My colleagues and I at AI Consulting are running Appreciative Inquiry training courses in London, Oxford and Manchester starting this autumn. If you are interested in training as an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator, so that you can use the AI approach at any level from whole-organisation interventions to one-to-one coaching, visit the Appreciative Inquiry open courses page for more details.
It's been a busy couple of months. First, I've become a director of a small Appreciative Inquiry consultancy, AI Consulting, joining the diverse and talented team of Kate McAllister (local government turnround specialist), Paul Nicholson (ace business psychologist), and Dr Tim Luckcock (philosophy and education specialist and Enneagram guru). It's great to have bright, experienced people to bounce ideas off, and together we can make things happen that we couldn't have achieved individually.
I have also become a trustee of a charity, Dreamcatchers, which aims to provide children and young people with opportunities to actively participate in the building and maintaining of a better society. Its director, Andy Jackson, has consistently impressed me with his dynamism and ability to find practical uses for everything he learns.
Plus, all of a sudden, I seem to be in demand for corporate training as never before! This is giving me the kick I needed to develop new ideas and rekindle my enthusiasm for all kinds of learning. Watch this space!
"A donkey with a load of holy books is still a donkey"
- traditional Sufi quote which I came across in Andrew Austin's excellent book "The Rainbow Machine: Tales From A Neuro-Linguist's Journal", certainly the best NLP book of the last five years or so and one which should be required reading for therapists, counsellors and particularly mental health professionals. Review to follow!
Image from the Portland Mercury for some reason
Another fine 'how not to do PowerPoint' video - this time from John Medina at www.brainrules.net
I never thought I'd be quoting the famously grumpy Sir Alan on an emotional intelligence blog, but here he is:
"You've got to be happy, it's not just about making money and all that
stuff. There should be no drudgery in work. You have to enjoy what
you're doing, and if you don't, you'd better get out and do something
else because you're not going to be a success."
- Sir Alan Sugar, interviewed by Liz Hoggard for the London Evening Standard, 26 March 2008
Note for non-UK readers: Sir Alan Sugar fills the Donald Trump role in the UK version of The Apprentice, and it's riveting viewing!
Here in the UK that compulsively watchable show "The Apprentice" has returned to our TV screens - and making an equally welcome return is my good friend Gavin Ingham's commentary on it: The Sales Apprentice. While Gavin is drawing lessons from each show specifically from a sales angle, many of the points he makes about the first show are actually about the emotional intelligence of the candidates. I've added my off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts about emotional intelligence in 'The Apprentice' as a comment on Gavin's blog.
More about Chris Argyris and Donald Schon's ideas - following on from the "Espoused Theory and Theory-in-Use" posting.
Our actions can be viewed as keeping some set of variables within acceptable limits. These variables are determined by our theory in use. When something goes wrong, we tend to look for another strategy that will keep the variables within those same limits, rather than questioning the variables themselves. We can describe this as 'single-loop learning'.
The more profound "double-loop learning" happens when we examine the variables themselves (or the values, beliefs and assumptions behind them) in the light of the results of our action strategies. We then become more aware of our theories in use.
Where only single-loop learning is taking place, the unexamined assumptions behind it tend to lead to advocacy of one's own viewpoint, defensiveness, a win-lose outlook, and a wish to control interactions . This can happen at personal, team or organisational levels.
Double-loop learning, by contrast, is characterised by inquiry rather than advocacy, greater openness, a win-win outlook, and a willingness to share control. This creates a more positive emotional climate and enables individual and organisational development.
Methods of facilitating double-loop learning include reflection, coaching, and receiving feedback which compares espoused beliefs and explanations with actual results.
Further reading: Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness
by Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schön
© Andy Smith and Coaching Leaders Ltd 2008
Just to let you know that I've been interviewed about goal-setting for Gavin Ingham's sales blog - which has already created a nice little surge in my readership figures.
I've also had a less satisfactory interview experience - a journo from Crain's Manchester Business phoned me about business coaching, we had a nice chat, I directed him to a satisfied client to interview, and the next thing I hear about it is when the client emails me with a link to the article saying it's rather strange as I'm not named in it. So you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that the coach who helped award-winning Manchester design company True North to greater success, and who its MD Martin Carr is praising to the skies, is actually me!
How do we explain the discrepancies we observe in other people between what they say they believe, and how they act?
The theorists Chris Argyris and Donald Schön suggest that people have 'mental maps' of how to plan, implement and review their actions in given situations. It is these tacit, unexamined maps - a set of unconsciously held beliefs, assumptions and rules - which guide their actions, rather than the explanations that they give to themselves and others to make sense of what they do.
Argyris and Schön described the mental maps implicit in people's actions as "theories in use", and their consciously held beliefs and explanations about their actions as "espoused theories".
Argyris suggests that bringing theory-in-use and espoused theory into line with each other will increase effectiveness. So how do we do this? "Double-Loop Learning" - which is discussed in my next entry.
Further reading: Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness
by Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schön
An interesting article in the Guardian by psychiatrist Paul Keedwell argues that depression can have some benefits:
The truth is that short-term pain can lead to longer-term gain. A recently published follow-up study of depression in Holland - the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (Nemesis) - used a sample of 165 people with a major depressive episode, and provides some preliminary scientific evidence to suggest that depression is indeed helpful in the longer term. Researchers who were looking for evidence to suggest that depression leaves people chronically disabled were surprised to discover the opposite.
His new book, How Sadness Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression, looks fascinating - at the time of writing, the reviews that I've seen have all been five-star!
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