Articles
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Applying Learning Cycles
If you were to think about designing a car, you would envision someone laying out engineering diagrams of the parts or modeling the body in clay. The design of a car can help to sell the car to a market concerned about fuel economy by making sure the engineering keeps fuel efficiency in mind. If you were to think about designing a house, you might envision an architect's drafting table with blueprints showing the layout of rooms... Read More
Changing Leadership Regains Productivity Fast
Adding new members to a team can slow down operations. Use this four-point tested model to build a new foundation to bring your whole team-- new and old-- to a new level of productivity... Read More
Identifying Communities of Practice through Storytelling
In the year 2000 the World Bank had been practicing Knowledge Management (KM) for three years. The Bank had been divided into institution-wide networks, large cross sections of staff members engaged in related fields of interest. All of them had vibrant and active thematic groups (known in KM circles as "communities of practice") – with a single exception... Read More
Betting on Your Team: The Case of the Customer Service Center
Whether or not you are dealing with a seismic shift in technology like the one described in this article, change is a permanent part of every manager's work. You probably already know that you can make it work for you by trusting and respecting the strengths of the people who work for you. But how, specifically, does that look... Read More
Lessons Using AI in a Planning Exercise
American Writing Corporation (AWC) and Communications Development Incorporated (CDI) are twin companies that share staff and facilities but offer distinct—although mutually supportive—products to a sophisticated and demanding client base. This paper describes an exercise based on Appreciative Inquiry principles to hep these companies take stock and create a new set of possibilities for themselves... Read More
Appreciative Downsizing? An Interview of Madelyn Blair
The story recounted here suggests that, even when downsizing is unavoidable, the humanizing introduction of the quality of "caring" can have significant impact on the economic productivity of those who remain, as well as positive, though difficult to determine, impacts on those departing into the larger world system... Read More
The Story of the Future, Told in a Day: Building the Energy to Achieve the Future
Imagine this: you have been working independently within your organization for years. The project engages your intellect, inspires your creativity and continually exceeds the expectations of management. Then, one day, a new system is introduced that requires you to join a team of people to do the same work. What do you think the future will hold... Read More
Findings of the External Research Project on Support Staff
One of the main design characteristics of this work was that it would seek out organizations that were in different industries that related to the Bank's work rather than picking only one industry and doing it in depth. The value has been two-fold. First, the breadth of work done by the Bank could not have been found in any one other industry. Second... Read More
Gender Considerations in Written Performance Evaluations
Women have often described themselves as feeling "invisible."1 This is the sense that managers value women's contributions so little that they sometimes do not see women at all. If there is one place to see what a woman has done in an organization, it should be in the performance evaluation form... Read More
Keeping Skills Updated in a World that Won't Stop Changing
The world is changing rapidly. Some say it is because technology is forcing the changes; some say it is just the speed of business that is going faster because we can communicate so rapidly today. It doesn't matter which is the cause and which is the effect or if either is, the pace of work and even change is indeed increasing. And keeping current is the one thing that is becoming harder yet more and more important... Read More
Living Appreciatively
At the very first meeting of this group that Deb started, she asked if I would do something on story. I decided to do something from my work with Stories inside Words. I told of the project that I am working on to gather stories from peacemakers and the opening set of stories from three ambassadors... Read More
Personal Knowledge Management: An approach to understanding what you know and need to now through conversation and story
If you are interested in remaining current in your field, staying up to date in relevant areas to your work, or simply pursuing a life of on-going learning, you will find value in reading this paper and doing these exercises. If you choose to use this method... Read More
Renewable Energy: How Story Can Revitalize Your Organization
The lights are lowered, the spotlight comes on, and the storyteller walks up to the microphone. You sit back and await being entertained. We often think of storytelling as one person telling his/her story at the front of the room, delivering a carefully rehearsed story. For organizations, storytelling is better served another way—by creating a space for members of the organization to tell their stories to each other... Read More
One Role of Story in Knowledge Management
If things continue as they have been, by the year of 2010, there will be 10 million more jobs than there are people to fill them in this country. Now, things are likely not going to continue as today, but the boomers are going to retire. And the knowledge they have garnered through their careers will be walking out the door... Read More
Storytelling at the Heart of Appreciative Inquiry
Our intent is to convey how the same "reality" can honestly be interpreted differently. And that we can choose our interpretation; we can choose what we see, we choose what we focus on, we choose what we highlight...Read More
The Teams, They Are a Changin'
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who conquered the Greek City-States and the Persian empire, understood the importance of replacing a soldier fallen in battle and integrating his replacement quickly. The lives of other men depended on it. Coaches of professional and amateur sports, who recruit a star player, understand they must answer that same question... Read More
Managing with Tracked Autonomy for High Returns
A question in every manager's mind is how to get maximum efficiency and productivity with existing staff resources. This means developing and leveraging employee's knowledge of the business. When these employees are at the lower ends of the salary structure, increases in productivity can give a high rate of return... Read More
Turning Constraints into Benefits: Learning from the Tao (by Maureen Miller of Pelerei)
Constraints are all around us. In the eLearning world, constraints are often propagated by technical glitches and system scheduled maintenance. Sometimes they are proliferated by a course's popularity or shaped by a know-it-all expert—or student. Often they are handed to us in the form of a project with limited time and budget... Read More
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Attention is at a premium, getting people to focus has become difficult. Madelyn's story telling leaves you with a lasting learning. Every time, with flair and the right balance between bringing the story to life, business relevance, and conciseness."
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