Audio Tidbits

Cooperrider, David L. and Diana Whitney. Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Incorporated, 2005. ... Cooperrider, David L., Diana Whitney, Jacqueline M. Stavros, with Foreword by Ronald Fry. Appreciative Inquiry: Handbook for Leaders of Change. Second Edition. Brunswick, OH: Crown Custom Publishing, Incorporated, 2008.

Companies all too often call for low-morale surveys instead of designing rigorous inquiries into extraordinary moments of high engagement, commitment, and passionate achievement.

Human systems grow in the direction of their deepest and most frequent inquiries. What is it that you want more of in your organization?

Our experience suggests that organizational change needs to look a lot more like an inspired movement than a neatly packaged or engineered product.

Every organization has something that works right--things that give it life when it is most alive, effective, successful, and connected in healthy ways to its stakeholders and communities.

Valuing the best of "what is" leads to envisioning what might be. Envisioning involves passionate thinking, creating a positive image of a desired and preferred future. …

The most important resource for generating constructive organizational change or improvement is collective imagination and discourse about the future. One of the basic theorems of the anticipatory view of organizational life is that the image of the future guides what might be called the current behavior of any organism or organization. Much like a movie projected on a screen, human systems are forever projecting ahead of themselves a horizon of expectation that brings the future powerfully into the present as a mobilizing agent. In the final analysis, organizations exist because people who govern and maintain them share some sort of discourse or projection about what the organization is, how it will function, what it will achieve, and what it will likely become.

The most powerful vehicle communities have for changing the social order is through the act of dialogue made possible by language. Therefore, alterations in linguistic practices hold profound implications for changes in social practice.

Organizations do not need to be fixed. They need constant reaffirmation. … The challenge for organizational learning and development is creating the condition for organization-wide appreciation. This is the single most important act that can be taken to ensure the conscious evolution of a valued and positive future.

Transforming the human system and its organization toward an affirmative learning and working environment requires a conscious effort to maintain a positive focus on the dialogue. In so doing, positive affirmations or comments should be encouraged, while negative dialogues should be minimized or avoided altogether.

All organizations have something to value about their past. This element must be appreciated so that change becomes a positive experience without unnecessary resistance from a sense of disruption.

Imagine your organization five ... years from now, when everything is just as you always imagined it would be. What has happened? What is different? How have you contributed to this future?

How do you help your children develop a growing sense of independence and autonomy by the age of seven? How do you deal with the increasing independence of your adolescent? The process begins as your toddler learns about play and social activities. However, your child is not able to play unless he knows how to play. He learns the idea of taking turns from people who allow him his turn and insist on their turn. He learns to be appropriately assertive without being excessively self-centered and aggressive from you and other adults who deal with his temper tantrums. He learns not to be too passive or compliant when you and other adults encourage him to stick up for himself, to speak up when it is his turn or when his rights are infringed upon.

Social development begins when you relate to your children as friends and playmates. Yes, you are a parent first; but part of the time (especially with your small children) you are friends and playmates. Within this playmate relationship, your child learns how to ask someone to play with her. She develops a feel for situations in which people do not want to play with her. She learns to accept an invitation to play. Occasionally, you may ask your toddler or preschooler if she wants to play a video game, accepting your child's judgment about whether or not to play. Similarly, your child learns to ask you to play, accepting your judgment whether or not to play. Peek-a-boo played with your infant becomes hide-and-seek when she is a toddler or grade schooler. Working puzzles with your preschooler becomes assembling models or playing X-Box with your grade schooler or adolescent. Helping your preschooler fix her bicycle becomes helping your adolescent fix her car. Playing Fish with your preschooler becomes playing Scrabble with your adolescent. Making mud pies with a preschooler becomes helping prepare supper with your teenager. Friend and playmate relationships begin quite young and continue throughout your lives. Establish the playmate relationship with your child while remaining a good parent, and the fun and good times can go on for a long time. …

Helping your children select their friends and playmates begins when they are young. It is best for your children to play with other children of approximately the same age, and is not a good idea for them to spend most of their time with children significantly older or younger. Your child who spends a lot of time playing with older children gets into situations for which he is not prepared, emotionally or socially. Similarly, children who spend most of their time playing with children significantly younger than they are tend to relate like younger children. Thus, encourage your children to play with children about their own age and discourage their spending a lot of time playing with children much older or much younger.

Next, encourage your children to become selective about who they play with in their own age group and help them develop criteria for deciding who, when, what, where, and how in respect to play and other activities.

With whom to play? As a general rule, your children should be encouraged to play with any child their age who holds similar values; they should be discouraged from playing with children who do not accept basic parental values of good and bad, for example, children who steal, lie, damage property, or fail to respect the rights of other children and adults. Your children should also be discouraged from playing with children who believe it is alright to get bad grades in school, to be disrespectful to teachers, to skip school, to get into things or go places where they should not. Finally, your children should be discouraged from playing with children who habitually fight, do not play in a cooperative way, do not take turns or who hold beliefs about other people which are negative and prejudiced. Your children should be encouraged to pick their friends and associat...

Cooper, Robert K. The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership and Life. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001.

Although studies indicate that people who regularly think ahead tend to experience more frequent leadership opportunities and career advancement, this mechanism is about something deeper than the external trappings of success. It keeps overriding the don't-grow-or-change instincts of the amygdala and clarifies what makes you original and sets you apart from the crowd.

It's no wonder that when people don't feel cared about and uniquely valued, they do not put their hearts into their life or work. After an extensive three-year study of the critical variables for leadership success, the Center for Creative Leadership recently concluded that the only statistically significant factor differentiating the very best leaders from the mediocre ones is caring about people.

Here's what we know: zero-sum competition--that is, competition in which one person must lose in order for another to win--tends to undermine the best in most of us. It makes us wary and distrustful of others, causes us to withhold and distort information, inspires us to negatively caricature others, makes us intolerant of uncertainty and change, and it so narrows our focus that constructive creativity is practically shut down. …

Recent studies indicate that up to half of all work time may be wasted or compromised due to mistrust. In large part, this mistrust is prompted or worsened by competition. Remember, whatever our conscious good intentions, our ancient brain instincts have been programmed to assume the worst. "It's a war out there," the subconscious asserts. "Defend yourself. Smile, play along, cover your back, withhold information, put a good face on things but gossip about others."

Even in groups with an overarching shared mission or purpose, it is unusual when more than one or two of the five values are shared by the group or team as a whole. Nonetheless it is our individual values that bring each of us to life inside as a unique person; they cannot be implanted from outside.

Trust is an emotional strength that begins with a feeling of self-worth and purpose that we're called to extend outward to others. The warm, solid gut feeling you get from trust--from counting on yourself and trusting and being trusted by others--is one of the great enablers of life.

We trust others when two crucial qualities are present in the relationship. First, we must feel that they understand us: that they know who we really are and what really matters to us. Second, we must feel that they care about us, and that they will weigh our true needs, interests, and concerns when they make decisions.

Of course, you have to be blasé about some things. Otherwise, you might die of overexcitement. Yet your individual passion about a direction or a dream can see you far.

This is the Brother's Keeper Principle, which dictates that once I have come to know you well, I must say and do what I believe is in your best interest and in line with your commitments, regardless of how that makes you feel about me. In other words, in many situations life is more about trying to make a constructive difference than trying to be liked.

Above all, and beneath all, accountability is generated from within your heart; it cannot be "given" from outside. It is conscience--and more. It prompts you to forgo excuse-making and instead to sense emerging problems and opportunities early on and accept a role in responding to them in new ways with commitment and ingenuity.

What do your loved ones miss the most about you in recent years? What part of you isn't coming home at the end of the day? It's likely to be something small but significant, such as the sense of humor or playfulness you used to have before you go...

•           I am a perfectionist

•           Either it is right or it is wrong

•           Rules are rules

These types of phrases frequently come up when you try to manage warriors. Interestingly, players who use this technique are likely to make their pronouncements when others are around and will overhear. When focusing their play on one person usually a subordinate warriors like to be sure others hear so they learn not to test the player. They have been forewarned.

Warriors step on the feelings of others

Since most people are at least a little insecure about their competence and ability to work with others, these players play on others' insecurities. Some phrases from an office environment are instructive.

•           That is trash

•           More of the same old stuff

•           Dragging your feet

•           Out of your area of expertise

•           Roadblock

•           They followed by any negative pronouncement

Add any other phrase or statement to the list implying that the other person is at fault, incompetent or less skilled and cooperative than the player. The key is to get them where it hurts. …

Warriors are ready to go to war over anything

At first glance, these players may seem to be the same as those who never give an inch. Although they are chips off the same block, these players are just as likely to go for the throat for what they want as for what someone else wants. The crux of the technique is drawing blood. These players say things like:

•           If you won't go to the mat over the little things, they will just get out of hand

•           You either win or you lost

•           I enjoy a good fight

•           If they want to go to war over this, it is war they've got

After a while, it becomes clear that the war is the thing. Even if they get what they want, they will find something to argue about, hoping to start another war.

Warriors are harsh and abrasive

The essence of this technique is more in the delivery than in the content. Players who have mastered this technique understand that the barb must be short and quick to work well. It is a sharp jab, a well placed phrase or a quick response.

Ask the player, "Do you have a minute for a quick question?"

The instantaneous response is, "No, not right now. Then the player immediately turns his attention away from the person asking the question, if his attention was there to begin with. It is quick, specific, and allows no opportunity for discussion or rebuttal. The key is to hit and run.

The technique comes up in other contexts. For example, the player suddenly has to leave but says something cutting or troublesome on his way out the door. Those still in the room are left to deal with the problem.

Warriors never let anyone take advantage of them

The interesting point here is that these players think people are always trying to take advantage of them. They spend their time and energy figuring out how everything will lead to their getting had. Warriors are to be admired for the levels of energy they put into their game. It takes constant vigilance to be sure no one ever takes advantage of them.

One of their automatic questions is, "Why?"

"Would you like to go to lunch? "Why?"

"May I use your phone? "Why?"

"How's it going? "Why do you ask?"

The player's need is to evaluate everything in terms of how he might get had. His motto is, If I don't take care of myself, no one else is going to do it for me.

Warriors will argue with anyone, anywhere, at any time

You are a member of your agency's Leadership Team. Consider these brief scenarios and how you would handle them?

You are a program manager with a neighborhood center providing a variety of services for neighborhood residents. Jerry is an adolescent client who was expelled from your after school tutoring program due to an incident where he was caught passing small green pills to another student. Jerry's father €“ who also is an agency Board member €“ calls to tell you Jerry will not pass this year and may not graduate on time if he does not continue tutoring. Jerry has not been in trouble before and was just doing a favor for a friend, according to his father. He is a good kid and being expelled from your program is too severe. Jerry's father goes on to say, I don't want to take advantage of being a Board member but think you should make an exception for Jerry.

Your agency provides foster care services for abused and neglected children. Bob and Harold are a gay couple who have been working for many years with children exhibiting difficult behavior issues. They ask to adopt one of the girls they have been fostering for a year or so. The Executive Director of your agency's primary authorizing entity hears about this and privately asks you to stop the adoption process, since she thinks some of her Board members may be unhappy about it. She tells you, I don't want you to think I have a problem with this but I have a couple of Board members€¦. …

David Martinez is a local accountant who has helped your agency from time to time with setting up agency accounting records and with developing procedures for things such as managing agency credit cards and internal cash controls. He always tells you to call him any time and never says anything about his getting paid. It is now time for the agency's annual audit for which the agency normally pays several thousand dollars. You mention this in passing to David one morning at the Rotary breakfast. Later, David calls you, About that audit. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it as soon as I can work it in. I'm in a rush but let's pin this down the first chance we get. You also have a personal friend whose accounting company did the audit last year and knows the audit is coming up soon.

You are told confidentially by one of your agency's therapists an area

physician reportedly advised two clients with whom she works to stop coming to your agency. The physician referred them to another agency in the community and encouraged them to switch. According to your staff person, the clients said the physician had some not so nice things to say about your agency but the clients did not give any detail. You had also heard this same report from someone you were talking with at an open house at your child's school.

Mrs. Thomas has been an active agency supporter for many years. She has been a strong

agency advocate with your primary authorizer, has helped with fund drives and other agency activities, and has recruited several of her

influential friends to support agency initiatives and causes. You call her to ask if she will help organize a clothing drive for the area's disadvantaged children. She says, Not this time. I've been really busy. You'll need to find someone else to help out. I don't think I'll be able to help out much anymore since I've gotten so busy with other things. You ask her if there is a problem you can help with but she declines to discuss it more. She is pleasant enough about it but somewhat abruptly ends the conversation.

Conaty, Bill and Ram Charan. The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers. New York: Crown Business, 2010.

Any time two or more people work together there's a social process in which they exchange information and ideas, exercise power, and express their values through what they say and do.

Coaching and feedback are constant, direct, and substantive.

Dialogue is candid and ongoing throughout the year.

…if you're going to have a performance culture, there's got to be a very well understood set of company values to keep people from going off the rails ethically or behaviorally.

Charisma and talking well are useful leadership qualities, but they are not enough if a person cannot connect authentically with others to build consensus and teamwork.

…the four major components of talent: personal traits, skill mix, relationship building, and judgment about people and business.

…judgment is required to know which old rules of thumb to discard and which new ones to develop.

Get the resources needed to get the job done.

A leader's job is to facilitate the team's success. Being sure available resources are sufficient for success is, in turn, the leaders responsibility. There may be others on the team who have tasks and assignments related to resource development, but if the resources are not there when they are needed, the leader has not gotten the job done.

If the train runs on coal, the leader better have continuous access to the coal mine. If success depends on new ideas, the leader will be well-served by cultivating a close relationship with a guru. If success depends on creativity, exceptional talents, and specialized skills, the leader must commit to recruiting and retaining only the brightest and best people for the team. a proactive leader knows not having enough of the right resources when they are needed is the surest route to failure, and fail he will not. …

. . . . .

Be skilled at using informal strategies to get things done.

a proactive leader certainly is talking from experience. There are formal policies, procedures, and ways things are to be done. It is also true they sometimes do not work and situations come up where there is no formalized approach that will get from here to there in the time available to get there. Now and then though, people take this to mean they can ignore the rules, not pay attention to the formal processes. This definitely is not a proactive leader's point. The informal approach supplements formal procedures and is not a substitute for them.

People also sometimes see the informal approach as a convenient way to bypass the chain of command, to shortcut processes they think take too long, to shop around for the decision they want, or to avoid jobs they do not like. This is not what a proactive leader has in mind either. For a proactive leader, the informal approach is simply one more strategy available to him within the formal context.

a proactive leader wants his team to use informal strategies, to talk with each other, to informally innovate when they need to, to avoid being too rigid about the rules when something unusual comes up that does not quite fit into the established procedures. They are responsible people who can and are expected to use their good judgment and common sense. a proactive leader liberally uses informal strategies himself, but you can have too much of a good thing.

Being skilled at using informal strategies includes knowing when to use them and when formal is best. If informal strategies are used too much or inappropriately, things become disorganized, efficiency and quality suffer. If they are used too little, the team becomes rigid and inflexible, creativity and innovation disappear, and the team loses its cutting edge. On a proactive leader's winning team, the real skill in using informal strategies is in finding and maintaining the balance.

. . . . .

Understand and tap the knowledge, skills, and resources of everyone.

You are not surprised?

That old cat is already out of the bag?

This proactive leader's secret is no secret anymore?

a proactive leader is a sponge who goes around soaking up whatever serves his team's purposes. Everyone's knowledge, skills, and resources fit right in with his absorption strategy.

Here is what you may not know. a proactive leader is also a master at finding the specific know-how, particular skill, or perfect resource for the immediate purpose, whatever the need happens to be. He knows someone who either has or can get exactly what the doctor calls for, so to speak. When the success puzzle requires a new or unusual piece, a proactive leader reaches out, pulls it in, and slips it into place. What's more, it is miraculously an exact fit, not just what the doctor ordered.

Share the loving touch with people who are special to you every chance you get.

Acceptance is the first ingredient in the loving touch. It lets special people know you accept them as is, don't want to change them, don't want them to change. You then blend in affection, knowing too much applies to many things but never to affection sincerely offered.

As you mix the ingredients with love and sincere good will, gentleness is the secret technique the masters have perfected and you refine in ways conveying the uniqueness of your loving touch. It's the perfect complement to being fully involved in the moment, without distraction, without reservation.

You have almost got it just right, are nearing perfection, but it still needs a dash of this and a pinch of that. the special spices bringing out the rich flavor of the loving touch. They are spontaneity and playfulness. Your loving touch is always there, only awaiting a gesture, a feeling, the slightest of signs it's wanted and valued. It sparkles with joy, enthusiasm, and that indescribable but familiar extra in a child's laughter, a lover's smile, in the magical connection when special people share the loving touch.

You likely know Theodore Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” He also said, “The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided, but never hit softly.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson counseled, “There is no strong performance without a little fanaticism in the performer,” and Oscar Wilde added, “Moderation is a fatal thing, nothing succeeds like excess.”

“Put a grain of boldness into everything you do.” You will do well to follow this advice from Baltasar Gracian who also said, “He who finds Fortune on his side should go briskly ahead, for she is wont to favor the bold.” …

. . . . .

There is a Swedish Proverb that advises, “Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, hate less, love more, and all good things are yours.” This is all very good advice, but for today, focus on breathing.

Svatmarama, the yogi, instructed, “When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should learn to control the breath.”

 As the famous Anon. pointed out, “A healthy mind has an easy breath.”

If you are doubting, the words of Andrea Boydston tell you all you need to know, “If you woke up breathing, congratulations!{{pause=0.3}}{{pause=0.3}} You have another chance.” Accept the wise counsel of Thich Nhat Hanh, “Smile, breathe and go slowly.” “For breath is life, and if you breathe well you will live long on earth.” (Sanskrit Proverb)

. . . . .

Robert Southey said, “It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn,” and Baltasar Gracian said, “Good things, when short, are twice as good.” Shakespeare also touted brevity, “Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

Even Thomas Jefferson joined the keep it short chorus, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” No less an authority than William Strunk, Jr. sang along, “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

As surprising as it may be, Mozart, himself, warbled along, although he was definitely a dib off key, “My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop.”

Chopra, Deepak. The Soul of Leadership: Unlocking Your Potential for Greatness. New York: Harmony Books, 2010.

We all have a still place inside us that is the source of everything that gives our lives meaning. This is the soul, and it is the place great leaders turn to for their inspiration, and for the answers to all their important questions.

Leaders and followers co-create each other. Followers express a need, and the leader supplies a response.

Just as individuals grow from the inside out, so do groups. The group's needs must be met wherever they are. Sometimes a group needs a parent or protector, at other times a motivator, healer, or spiritual guide.

The outcome of any situation is defined in advance by the vision that goes into solving it.

The responses shared by leaders and followers are built into us, guiding us to evolve and progress. The soul is aware of how to unfold our evolution to produce the highest and best outcome in any situation. …

Needs are designed to evolve, and a leader must be aware of this in order to foresee the future of the group and anticipate its needs. In rising order the group's needs are for safety and security, achievement, cooperation, understanding, creativity, moral values, and spiritual fulfillment.

For every need, a leader must play the right role. The need for security calls for a protector; achievement calls for a motivator; cooperation calls for a team builder; understanding calls for a nurturer; creativity calls for an innovator; moral values call for a transformer; spiritual fulfillment calls for a sage, or seer.

Leading from the soul means giving of yourself. It means you supply trust, stability, compassion, and hope. You spend time investing in relationships with those who turn to you for answers.

No matter how complex and confusing a situation looks, leadership is possible when you are comfortable with uncertainty. Once they see the hidden spiritual order that lies beneath what seems to be chaos, inspired leaders thrive on uncertainty.