httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p916yeFa2Xk
A new campaign called Embrace Life is tackling an old-age issue in a very different way. |
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p916yeFa2Xk
A new campaign called Embrace Life is tackling an old-age issue in a very different way. |
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIv9rz2NTUk
Professor Daniel Willingham describes research showing that learning styles are a myth |
212o – The Extra DegreeAt 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And with steam, you can power a train.One extra degree = Exponential results |
A Letter to MandelaShikaya is a non-profit civil society organisation that recognises the crucial role that teachers can play in deepening and strengthening South Africa’s democracy. As such, Shikaya supports the personal and professional development of teachers to create a South Africa in which young people in schools are inspired and supported to become responsible citizens and future leaders in our democracy, valuing diversity, human rights and peace.This short feature is part of an interactive multimedia programme, Up2Us, which is being created for South African schools. Up2Us will give young people the opportunity to explore their identity, issues of prejudice and what it means to be an active democratic citizen so that they are more likely to feel inspired and motivated to take action in society. |
A Vision of Students Todaya short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. |
Changing Education ParadigmsThis animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award. |
CNA Qatar Strategic Planning ProcessA brief overview of Phase 1 of the CNAQ Strategic Planning process using Appreciative Inquiry. |
CNAQ Strategic Planning – Phase 1Second video produced by CNA Qatar – using Appreciative Inquiry to help develop their institution’s 5 year strategic plan. |
Coping with Change at WorkChange is a necessary part of business and that can cause stress among employees. Caty Everett, vice president at Alliance Leadership, explains how being transparent and engaging team members in the process can reduce anxiety. |
Did you know??Globalization & The Information Age. |
Embrace Life: A New Online Ad with a TwistA new campaign called Embrace Life is tackling an old-age issue in a very different way. |
How to Start a New Job: Dodging LandminesThose first few days on a new job can be stressful. Roberta “Bobbie” LaPorte, a career and leadership coach, discusses how to make a great first impression and hit the ground running |
Learning Styles Don’t ExistProfessor Daniel Willingham describes research showing that learning styles are a myth |
Managing During Difficult TimesCaty Everett, vice president of Alliance Leadership, explains how to maintain your credibility and executive presence during turbulent times. |
Smile & MoveIt’s all about attitude & action. Mattering to the world all with a smile. |
The Opportunity of AdversityThe thesaurus might equate “disabled” with synonyms like “useless” and “mutilated,” but ground-breaking runner Aimee Mullins is out to redefine the word. Defying these associations, she hows how adversity — in her case, being born without shinbones — actually opens the door for human potential. |
Tomorrow’s Cities“Tomorrow’s Cities”, a succinct and inspiring film (15 minutes long), presents a compelling and easy to understand account of the major developmental challenges facing our cities in South Africa and more broadly cities of the global south. Framed within these challenges, the film unfolds a vision, through the voice of a school child and exciting use of animation, and proposes practical solutions towards achieving breathable, sustainable, equitable and low carbon urban futures.The film is intended as a learning tool to raise discussion and awareness and ultimately inspire action toward the development of sustainable and equitable, low carbon cities. |
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY&feature=PlayList&p=50459483A23AA7A8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=49
About the Video:
Newly Revised Edition Created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod; Globalization & The Information Age. It was even adapted by Sony BMG at an executive meeting they held in Rome this year. Credits are also given to Scott McLeod, Jeff Brenman, |
Last week, an author called Barbara Ehrenreich spoke at the Royal Society of Arts, an organisation that I chair, about her latest book, Smile or Die: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America .
I profoundly disagree with her theory. As Michael Skapinker wrote in the FT yesterday , optimism built America, and without it the country will never recapture its glory. Aldous Huxley said about the place: “The thing that most impresses me about this country is its hopefulness.” Yet there appears to be a disturbing and broader case of doubt in the US. In December, Time magazine carried a front cover with the headline: “The Decade From Hell”. And meanwhile, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that the past 10 years had been “The Big Zero”, because average wages, stock and houses prices in the US had stagnated. Even the American far right has doom-mongers. I appeared on the Glenn Beck show on Fox News last year. I found it difficult to take his apocalyptic views seriously, yet he has a huge following. Everywhere it seems there is a feeling of pessimism that recalls the dark period in the 1970s following the Vietnam war. I’m afraid the US remains mesmerized by the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, even nine years later. The recent overreaction to a bomb on an aircraft on Christmas day is proof of an inability to put such threats into perspective. The Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts are part of this disastrous pattern. Those ill-advised wars have fed the sense of gloom. Meanwhile, arch-defeatists such as Al Gore have created a vast “global warming” propaganda machine to frighten us all into submission about climate and energy. And the financial crisis, with its after-effects of unemployment, bankruptcies and debt, appears to have compounded the national feeling of misery – or at least that’s how it appears to a foreigner who has always been an unremitting admirer of the US. The west needs a confident America – indeed, capitalism demands an America that is bullish about the 21st century. More than anywhere ever, industrial inventions and technological advances originated there. The US needs to recapture its hope and vision, its enthusiasm and vigour. It should not look to Europe for examples. The Old World has a tendency to be cynical. The loss of empires, the end of deference, the rest of the world catching up, an inevitable diminution of economic and political might – these trends have inclined too many Europeans to fear the worst and be nervous about the future. This attitude to life is not good for the soul, and it makes progress seem like a concept from the past. Because progress is precisely what the US – and even Britain – has been making in the past 10, 20 or 50 years. Be it in health, real standards of living – you name it – in more or less every aspect of work or leisure, there has been improvement in a pretty relentless fashion, thanks to free enterprise, science and democracy. Unfortunately, many of these advances are incremental and do not create headlines. I suspect that the media and politicians believe they get more mileage from worrying us. And plenty of left-of-centre academics and commentators prefer the spectre of decline and fall to the idea of rising prosperity. It gives them something to complain about, in their masochistic, gloating way. So, for example, California, which has always been at the cutting edge, needs to get a grip, shrug off the blues, ignore the depressives – and help lead the recovery. Despondency cures nothing. America has space, it has ingenuity, it has freedom, it has scale. By most measures it remains the best place on earth to start a business. A spirit of adventure, of limitless possibilities, of manifest destiny, lies at the heart of the American psyche. The rise of China must not dim the American zest for growth. And in spite of Barack Obama’s “audacity of hope”, I do not believe big government is the cure. How would intellectuals such as Ehrenreich have us behave? Life provides its share of cruel and inescapable truths, but despair or denial are surely not the answer. Give me a belief in the power of opportunity any time. |
Works Cited Johnson, Luke. “Why We Need an Optimistic America.” Financial Times 20 Jan. 2010, sec. Business Life: 10. Print. |
Creating Our Future Together with Appreciative Inquiry Introduction The role of the System Office is to provide leadership, support and service to the KCTCS network of colleges in order that those colleges create a positive and significant impact across the state-economically, socially, and environmentally. The coming years will be filled with challenges and opportunities and the success of KCTCS will depend upon its capacity for learning, adapting and innovating. Everyone at KCTCS has the opportunity to play a key role in this endeavor. This six-month AI course is designed to support you. It is not to replace your current skills and strengths, but rather to build upon those and expand your opportunities to be both influential in the future of KCTCS as well as successful in your position. The first step in this process is to take stock of where you are now and where you want to be six-months from now. The following survey includes a number of questions that require you to reflect as you begin the upcoming AI course. It may take you up to an hour to complete. Please take the time to consider the questions before writing your answers. Confidentiality Your answers will be held confidential and seen only by the instructor, Cheri Torres (unless you yourself decide to share your responses with others). Deadline Please complete the survey no later than Thursday, January 28 at noon. This will give the instructor time to take your responses and goals into consideration before the on-site program the following week. Questions If you have questions about the course or this questionnaire, contact Cheri directly: Email: cheri.torres@gmail.com Phone: 865-567-7649 |
Overall Culture Survey Please read the statement and then check the word(s) that indicate how closely you agree with the statement. |
[SURVEYS 4]
Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey.
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Introduction The role of the System Office is to provide leadership, support and service to the KCTCS network of colleges in order that those colleges create a positive and significant impact across the state-economically, socially, and environmentally. The coming years will be filled with challenges and opportunities and the success of KCTCS will depend upon its capacity for learning, adapting and innovating. Management will play a key role in this endeavor. This six-month management course is designed to support you. It is not to replace your current skills and strengths, but rather to build upon those and expand your opportunities to be both influential in the future of KCTCS as well as successful in your position. The first step in this process is to take stock of where you are now and where you want to be six-months from now. The following survey includes a number of questions that require you to reflect as you begin the upcoming management course. This may take you up to an hour to complete. Please take the time to consider the questions before writing your answers. Confidentiality Your answers will be held confidential and seen only by the instructor, Cheri Torres (unless you yourself decide to share your responses with others). Deadline Please complete the survey no later than Thursday, January 28 at noon. This will give the instructor time to take your responses and goals into consideration before the on-site program the following week. Questions If you have questions about the course or the survey, contact Cheri directly: Email: cheri.torres@gmail.com Phone: 865-567-7649 |
Overall Culture Survey
Please read the following statements and then check the word(s) that indicate how closely you agree with the statement. |
[SURVEYS 3]
Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey.
Been a loooong year,” sang John Lennon, as the music faded away on the last track of his 1975 album Rock’n’Roll. This December we know what he meant.
It has been a year of high anxiety. Good news has usually been followed by bad, making it hard (and unwise) to believe that the worst was over. For those who had never experienced it, bumping along the bottom has become a meaningful concept. But let’s not slump into excessive end-of-year doom. Looking ahead, here are three ideas to help business leaders have a happier time in 2010. Having realised there was a problem, Commissioner Kelly took action. Four years ago, NYPD established its Real Time Crime Center, a 24-hour, seven-day data warehouse that provides information and support to detectives who are investigating violent crime. Information is delivered to them at the crime scene. Clear-up rates and speed of operation have both improved significantly. This is what managing with “analytics” can do for you. Successful companies – Google, Amazon, Tesco, Netflix – have got terrifically smart at extracting the right amount of relevant data from their businesses, and making it work for them: finding unexpected, unseen patterns in customer behaviour, and exploiting them. In 2010, it will be time to get serious about managing proliferating data more intelligently. But don’t spend all your time poring over the stuff, because idea number two is going to require putting the spreadsheets down and getting out of the office … When I asked the chief executive of the global recruitment business Manpower, Jeffrey Joerres, about his management style recently, he spoke eloquently about the need to get out of the office and meet people face to face. Being a leader involves a lot more than just sending e-mails and “gazing at charts”, he said. “We are a company of do-ers, and if you have this big chasm between executives and [staff], you have no idea what the challenges are.” Increasingly, the gurus tell us, strategy is execution. In other words, it’s how you do things that matters. Jeff Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, gets it. In a speech at the US military academy West Point two weeks ago, he argued forcefully that business leaders have lost their way. “We are at the end of a difficult generation of business leadership, and maybe leadership in general,” he said. “Tough- mindedness, a good trait, was replaced by meanness and greed, both terrible traits … rewards became perverted,” he added. Large sections of Mr Immelt’s speech could have been written by Ken and Will Hopper, authors of one the most important business books of the past decade, The Puritan Gift. Indeed, in it they salute the GE boss as their kind of leader. The Hoppers’ book emphasises “the importance of a good managerial culture in determining the nature and direction of any society”, as Will Hopper puts it. Good managers master their craft, while also possessing what Mr Immelt calls “domain knowledge” – that is, they know what they are doing in their specific discipline. If only bankers had been better at banking, how much happier we would all be. It has been a long year. With hard work, and after drawing on these ideas, next year could be better. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Resources: Stern, Stefan. “How to Raise Your Game in 2010.” Ft.com. Financial Times, 21 Dec. 2009. Web. 2 Jan. 2010. |
Course DescriptionThis course is designed to increase your capacity to have a positive managerial impact within KCTCS and increase your sphere of influence. It is not a course to teach you about Appreciative Inquiry, collaboration and management; it is more like a practicum to build your understanding and expertise in the management practices that generate full engagement, collaboration, and accountability. In keeping with this, instead of an 18-hour management course condensed into three days, it is an 18-hour management course spread over six months.
The course format supports the implementation of new knowledge and new skills through daily practice, inviting you to accomplish your work in different ways. You should find these practices save you time and effort while they build strong relationships among your team. This mixed media learning course includes on-site training, bi-monthly 30-minute webinars, discussion, teamwork, reading, and practice. All sessions will be highly experiential and engage you in provocative discussions and practical applications of new ideas. You will be challenged to see from different perspectives, increase your curiosity, and to implement new procedures that increase efficiency, effectiveness, and collaboration. Required Reading Following my commitment to honor your busy work schedule, there is limited required reading for the course. A short reading assignment may be emailed to you the week before each webinar. Any reading will also be posted in the Library on our Web-Ex classroom LINK. Additional articles, recommended books, links to videos and relevant websites are listed at the end of this syllabus as well as in our Web-Ex Library LINK. Required Materials and Equipment
On-Site Sessions: Please wear comfortable clothing and rubber-soled, closed toed shoes (like tennis shoes). Bring paper and pen and an Attitude of Inquiry! This part of the course is essential and it will be fun and provocative. Expect to be challenged, surprised, puzzled, and inspired. Webinars: You will need access to the Internet and … Kathy, I need you guys to specify exactly what’s needed here.
Recommended Reading Additional articles, recommended books, videos and website forums are listed at the end of this syllabus as well as on the Web-Ex Library LINK. Course Objectives and Content
This course will increase your capacity to influence staff engagement, accountability, and creativity as your team collaborates to achieve your department or division’s strategic outcomes and support the overall mission of KCTCS. Objectives:
Course Requirements: The lessons in this course build upon one another; therefore, it is important to attend sessions in the order listed on the syllabus and to practice each week’s lessons and engage in the required discussions sequentially. On-site Class: Two half-day morning sessions will provide the essential foundation upon which all other lessons are grounded. These two sessions are mandatory. Bi-monthly Webinars: 30-minute live webinars are offered twice each month. Managers may participate in the webinars at their desk, laptop while traveling, or with their cohort- any place with access to the Internet. Each webinar will consist of:
It is HIGHLY recommended that you attend all of these webinars as live sessions since discussion and Q&A are part of the 30-minute session. It is understandable that there may be an occasional unavoidable conflict with a session. When this occurs, you can view the missed webinar in the Recorded Section of our webinar classroom. Questions can be emailed to me or you can call me. Attendance at a minimum of 75% of the live webinars is required for certification. Recorded webinars must be viewed within a couple of days of the live session so that you have time to practice that week’s lesson before the next webinar. Practice: In between each webinar, you will have the opportunity to practice new ways of working based upon the lesson. After each session there will be specific opportunities/ assignments for the next two weeks. These might be challenging but not difficult. You should find them highly rewarding! Cohorts: You will have the opportunity to learn from, support, coach, and inspire one another through one of two cohort practices-meetings or discussion board. Taking just a few minutes at least every other day to reflect and share how these new practices are impacting you and your team is an essential part of expanding your capacity and that of your colleagues. Feel free to participate in both if you want! (a) Cohort Meetings: For those of you who enjoy getting together with others to talk about your experiences or ask questions, make a plan to meet for coffee or lunch 2-3 times a week (e.g., Monday, Wednesday, Friday). These don’t have to be long meetings, but they should be genuine reflections. A minimum of two meetings per week is required for certification. (b) Discussion Board: For the more introverted managers there is discussion board! Your posts should reflect genuine practice and commitment to one another. A minimum of 3 posts per week is required for certification. Staff Feedback and Exceptional Modeling: The fastest way to grow and build relationships is to ask for feedback. Appreciative Inquiry is a delightful way to request feedback. Once each month you’ll have the opportunity to solicit feedback from your staff (and other colleagues, if you choose). The questions you will ask will speak specifically to your personal goals for this course. You’ll be asking staff for high points, times in the last month when you were succeeding at your goal(s) and how that success impacted their work and engagement with the overall department/division. You’ll also be asking them for specific ideas about what they valued about the way you were managing. Finally, you’ll ask them for suggestions for what else you might do to further your success in meeting your goal(s). Final Report Your final assignment will be to reflect on your 6-month journey. You’ll have the opportunity to do your own personal reflection and to review feedback from your staff and colleagues. You will compile a list of changes you’ve made, results of these changes, and a personal statement about your sense of competence as a manager. Certification At the beginning of the course, you will establish your personal goals for your own management practice along with your commitment to your self and your colleagues in achieving your goals. At the end of the course, you and your colleagues will reflect on your efforts and progress towards your goals. Certification requires full participation in the course, feedback from your colleagues, and your own reflection in achieving your goals:
General Guidelines
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Developed with Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS)
In an effort to immerse Appreciative Inquiry as a planning tool across KCTCS, an opportunity is being created for SO managers and supervisors. As a group that is critical to the overall success of KCTCS becoming AI, employees are invited to enhance their core interpersonal skills, learn additional techniques to manage change and innovation, increase the positive impact they have on KCTCS, and investigate new methods to manage performance. Two Programs: Creating our Future Together with Inquiry-Based Management Creating our Future Together with Appreciative Inquiry Programs Includes: Two days of on-site introduction to Appreciative Inquiry and 6 months of coaching. Coaching will be provided to teams in the form of 30 minute live webinar sessions that are scheduled bi-weekly. These coaching session will enable teams to increase the practice of Appreciative Inquiry in their daily work. |
Program Facilitator: Cheri Torres |
![]() This is the question that motivates Cheri Torres and has her focused on collaboration. Given current global challenges, Cheri uses strengths-based organizational design practices to help clients respond effectively to increasing levels of complexity in their environments and growing demand for innovation and change. Her strategy is to expand collaborative capacity in communities and organizations using Appreciative Inquiry, Sociotechnical Systems Design, and Experiential Learning. She does this by partnering with her clients to intentionally design workplace environments, multi-stakeholder conversations, organizational systems and individual and team training to maximize value for all stakeholders. Her experience has taught her that systems and events that are intentionally designed for collaboration elicit our inherent collaborative capacity, regardless of our differences in background, views, or values. Expanding that capacity through lessons and intentional practice leads to increasing competence in thinking and working together with joy and creativity, resulting in sustainable innovation and ever-evolving excellence. |