IN THIS ISSUE (linked list): News: Appreciative Leadership Development Program, Sound Partners for Community Health, WOW! Internet·Cable·Phone, CPC and Unity, Focus on Longmont (CO), San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys Head Start, Boulder County’s Aging Services Division, Vallarta Institute, Taos Pueblo, CPC on the Road, Certificate Program; "Dear CPC;" Current Workshops; Books & Publications

CPC Consulting News

Diana Whitney, Jim Ludema and 16 people from the US, Canada and Chile closed out the CPC Workshop Series for 2005 with a fantastic Appreciative Leadership Development Program (ALDP) in December. The group, which consisted of CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CIOs, and HR VPs, found the opportunities to discover their strengths, to practice appreciative coaching, to be coached, and to envision and plan their leadership futures to be the highlights of their week together. Diana and Jim are offering the Appreciative Leadership Development Program twice in 2006. May 8 – 11 and September 11 – 14. Get it on your calendar now.

Associates Carolyn Miller and Nila Rinehart are working with representatives from Sound Partners for Community Health in a late-January AI session focused on harvesting lessons learned and creating a vision for the future of the project. Sound Partners for Community Health seeks to increase public awareness of specific health issues and facilitate citizens' involvement in making decisions affecting health care by fostering partnerships between public broadcasters, community organizations and additional media entities. Sound Partners is a program of the Benton Foundation and funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This organization is a national team involving many organizations partnering together with the Benton Foundation as the lead.  Here is the link to check them out: http://www.soundpartners.org/

Amanda Trosten-Bloom is just beginning her work with WOW! Internet·Cable·Phone.  One of the nation’s leading competitive providers of high-speed internet access and advanced cable television services, WOW! will use Appreciative Inquiry as part of its transition to new ownership to increase people’s sense of ownership, enhance communication, build support for the transition, and accelerate business results.  WOW! President Colleen Abdoulah and HR Vice President Janice Turner are particularly enthusiastic about AI’s capacity to reinforce the company’s commitment to respect, collaboration and values-based leadership.

CPC and Unity: Partnering for a Better World.  Larry Wynn, COO of Unity and James Trapp, CEO and President of the Association of Unity Churches have embraced Appreciative Inquiry and are co-sponsoring a Foundations of Appreciative Inquiry Workshop for Unity leaders. Diana Whitney will design and lead the workshop at Unity Village. She will be joined by Rev. Canon Charles Gibbs, Executive Director of the United Religions Initiative, who will share the URI story.

The Focus on Longmont (CO) community-based strategic planning process, facilitated by CPC Associate Barbara Lewis with Amanda Trosten-Bloom is now complete!  At the Coordinating Team’s closing meeting this week, project leaders reflected on the year-long process, considering how it could have been strengthened even further.  Here’s a sample of what people appreciated about the process: 

• "The individual interviews were great.  The data and stories we collected were really valuable."
• "The positive vibe."
• “City and public dialogue was really good."
• "The synergy of various people’s input."
• "Our massive effort to bring in those who never participate worked: we had a broad range of participants – youth to mature, Anglo and Latino – and we’d have benefited from having even more diversity!"
• "I heard many opinions and thoughts that were new to me."
•  "My voice and opinion does matter!"
• "A great process: one of the best of many I have participated in!"

AI training helped get this project off to a great start.  As co-project managers Karen Roney and Dale Rademacher remarked, "Focus on Longmont has been an intensive and ambitious undertaking.  What made it gel was kicking off the project by training five City staff members in Appreciative Inquiry.  It helped us understand and believe in the process.  The training also helped us build upon the Focus on Longmont experience to begin to apply appreciative inquiry to other opportunities in the City."

CPC Associate Tish Wilson co-led an AI session in late October with 200+ newly hired staff at San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys Head Start: a program that which serves 1350 predominantly Hispanic children in southern California. By identifying past and present strengths in their troubled program, participants began looking forward optimistically to a strong future based on their positive core. Remembering why they originally chose to work with children, and identifying their own and each other's strengths, re-inspired and energized them to make specific commitments to move beyond the politics and problems of the past.

In late October, Boulder County’s Aging Services Division hosted a 175-person intergenerational summit entitled Greeting our Future: A New Approach to Aging. The culmination of six months of one-on-one and small group inquiry, it resulted in a community-based strategic vision, as well as a series of Design Principles that will be used for strategic planning and budget allocation purposes for years to come. CPC consultants Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Carolyn Miller were privileged to be part of this groundbreaking initiative, whose goal is to create communities in which everybody ages well.

Jeff Jackson and Maurice Monette, Directors of The Vallarta Institute, have invited Diana Whitney to join a group of US and Cuban authors to write a book on Cultures of Participation in Cuba and the US. Diana has been invited to write about Appreciative Inquiry as a high engagement, high participation process used by businesses in the US to simultaneously develop people and profits.

The Taos Pueblo Economic Development Council met with Associates Carolyn Miller and Nila Rinehart to review plans for a community summit to focus on the future of the Taos Pueblo, New Mexico community. The Taos Pueblo Economic Development Council's mission is to guide the community and governing entities in community and business development. When this summit occurs, it will be historic, the first time the community has ever been brought together to focus on the future. This is a heartfelt project since this is Nila's tribal community. To learn more about the community, click:  http://www.taospueblo.com/.

CPC on the Road!

CPC President, Diana Whitney has been invited to speak at the New Thinking in Business Conference in the Czech Republic, May 2006. For more information about this innovative conference in Eastern Europe go to: http://conference.systemic.cz/eng/homepage.php.

Diana Whitney joins John Adams, Joel Levey, Michelle Levey, Rhoda Nussbaum, Jim Channon, Steve Brogan, Karin Klebert, Einhard Schrader and Tom Thiss to sponsor OT 24: The 24th Annual International Gathering on Personal and Organizational Transformation. The title for this year’s gathering is Vision 2020: Sourcing and Awakening Attention. It will be held in Hawi, Hawaii August 15 – 19, 2006. For information about the conference, or to register and to learn about follow up retreat activities, go to John Adams’ website: www.eartheart-ent.com. For information about the beautiful location go to: www.kohalasancturary.com. This Open Space gathering promises to be a special reunion of old friends and an opportunity to share, to learn and to make new friends.

CPC Certificate Program: Appreciative Inquiry and the Practice of Positive Change

With the addition of 24 new participants in 2005, CPC’s certificate program is now 38 people strong! This leading-edge program offers exceptional personal and professional development through training and ongoing coaching, and also provides a strong community of practice for AI practitioners around the world. 

In our last quarterly conference call for CPC Certificate Program members, we covered four great topics:

• Getting an AI project started, including gaining support and getting the work. 
• Strengthening “soft” skills in a technology / equipment-oriented organization.
• Making meaning of stories in a long-term initiative, and bringing those stories alive at a summit.
• Sustaining energy and actualizing plans after a successful launch.

Participants in these quarterly calls exchange knowledge and experience with one another, receiving additional coaching and supporting from CPC consultants. 

For more information about the CPC Certificate Program, contact Corporation for Positive Change at 505 751 1232 or email: office@positivechange.org – or download the Application Form and return it by mail, e-mail, or fax. 

"I'm thrilled with where the CPC Certificate Program has taken me.  It's left me feeling really solid and grounded in AI: both competent and confident. Several other practitioners recently commented about how experienced I seemed to be.  What a nice affirmation - both of me and the program! "

Nancy Ogilvie
Core Essence Consulting

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Dear CPC: a source for ongoing capacity-building, questions and answers

Dear CPC:

I am leading an innovative project with six hospitals in PA in an effort to enhance patient care delivery and improve retention of nurses.  As we begin year 2 of 3, there is a new level of energy in each hospital for the 3 objectives: communication / collaboration; staff nurse decisional involvement; and cultural sensitivity and awareness.  Nurses are asking, how do we operationalize Appreciative Inquiry, and make it part of everyday life in the hospital?

At a Collaborative with all six hospitals in November, co-facilitated by CPC consultant Susan Wood, these were some of the answers the hospitals reported.  They are worth sharing with others!

• Use AI principles in everyday conversation with colleagues and patients
• Make AI live in every process - interviewing, coaching, and discipline (advice from Karen Stefaniak, CNO at UK Hospital)
• Feature strengths in employee survey and patient satisfaction feedback sessions
• Involve staff in hiring and selection decisions
• Hold shift change reports that are positive
• When a snafu happens - ask "what can we do to make it right?
• Don't tolerate someone saying they don't have input
• Sent email asking for examples of intra-professional communication and collaboration (amazed at response!)
• Chief of staff uses AI to lead meetings
• Held a staff retreat -- focused only on the positive

Appreciatively yours,

Donna Sullivan Havens, PhD, RN
Professor and Division Chair
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
dhavens@unc.edu
CPC client and partner

Do YOU have a question for CPC? If so, contact us at office@positivechange.org. We will answer it in a future Appreciative Inquiries.

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Upcoming Educational Opportunities

CURRENT WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

(Click to jump to descriptions below)

* * * WORKSHOP DEADLINE PENDING * * *

The Foundations of Appreciative Inquiry, Boulder, CO, February 6-10, 2006.  Whether you’re a consultant or leader of change, Foundations of AI will guide you through an exploration of the theories, principles and practices of Appreciative Inquiry. This workshop provides hands-on experience of Appreciative Inquiry, preparing you to guide clients and groups in creating interview protocols, conducting interviews, working with appreciative data and stories, and crafting provocative propositions and organization design principles. Understand the difference between Appreciative Inquiry and deficit-based approaches to change, and experience the power of positive change methodologies. For information and to register contact Corporation for Positive Change at 505-751-1232 or email: office@positivechange.org.

What participants are saying about Foundations of Appreciative Inquiry:

The Foundations of AI workshop expanded my consulting "toolkit", opened new avenues for productive client dialogue, and increased my network of AI colleagues - a fabulous development opportunity! 

Theresa Garcia
CEO/President
Trust, Leadership & Growth, LLC

The Foundations of AI broadened my horizons personally and professionally by teaching me a methodology to use success stories as the foundation for exploring future visions.  It challenged me to be bold enough to ask the necessary questions to discover a new world without limitation.

Kendra Sardelis
Science Applications International Corporation
BPM Specialist

 

The Appreciative Inquiry Summit, Chicago, IL, April 3-6, 2006 .  EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT APPLIES UNTIL March 6.  Join workshop leaders Jim Ludema (The Appreciative Inquiry Summit) and Mike Mantel, and learn the principles and practice of applying AI to large group meetings (50-2000 people) and whole system transformation. 

This practical and inspiring workshop includes a thorough introduction the AI Summit methodology; a series of case stories and videos based on Jim and Diana’s work on how to design and facilitate large group AI Summits in corporate, non-profit, and international settings;, and rich discussion of applications of the AI Summit to strategic planning, culture change, exceptional customer service, vision and values clarification, global organizing, and reinventing businesses, communities and complex social systems such as health care. An important feature of this workshop is its practical application segment. Over the course of the workshop, Jim and Mike will work with you to design an AI Summit process for a specific project or idea of interest to you.Prior attendance at the Appreciative Inquiry workshop, “The Foundations of Appreciative Inquiry,” is required. For more information or to register contact Corporation for Positive Change at 505-751-1232 or office@positivechange.org, or visit the CPC website at www.positivechange.org.

What participants are saying about The AI Summit:

This event provided a forum to discuss and develop detailed plans for our upcoming summits on Sales and Service.  It was interesting to hear from other groups who were using the tool in a variety of applications.  The facilitators ensured that all participants made progress and received input and suggestions from the group.

Rita Sly
Project Manager
First Caribbean International Bank

With participation in The AI Summit Workshop, I now see how this wonderful, reaffirming methodology can be applied to Large Scale Change efforts.  It's all-inclusive of not only the people, but also all aspects of where they're coming from, how they view the topic, and what they dream possible for the future of the topic.  Staying focused on the possibilities is not only fun & rewarding, it's also engaging and creative in a way that creates the space for unanticipated outcomes.  And, Jim and Diana are masters at it, which made it even more of a pleasurable experience.

Jean Tully
Consultant
Tully Consulting

Appreciative Leadership Development Program, Chicago, IL, May 8-11, 2006 and September 11-14, 2006 . EARLY BIRD DISCOUNTS up to 30 days before each program.  At last – an AI workshop for executives and managers!  Facilitated by Diana Whitney and Jim Ludema this is a strength based leadership development program. It is a must for leaders who wish to identify and enhance their strengths and appreciative capacities for collaboration, affirmation, and inspiration. This is a perfect program for leaders of large scale change.   For information and to register contact Corporation for Positive Change at 505-751-1232 or email: office@positivechange.org.

What participants are saying about the Appreciative Leadership Development Program:

The Appreciative Leadership Development Program is the most powerful leadership development I have experienced. Unique in its strengths based positive approach the work is individualized, affirming, and humbling.  This was not another workshop that loses its meaning upon returning to work; but rather an amazingly powerful transformational learning process that impacts each and every participant. I recommend it highly to any leader who wants or needs to connect with the best of themselves and their potential for contribution.

Leslie Smith
Organization Development Consultant/Executive Coach

CPC’s Appreciative Leadership Development Program was the most meaningful self development week of my life.  The ability to identify and understanding my personal strengths has inspired me. The feedback I received in the coaching sessions, coupled with the appreciative 360 degree appraisals, has give me a whole new way of looking at performance feedback.  I’m already applying what I’ve learned to my direct reports.

John S. Cwiklik
ABD Director of Human Resources
Forest County Potawatomi

 

Being Appreciative Inquiry:  A Spiritual Retreat for Change Agents, Taos NM, June 13-16, 2006. EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT APPLIES UNTIL May 16.  Late summer is a great time for personal reflection, reassessment of values, and the reinvention of one's self in service to a better world. If you are hearing a new call, being drawn to live and work in greater harmony with spirit, or just want time to honor the transitions of your life, Being AI: A Spiritual Retreat for Change Agents may be for you. With Diana Whitney as your guide you will have four days in community with others on the journey of spiritual development. You will have an opportunity to engage in self-discovery, envision your future and explore ways of being your best in the service of bringing out the best in others. For information and to register contact Corporation for Positive Change at 505-751-1232 or email: office@positivechange.org.

What participants are saying about Being Appreciative Inquiry:

Being AI was life-altering for me: a precious five-day period of focusing and interacting on a spiritual level of consciousness. Diana shared wisdom that has emerged out of her life of conscious learning, brought together with the pure intention of creating transformational positive change. It’s now my responsibility to put it all to use and remember what’s truly possible, through the expanded perspectives that I now live in.

Dan Peterson
Director
Edges Learning Community

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Books & Publications

* * * New Offering * * *

This new book by Cooperrider and Whitney is described as “An Authoritative Guide from the Pioneers of Appreciative Inquiry.”  A condensed and highly accessible guide, Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change introduces the AI and the 4-D cycle in action, offering stories and examples of Whole System Inquiry and the AI Summit.  A great teaser for organizational leaders, consultants and students who are first learning about AI.  Follow this link for more information.

Also, check out the book Dynamic Relationships: Unleashing the Power of Appreciative Inquiry in Daily Living, by CPC friends Stavros and Torres.  Part of the Taos Institute Focus Book series, the book explores how to create positive dynamics and sustained success through continuous awareness and informed appreciative action.

Finally, visit the AI Practitioner, the only newsletter on the practice of Appreciative Inquiry.  Published quarterly by Anne Radford in London, the AIP features articles on such diverse topics as AI and strategic planning, AI in Health Care, and AI in the K-12 school system.  The $28 subscription fee is modest and well worth it.

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About Corporation for Positive Change

Corporation for Positive Change (CPC) is the premier consulting firm using Appreciative Inquiry for transformation and innovation in business, government, and non-rofit organizations around the world. For more information about CPC, or to contact any of our principal consultants, please visit our Web site at www.positivechange.org.

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