As we begin the new year I found Cindy Manning's post from last summer re-inspiring. (click to retrieve it)

A favorite quote of mine goes something like this:

"One cannot discover new lands without first consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

  This quote speaks to me of the tension between the excitement of new possibilities and
the loss of familiarity that accompanies transformation and change.  .......[Cindy's Weblog]

10:45:38 AM     comment []   Google It!  

Bill Mahoney sends us a very useful web link: http://clinicalmicrosystem.org/ 

These folks give us much useful information on clinical work place improvements. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supports their efforts. There is a strong team involved in the work and tools make available from this site. OD specialists and Process Engineers/Facilitators will find it useful as will folks in clinical work units.

10:32:15 AM     comment []   Google It!  

Here is an interesting streaming video clip  on Appreciative Inquiry from Ernst and Young and The Corporation for Positive Change. David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney are featured. You do need to have RealPlayer installed.

Here are my notes from it:

1. Three sources of strategic advantage: 1) Engagement of the talent and capacity of every person at every level of the organization. 2) Magnifying the speed for innovation 3) Creating a magnetic setting for the attraction of the best talent.
2. Get to the value faster.
3. Go beyond the deficit based ideas of management that we have grown up with. Burning platforms, analysis of what is broken, or what is wrong.
4. The best you have ever been. Your most successful.
5. What do you want more of?
6. When we search for and listen to the stories of the true, the good, the better, the possible, one finds that the system begins to move in that direction with a tremendous amount of energy.
7. You have to find ways to keep the hearts and the minds of people engaged. Any you have got to find ways to keep them thinking about the future.
8. Looking at what is possible in the organization or the community.
9. People move in the direction of what they study, what we think about, and what we ask questions about.
10. Everyone engaged in the success of the company and committed to the success of each other.
11. Problem solving can yield incremental gains. Appreciative inquiry can yield breakthrough gains.
12. Focus on the things that work, the days that result are best, and discover what was happening.
13. A way to really get people engaged.
14. Tied back to the bottom line, to tangible outcomes.
15. Increase throughput
16. Ernst and Young: ePositive Change. They have an alliance with the Organization for Positive Change

2:56:34 AM     comment []   Google It!