I use the "Discovering Your Personal Vision" activity from the Fifth Disc.
Fieldbook by Charlotte Roberts and Dr. Senge in a Career Management
workshop. I also use it in presentations to Leadership and Civic Groups
on motivation.
I use the Five Whys activity from the same book with my MS HRD students (
I teach at a local univ. at night also!) in a course on Performance
Analysis, with my internal clients when they want to stop putting
band-aids on problems and look for a better understanding of what is
"really going on around here".
Future plans are to introduce the 5 disciplines through a group of
"learning associates". Since I am the only HRD prof. for a County
Government of 40 depts. with >4000+ employees, I must leverage all
resources available. I feel I can spread the practices better if I
approach this from a train-the-trainer approach.
WHAT I AM CURIOUS ABOUT/WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT...
1. An easy way to teach systems thinking (any suggestions on how to
design an activity such as the Beer Game?)
2. How to prepare people to use systems thinking tools that my uncover
"negative information" or show "what really goes on around here" when the
environment which county government opperates in (hostile, sensational
press and media, skeptical citizenry...) treats neg. info. fairly severly.
I should add that county government in Florida operates under the guidance
of what is called the Government in the Sunshine and Public Records Law,
so everything is public record.
Any thoughts on the above would be greatly appreciated.
I have been observing many threads and have enjoyed the "Will Sr.
Managers Change?", "Beginners Mind (thank you Terri Deems!), and John
Warfield's (among others') thoughts on Conspiritorial LO teams...Michael
McMaster has made some great points on power as well in his comments on
groups and the need for approval.
Thanks for all your hard work on one of the greatest challenges facing us
today - unleashing the incredible power of employee's creativity and
innovation and improving organization's ability to change with the times.
All the best...
--Bill Hendry | work e-mail: sfidba@thpl.lib.fl.us Organizational Development Consultant and Trainer Hillsborough County, FL (813) 276-2727, fax (813) 276-2197
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>