Upcoming Events -- MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

• Global Forum: Management Knowledge Leading Positive Change, October 23-25, 2006, Cleveland, OH and online
• International Spirit at Work conference , October 27-29, 2006, Garrison, NY
• AI in Action workshop, November 15-17, 2006, Boulder, CO
• Experimental Training and Develop Alliance (ETDA), December 7-10, 2006, Santa Fe, NM
• The Facilitators’ Exchange, January 11, 2007, Denver, CO
• AI Summit workshop, January 29-February 1, 2007, Chicago, IL
• Appreciative Inquiry: Creating Dynamic Destinies conference, February 15-16, 2007, Vancouver, BC

CPC Consulting News

Associate Tish Wilson and Principal Mike Mantel launch CPC’s work with Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) on October 30.  Tish and Mike will facilitate a weeklong workshop with LACOE’s leadership focusing on the fundamentals of Appreciative Inquiry. 

The Adoption Exchange Association (AEA) (www.adoptea.org) – sponsor of AdoptUsKids and other national initiatives – advances the leadership capacity of adoption exchanges and other stakeholders to carry out innovative services that yield positive outcomes for waiting children.  In early September, 70 stakeholders gathered to craft a new strategic vision for the AEA, in a session facilitated by Amanda Trosten-Bloom.  The AI-based session engaged dozens of AEA members and friends in the task of imagining and implementing the AEA’s future.  Changes are already under way in key organizational areas (Board composition, membership, staff, funding, standards, partnerships, funding and projects), and a diverse group of stakeholders are enthusiastically organized to get the job done.

Jim Ludema and Susan Wood are working with AI colleagues Annie Peyton and Alex Jacacci at the Alice Peck Day (APD) Health System in Lebanon, NH to help them expand their capacity to provide an exceptional patient experience. APD has a leader in patient-focused care for nearly 75 years, and they are using an AI Summit process to engage patients, community members, vendors, suppliers, affiliates, board members and all APD employees in to “Create the Best Patient Experience in the World, Right Here at Home.” The summits are focused on four key leverage points:

1. Giving the Best Care for Every Patient, Every Time
2. Understanding and Exceeding Customer Expectations
3. Creating a Physical Environment that Supports Healing, Comfort and Peace
4. Creating the Best Employee Experience in the World, Right Here at Home

Three summits were conducted in September, and an integration summit will be conducted in October to consolidate initiatives and to create a cohesive plan for execution during the next year. Jacacci, APD’s Director of Performance Improvement and Medical Staff Relations, and Harry Dorman, APD’s President and CEO designed and launched their “Best Patient Experience” change process at CPC’s AI Summit workshop in November 2005. 

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CPC on the Podium!

Jim Ludema will give two presentations with his colleague, Guy Vaccaro, October 23-25, 2006 at the Global Forum: Management Knowledge Leading Positive Change (http://bawbglobalforum.org). The forum is a conference focused on sustainable enterprise sponsored by the United Nations, Academy of Management, and Case Western Reserve. It will be held at Case. One of Jim and Guy’s sessions is titled “The Importance of Performance-Based Approaches to Sustainable Enterprise.” The other is a company profile of PolyBrite International, a pioneering designer and manufacturer of environmentally friendly LED lighting.

Diana Whitney will be presenting a keynote speech entitled “Spirit at Work:  An Inside Job” at the annual International Spirit at Work Conference in Garrison, New York, October 27 – 29, 2006. For more information and to register, go to www.spiritatwork.org.

Jim Ludema will provide the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Experimental Training and Development Alliance (ETDA) in Santa Fe, NM, December 7-10, 2006 (http://www.etdalliance.com). His address is titled “Leading at the Forefront of the Positive Revolution in Change.” Jim will also offer an advanced practitioner workshop at the conference titled “Appreciative Inquiry and Leadership Development.”

Amanda Trosten-Bloom will be the keynote speaker for the newly-organized Facilitators’ Exchange in Denver, CO on January 11, 2007.  For more information about this presentation, or about The Facilitators’ Exchange, contact Penny McDaniel at (303) 380-2550 or pmcdaniel@collaborativeconnections.com.

On February 15 and 16, 2007, TCF Training Institute hosts the conference, Appreciative Inquiry: Creating Dynamic Destinies in Vancouver, B.C. Diana Whitney and Jim Ludema, along with CPC friend Gervase Bushe, lead the conference design team. Consultants Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Susan Wood deliver workshops that showcase cutting-edge practices in Appreciative Inquiry.  Click here for more information or to register for the conference:  http://www.itcbc.com. 

Diana Whitney will be joining U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, James Nave, Allegra Houston and Jack Smith at the Writing Salon in Barcelona, Spain in September 2007.  Learn more and register at:  www.thewritingsalon.net.  

In late August, CPC co-hosted an open house with Denver-based Alchemy (http://www.link2alchemy.com/).  Artist Julie Primozich demonstrated Alchemy’s graphic capture capacities, as consultants Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Barbara Lewis shared stories from Focus on Longmont and other large-scale positive change initiatives. 

The Colorado Culture Change Coalition (http://www.coculturechange.org) is a consortium of senior care providers, adult day services, home care agencies, assisted living and skilled nursing facilities and state agencies.  Its purpose is to forge a culture across the long-term care continuum that affirms the dignity and value of each individual who lives and works in these settings.  Demonstrating the importance of inquiry, relationships and storytelling, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, introduced Appreciative Inquiry to a group of about 50 participants in the CCCC’s August meeting.  

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Putting Training to Work

In the spring of 2005 Rosemary Williams (Division Manager, Boulder County Aging Services) and Michele Waite (Director, Longmont Senior Services) put their Foundations-level AI training to work to design a large-scale community-based strategic visioning process. They presented their case to participants in CPC's AI in Action clinic and invited feedback. Teams from the clinic worked the case, applying what they had been learning to this challenging initiative.

The resulting program - Greeting Our Future: A New Approach to Aging - stood on the shoulders of the clinic's recommendations. "They reminded us of the importance of broad-based community support from the start," says Williams. "So, we formed a 50-person Strategic Visioning Coordinating Team! Starting with such a large group gave us built-in energy for the long process ahead, and it gave us a large initial pool of interviewers.

"Clinic participants also supported our idea of hosting regional gatherings - what we ultimately referred to as 'Community Conversations' - in order to build relationships among improbable pairs and gather more data for our inquiry," comments Waite.

Their final report - a 36-page strategic plan (PDF) - was presented this summer to the Board of County Commissioners. On the day of the presentation, 70 community members attended the hearing. "It was their plan. It contained their stories and their vision of the future," says Williams.

"CPC's training made a huge difference for us, as we designed and implemented this groundbreaking initiative," notes Waite. "It helped us conceptualize where we wanted to go, and effectively partner with our consultants. It gave us the theoretical base and practical experience that we needed to find creative ways to engage huge numbers of volunteers with varied backgrounds and experiences. It allowed us to mine and build on our strengths, and forge a strategic plan whose heart and soul was as solid as its AI foundation."

For more information about the Greeting Our Future initiative, contact Rosemary Williams at rwilliams@co.boulder.co.us or Michele Waite at Michele_Waite@ci.longmont.co.us.

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

Dear CPC:

How can appreciative inquiry be used to improve how we select employees with the right mix of aptitude, ambition and attitude for the organization?

Tammy Guthmiller
Spark Resources
Centennial, Colorado

Dear Tammy:

Your question gets at traits that typically aren't conveyed in a resume, but they can be learned by conducting interviews as appreciative dialogues.  The goal is to more fully understand what makes a job candidate tick.  For instance, to understand where the candidate's passions fit with our organization, we may ask:

Tell us about a high point experience with our organization that captures what most inspires you. What are the underlying qualities, values, or characteristics of the experience you have just described that made it a high point experience?

To understand their attitude toward work and how they are motivated, we might ask:

Thinking back on your experience, tell me about a time when you felt especially proud of your contribution to a particular project or effort.  What was the goal of the effort?  What did you do to contribute to the overall success?  What was it about the circumstances and your particular effort that made this a high point experience for you?

Looking toward the future, we include a dreaming question like:

Thinking about your strengths and the contribution you would like to make to this organization, what kind of a job would you most like to create for yourself?  How would your dream job capitalize on your most outstanding qualities?

Finally, our experience in managing the Head Start program at CDI has taught us that bringing the right aptitude, ambition and attitude into the organization requires a commitment to employee training and development. New employees need to be given a solid foundation for understanding the organization's culture and philosophy and supervisors need ongoing training on how to sustain an appreciative culture.

Nila Rinehart, Carolyn Miller and Tish Wilson
CPC Associates

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

Join the learning community formed by members of the Corporation for Positive Change Certificate Program!  In addition to the training they receive through CPC workshops, certificate program participants and graduates have access to ongoing peer consultation and coaching by CPC consultants through quarterly conference calls. 

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. 

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Upcoming Educational Opportunities

CPC offers a full suite of workshops to help you acquire the knowledge and skills needed to lead, design, and facilitate positive change in organizations and communities using Appreciative Inquiry. 

Learn by Doing in the upcoming AI in Action Workshop

Join Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Mike Mantel for AI in Action in Denver, Colorado November 15-17, 2006.   Want to build on your experience as a leader of positive change? Go deeper, faster and farther with Appreciative Inquiry? Space is still available in this clinic-style workshop, Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Mike Mantel will help you identify and build upon your strengths as an AI practitioner, and explore a variety of approaches for applying AI at different levels in an organization, community and across our world. Discover new ideas, approaches and frameworks for building your capacity and your own projects by studying the projects of other participants as case examples. Previous attendance at a Foundations-level Appreciative Inquiry workshop, as well as experience applying the AI approach to at least one project, is recommended.

Learn the Power of Summits at the Appreciative Inquiry Summit Workshop

 Join Jim Ludema and Mike Mantel for their highly regarded Appreciative Inquiry Summit Workshop January 29-February 1, 2006 in Chicago, Illinois. This is a practical, hand-on workshop, based on Jim’s book The Appreciative Inquiry Summit: A Practitioners Guide for Leading Large-Group Change, which has produced breakthrough results for many organizations.

A recent participant said, "My team and I immediately took what we learned at the workshop and brought it back to our organization. Since then, with the full support of senior leadership, we have launched a series of 15 summits to create a customer-centric culture that maximizes business results. The impact of these summits on our workforce in terms of engagement, energy, and execution has been nothing short of extraordinary!"

The AI Summit is a process for getting the "whole system in the room" (30-3000 people or more) to launch meaningful and often revolutionary change. It has been used by dozens of organizations -- such as McDonald's, BP, Hunter Douglas, Nokia, US Cellular, British Airways, Roadway, Nutrimental, World Vision, the US Navy, and many others -- and is rapidly becoming a method of choice among executives, managers and practitioners because of its capacity to quickly unify people around a common vision and enable them to innovate, execute, and sustain positive change.

Jim and Mike will share their experience using the AI Summit in a variety of applications, including whole-scale change, strategic planning, culture change, M&A integration, customer service, core business redesign, vision and values clarification, global organizing, community development, and health care. They will also work with you to design an AI Summit process for a specific project or idea of interest to you.

CPC Announces the Appreciative Inquiry Creativity Salon

• Discover and learn how to step into your person cycle of creativity 
• Learn to make artistic leaps in all arenas of your life
• Refine your ability to use creative language and artistic expression to communicate your vision and values

Join Diana Whitney and James Nave on the path of creativity August 27 – 30, 2007 at the Appreciative Inquiry Creativity Salon. What better place than Taos, New Mexico to step into your own creativity?

During the salon, mornings are for inquiry, dialogue and working in the study. We’ll use an Appreciative Inquiry 4-D process: Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny to awaken your positive core of creativity, to enhance your artistic sense of self and to expand your horizons of surprise and wonder.   Afternoons are for playing in the garden where you’ll have the opportunity to sample a wide range of creative disciplines: improvisational writing, movement, visual art, theater games, and drumming. Outings in nature will help you connect to your own vision and voice. Visits to other artists’ studios will enrich your repertoire of stories and practices for creative expression.

Is it time for you to engage with your imagination and intuitive knowing? To discover your positive core and creative potential? To explore your role as a creative leader?  If your answer is yes to any of these questions call now to register and plan to leave your creative footprints on the Taos mesa.

2007 Workshops Scheduled!
Mark Your Calendars and Register Early

Workshop descriptions and details are posted at www.postivechange.org.

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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-profit organizations around the world. For more information about CPC, or to contact any of our consultants, please visit our Web site at www.positivechange.org.

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