives and everyone coping with the complexities of life.

Systems Thinking Conference, Nov 17-19, 2008, Boston
Sponsored by Pegasus -- helping individuals, teams, and organizations thrive in an increasingly complex world.

NTL Institute provides management training programs that enhance listening skills, communication skills, diversity, organization development and group dynamics. In Alexandria, VA and Bethel, ME.

Shambhala Institute is a vibrant meeting-place of people, practices, and ideas engaged at the frontier of organizational and societal change. Upcoming workshop is Organizational Trust: Cultivating authenticity, commitment and collaboration, April 22–23, 2008 in Ottawa, Ontario. Next summer institute is Authentic Leadership in Action, June 22–28, 2008 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Robert Fritz, composer, filmmaker and organizational consultant, helps people and organizations create the results that matter to them. Public workshops in Newfane, VT include Your life as art, Creating for creators, Fundamentals of Structural Thinking.

Cape Cod Institute is a summer-long series of timely/lively week-long courses for mental health and management professionals, offered by master teachers in Greenwich, CT.

Omega Institute is a pioneer in exploring, teaching, and embracing new ideas, focusing on health and wellness, personal spiritual growth, and self-awareness. Summer programs in Rhinebeck, NY. Winter programs in Costa Rica, Northern California and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Sol — Society for Organizational Learning. Founded by Peter Senge, SoL discovers (research), integrates (capacity development) and implements (practice) theories and practices of organizational learning for the interdependent development of people and their institutions and communities. In Boston.

Appreciative Inquiry is a revolutionary approach to strategic change and sustainable growth for organizations. The Commons, an online resource, lists public workshops, conferences and certification programs available world-wide.

Executive Education at Case Western in Cleveland, OH offers programs in Appreciative Inquiry and emotional intelligence.

Action Design helps individuals and groups in organizations develop their capability for inquiry, choice, and action on their most difficult issues. Public workshops in Boston.

Taos Institute is a community of scholars and practitioners concerned with the social processes essential for the construction of reason, knowledge, and human value.

Interaction Associates offers workshops in facilitation, leadership, meeting management, change management, coaching, and trainer excellence. Public workshops are in San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, Washington DC.

OD Network is a professional association of external consultants and professionals working within their organizations to promote healthy change. Next conference is Oct 19-22, 2008 in Austin, TX.

All of our continuing education bookmarks are at http://del.icio.us/unison/continuing-education.

Add to the list. Click on "Comments" below and add your favorite workshop, conference, "chill-out" retreat.

Best appreciative questions

The Appreciative Inquiry list serve compiled a list of "best" questions.

What do you love about your life?
When you do what you love, what’s happening? What conditions are present?
What is the best of all worlds?
What do you most like about yourself?
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What are the best things happening in your life now?
What brought you life today? What brings you life?
What is really working well in your life right now?
What changes have you made that have positively impacted your life?
What have you seen lately that inspired you?
Who was the last person to make you smile?
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If things were working at their best, what would be happening?
If this employee was working at his/her best, what would they be doing?
If this team was working at its best, what would be going on? What would the team be doing? How would they be working with each other?
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What kind of a village/school/organization would you like to leave for your children and grandchildren?
What kind of an ancestor would you like to be?
What is your version of a more livable world?
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What’s the coolest things you learned today?
What nice thing did you do for someone today?
What nice thing did someone do for you?

Add your best questions in the comments section below.

Valuing storytelling

The Australian consulting firm, Anecdote, is asking "When is storytelling valued within your organization?” Here are the results.

Hero stories – seen particularly for sales, customer service
Success stories
Inspirational stories
“Lessons/Learning” stories
“Who we are” stories – an embodiment of company values in action, not just espoused values
“How we got here” stories – stories exploring a companies history and foundations
“My time here” stories – provides insight into the individuals work/life history with the organization

Read more about when storytelling is valued.

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They also asked "When has storytelling been discouraged or frowned upon in organizations?” The broad themes that emerged are:

When stories are gossip
When there is a break down in trust and relationships
Where there is no time
When there are “bad news” stories
When it sounds like corporate spin

Read more about when storytelling is discouraged.

Harvesting employee-generated innovation

Innovation is a hot topic in today's management circles as businesses are organizing around the creation and implementation of new ideas. At Whirlpool, executives are held accountable not only for the development of new products and services, but also for the creation of processes and systems that foster innovation.

One tactic for engaging employees in the innovation process is something Carlson Marketing's Director of Performance Improvement Jennifer Rosenzweig, calls "appreciative inquiry." This is a technique for emphasizing a company's unique strengths (appreciative) while at the same time developing a meaningful and robust dialogue with employees (inquiry) that seeks to help management understand when the company is moving in the right direction or not.

Carlson Marketing's research shows that given the opportunity, nearly 50 percent of employees will engage in identifying and implementing ideas. But "squandered" or untapped ideas are a major source of employee frustration and disengagement. A recent Gallup report shows that 17 percent of all the employees it surveyed consider themselves "disengaged" at work.

Read how Whirlpool and Toyota are harvesting employee-generated innovation.

Sharp brain appreciations

A window into the brain fitness revolution, Sharp Brains offers a mix of fun brain teasers and serious commentary, focused on the implications of cognitive neuroscience research on health, education and corporate training.

SB's Alvaro Fernandez shares an exercise proposed by Jeffrey Brantley in Five Good Minutes: 100 Morning Practices To Help You Stay Calm & Focused All Day Long:

First, travel back, in your mind’s eye, to a time when you felt a healthy exhaustion, and let you relive that moment as vividly as you can.

Then, remember, re-experience, a loving exchange that really touched you. Pause. See the moment. Smell it. Hear what happened around you.

Next, visualize the most caring gesture you have ever received, as full of details as possible. Who gave you that gift of caring. How you felt.

Now, travel to the most magnificent place you have seen. Enjoy the views. Pause. Listen. Smile. Appreciate.

Go to the Smart Brains blog.

Jeffrey Brantley is the Director of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at DukeHealth.org.

Noticing what we fail to notice

The range of what we see and do
Is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
That we fail to notice,
There is little we can do
To change
Until we notice
How failing to notice
Shapes our thoughts and deeds.

by Daniel Goleman
written in the style of R.D.Laing

From Goleman, Daniel. Vital Lies and Simple Truths: The psychology of self-deception.

What you desire is what you get

Without realizing it, people will perceive things according to how they want to see them, a new study suggests.

“There is an age old hypothesis in psychology that a person’s wishes, hopes and desires can influence what they see,” said David Dunning, Cornell University psychologist and co-author of the study. “This theory had lay dormant for about 40 years, though, without any supporting evidence. We wanted to test the murky waters again.”

Read the story at LiveScience.com.

Resolving conflict

When called into a personal conflict in the workplace, the parties usually want to tell me "what she said" and "what he said" over and over again. Instead, I ask them to reflect on the following, and then when we meet face to face, stick to the points they illuminated in their reflections:

Please consider these questions and make notes on a separate sheet prior to arriving at our meeting at noon on [date]. I understand that the goal of meeting is to act on your willingness to elicit agreements for a more harmonious working relationship. I salute you both!

1) Describe a time when you worked in a situation that was completely harmonious between colleagues. What were the conditions and circumstances that created a feeling of harmony and collegiality? Make a lengthy list.

2) From the list above, select three qualities that are important to you in any working relationship and define them thoroughly.

3) Describe ANYTHING that is working about your current work relationship. Try to make a list here too.

4) Describe what you would like MORE OF as you continue to work with this person.

I have spent no more than 90 minutes total both reviewing their personal notes, then moving into agreements that have developed healthier relationships.

from Jennifer Mann in Santa Rosa, posted on the AI list serve