“In a meeting the other day, someone made an often heard comment about the unrealistic expectation that we could or should be ‘appreciative all the time.’
The focus on what we want and what’s working and why is a challenge to culturally normative beliefs that ‘the only way to make things better is to focus on what we don’t want and what’s not working and why.’ For people who don’t have experience otherwise, the appreciative model is totally not realistic.
The good news is that the transition to an appreciative approach isn’t about trying to believe something different. It’s only possible when we see for ourselves. We do not become more appreciative by simply taking on someone else’s beliefs, no matter how compelling.”
There is something to the practice of appreciating that which is not positive as well, for what it offers us. For example, a client I was working with recently decided to use a “What would you most like to change…?” question in her appreciative inquiry in her community. When we worked through the implications of that question we looked at an appreciative conversation on how it was that the community DID change. This was to create a container in which calls for change drew on the best ways this community knew about how to change. So it involved looking back at a variety of ways the community had coped in the past in order to draw on the potential resources for future change.
Can I just say that the podcasts produced by the locked out employees of CBC are far, far better than the crap produced by the locked in managers.
You would have thought that people would have learned from the NHL. There is nothing senior management can do to produce a better radio experience than what the employees can produce. The fact that the better product is now being podcast rather than broadcast throws into question the judgement of the CBC brass who had the bright idea of locking their staff out in the first place.
Good luck to the employees. It must be intolerable having to work for people, some of whom are so much more talentless than you are. I hope they get back to work on air soon.
Among the litany of examples on Being Poor:
“Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.”
What if those penny trays and tip jars at cash registers were for exactly this purpose? What if we just dumped all of our coin change there and people could feel free to use any of the coins in there for this purpose, and that instead of pennies, they would be loonies and toonies and quarters?
Small change.
(link via Jordon)
Three point painting by James Nares
Three years ago I posted a little note about a cool site, and so began this weblog.
The Parking Lot is three. Thanks for stopping by
I’m going to leave New Orleans behind now, in terms of this blog, but before I do, I make one last offering: a playlist of music about New Orleans. My heart goes out to everyone involved in this catastrophe.
Give where you can.