Dive into the archives.
- On Learning How
A great “Aha!” in the history of psychotherapy came with the recognition (roughly 50 years ago) that the “lifting” or resolution of emotional disturbance did not mean a necessary turn toward emotional well-being. The effect of the original disturbance had blocked learning. If well-being was to be achieved, productive and healthy experiential learning was essential. [...]
- The First Feedback: Beginning Organizational Inquiry
Listening thoughtfully, the General Manager smiled and said to us, “I understand, now, what you provide is rather like psychotherapy for this organization.” My colleague and I had just presented our feedback to the managerial team. We had interviewed employees in a manner originally called, “a bit informal”, by the GM; but had delivered a [...]
- The Business of Family
Awash in information, we scan the headlines continuously, adjusting our ongoing visions of externalities upon which we depend: politics, economics, and shifts in the markets. We trust the fine attunement of our filtering capabilities to deliver a unified picture of the front pages we consume from multiple sources- sometimes print, sometimes tv, increasingly internet. Our [...]
- The Ghost of a Former Family Business
Business developments expand and contract in harmony with economic developments. From this vantage, the current recession might be likened not so much to the Great Depression, but to more generalized periods of economic contraction. Yet, just as the ghost of the Great Depression has become a media favorite with which all of us must now [...]
- Obama’s Outrage and AIG
Outrage? The New York Times tells us that President Obama’s economic team was “on message” delivering the news that $165 million in AIG bonuses to derivatives traders who helped precipitate AIG’s financial hemorrhage, could not legally be blocked. But the public’s response to the news (“the growing outcry”) caused the President to change tactics, with [...]
- Retirement Tsunami
Those of us who have worked in organizations know that as individuals leave their roles in departments, or on committees, vital knowledge is often lost. With single departures, we find that certain problem dimensions are not addressed. My colleague Angela, for example, paid particular attention to economic trends in the staffing of R&D departments. With [...]
- Daily Maintenance: The Job of Curating
Having spent much of the day at my desk, I look back and reflect on what’s been accomplished. Not much on the face of it. It is clear once again, but won’t remain that way. The bills will once again begin to accumulate, anxiously demanding their due. The receipts and slips from purchases and services [...]
- The Real Shift in Middle Age Development
The current economic climate in the United States serves as a catalyst for a shift in the normative developmental tasks of middle age. The popular twentieth century pattern of career leading to retirement has ended. Partly obscured within the spiraling numbers of unemployed workers of all ages, is the high incidence of professional knowledge workers, [...]
- Organizational Coaching for Individuals During Unemployment
The dialogs between the blog writer and the reader begin in the blog post’s generalization and develop according to increasingly particular themes. These are initially signaled by the reader/respondent who brings them to the essayist’s attention. They are then elaborated through successive pairings of letter and response between correspondents. Thinking about this process along the [...]
- Hearing the Tree Fall In the Forest
Are team consultations, based in accomplishing task goals and sub-goals, possible in the absence of formal organization? The Accord Advisory Group’s StoneSoup Project says, “Yes!” However, the effort requires a catalyst, a common need. In a fast changing world, such imperatives may not be so difficult to find. They present themselves to us in the [...]
