Week #6-- Just Do It! Facing Fears and WL Gore & Culture

We hope you enjoyed the class and found it useful. Feel free to share your thoughts about the Fear Circle exercise—- we did not have sufficient time to fully “debrief” the experience. Many thanks to Carol, Sandra and Nhu-Y for propelling us so effectively through the Gore case. If you want to press further learning about the company, you might try watching the video of CEO Terri Kelly speaking at MIT:
http://video.mit.edu/watch/nurturing-a-vibrant-culture-to-drive-innovation-9405/

You now have some new “tools” to deal with stress in your life:

1) The Three Stressors: categorize for clarity and forward action.
2) Moving toward your fear: speak it out loud, then re-frame it. What would breakthrough look like? What will it take?

Try using these tools and following your live-with, JUST DO IT!, this week in order to take action on both your course challenge and other points of stress. How can you get enough clarity, so that you can take appropriate actions?

Regarding WL Gore and company culture, please post any ideas that you have.

The Ray chapter introduces the Relationship Challenge. You can comment on this if you wish.

Also, if you are not familiar with Whole Foods, try to visit one... and read the case

Have a great week,
Julie & Hal

Week #5-- Do Only What You Love; Love What You Do and Leading Innovation (IDEO)

We hope you are having fun with this Live-With and will post your experiences below. Please also share your thoughts about matching how you spend your time with your values, goals and what you love to do. Go for progress, not perfection... Remember the “Love-to-Do Commitment” you have made. How is it progressing?

We covered a lot of material about IDEO and we encourage you to share any reactions or questions that were stimulated. Based on the video and the discussion, you can share some ideas and comments about this company? What are some of the concepts that might be useful for YOU in your own organization?

Finally, have you made any progress with seeking (through interviews) insights about, “How might we help people access their creativity?


Have a great week.
Hal and Julie

PS: sorry this post was opened so late...

Personal Journey-- "Progress Sharing"

Group:

Julie suggested we open a place for comments and reflections on your progress with your Personal Challenge.

You have had a couple weeks and quite possibly "see" the challenge in a different light than when you started this process of working on it.

Since there may well be a commonality of experience, please use this heading as a place where you can share your adventures in addressing the challenge.

(As always, if there is something you wish to send directly to Julie or Hal, rather than post, you are encouraged to do so.)

Press on,

Julie & Hal

Week #4-- Ask Dumb Questions & Leadership

Dear Group:
...

Please accept any weird comments below because I am opening this next week before we hold the class. (I-- Hal-- am out of town for the rest of the week.)


Please share your experiences as you work with dumb or powerful questions. How did people react to your authentic curiosity and questions? Let us know about your feelings as you frame the questions-- for example, what is the role of the VOJ? How about the reaction? Did you get your answer and maybe more?

You can even try questions with strangers-- so long as you genuinely want to know the answer. Many of us REALLY like to share of knowledge if someone asks and is interested...

What have you found?

LEADERSHIP--
We covered a lot of material about leadership and we encourage you to share any reactions or questions that were stimulated.

Any thoughts and observations about:
++ Management Mindsets
++ Emotional Intelligence
++ Aesthetic Intelligence
++ Integrative Thinking

Which of the ideas seem like they will be useful for you now and in the future?

FINALLY, we went through the d.School innovation process in preparation for your watching the IDEO video. I also suggested that after we have seen and discussed IDEO, we can consider whether there is interest in trying to work through a "design challenge" as part of the secoond half of the course. Any thoughts and ideas can be incorporated into next week's class conversation.

Have a great week,
Hal & Julie

PS: Here is the link to the video (also on the Moodle page if this does not work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taJOV-YCieI

Week #3 - Precise Observation: Pay Attention! and CoolBurst

Welcome back to our "Creativity Café", a place to chat and share... So, now you are in week three of our class and, we imagine, getting the hang of these live-withs. You've had time to experiment with Have No Expectations and Relax the VOJ. Our new live-with, Pay Attention, builds on these first two. You are becoming familiar with your own creative process and with the influence of your VOJ. When you have a deeper awareness of both, you begin to be more open to the world around you, and the world inside you. This week, we invite you to pay attention to both worlds. Listen, see, taste, touch and smell with precise observation, as a young child filled with wonder, a scientist absorbed in research, or an alien who has just landed on earth and is seeing things for the first time. Shake things up! Travel a different route, eat different foods, talk with strangers - do anything you can to have a “foreign experience”, as if you are a traveler in a new world, because in reality you are. In every moment, life is changing right before your eyes. So, get out there, and in there, and Pay Attention. Julie suggested the Color walk-- where you focus on seeing just one color in the world around you. If you jog a route for exercise, Hal suggests you go in the opposite direction and observe how different it looks/feels. Then come back here to fill us in on all the wonder-filled moments you have experienced. You could share thoughts about the Crossing the Ravine exercise and whether/how it provided personal insight. We discussed the CoolBurst case study in Monday's class, with five excellent presentations that covered the case. If you did not share your views, it is not too late. What do you think Luisa should do? How much must she change HERSELF??? Please share with us here any questions, thoughts, etc. that will help us all to get more out of this interesting case study. Have a great week, Julie and Hal