Shall we feast on our lives in 2013?

Wednesday December 12, 2012 I love poetry and want to take this opportunity to wish a great 2013 to all my friends who read this blog. I want to do it with the verses of Derek Walcott, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, the first Caribbean writer to receive the honor. I use his poems in my work with groups and find his verses graceful and energetic at the same time. This one touches on the theme of getting to know ourselves without reservations, with loving care and an open heart.  Enyoy! To your personal homecomings! "Love After Love" The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. - Derek Walcott

Can you Stay in the Questions?

Wednesday November 14, 2012 I came across again this lovely quote of Rainer Maria Rilke from "Letters to a Young Poet". Those are words of wisdom, shared with a man  - the young poet - confused about his future, having to choose between a military career or the life of the artist...I wanted to share these words with you. "... if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge. You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within you the possibility of creating and forming, as an especially blessed and pure way of living; train yourself for that -- but take whatever comes, with great trust, and as long as it comes out of your will, out of some need of your innermost self, then take it upon yourself." I'm trying to figure out what "Live the questions now" means for me right now. What does it mean for you? What does it mean for your organization? What would happen if those questions were finally asked? What would be like for your organization to live the questions? Adriano Pianesi | ParticipAction Consulting Inc.

 

The answer to HOW is ....WHO.

Wednesday October 10, 2012 Asking questions gives such a powerful leverage in some organizations, and yet the ability to ask critical questions and to listen might not be considered critical organizational capabilities. Why is that? Organizations assume that employees do not need to learn how to listen and/or how to ask questions. And those are - in my opinion - two of the greatest delusions organizations live by. I see constantly organizations struggling with complexity, that same complexity that requires more listening in order to uncover new perspectives. An inquiring heart that allows one to ask the right questions: nothing is more critical in the workplace. Two very bad lessons... The quality of our listening to each other is not great. We are usually focused on our impressions, interpretations, perspective, and opinions of what and whom we are listening to. We are often unable to create the silence and the internal "clearing" that empties "the cup of our being" to refill it with the speaker's. Yet we were terrific at doing this as children. Think about the complete focus of a child on every single word as you tell him a story. Think about the questions children ask: what does it mean to be free? Why are people poor? How expensive is a tree?.. And many of our questions go for the techniques, steps, formulas that will deliver us—never for the intent, or the bigger picture, or the meaning of it all... Yet we used to be great at doing both as children. Think about  the complete focus of a child on every single word of yours as you tell him a story...and think about the questions children ask: what does it mean to be free? Why are people poor? How expensive is a tree?... Somewhere, somehow we learned two very bad lessons: 1 That listening is not communicating. 2 That solving problems is not about asking great questions. Deep down we have the capacity to ask deep, great questions. We have the capacity for deep, emphatic listening. It is available to us right now. Not tomorrow, not after practice, not after attending this class. We haven't forgotten, we simply do not remember it anymore. And we need to be reminded of that. Today, will I have the courage to be myself? We can bring back this ability to really talk and to really listen if we want to. It's all about our willingness to notice. And ultimately it's about a much bigger question—about how we decide to be in the world. Not just at work but everywhere. It's about answering the key question: Who am I? For this reason the answer to the HOW question (how to do something) is WHO. The question we should always ask, especially when we learn a new technique or skill, is actually "Who am I? Who do I decide to be today? How will I be myself in the world? How will I show up to meet the many challenges of the workplace? Today, will I have the courage to use this new skill and to be myself doing so in a world that tries constantly to make me anybody else? Go ahead. Remember. And answer.

The Groan Zone: Can You Get Comfortable?

Wednesday September 19, 2012 A letter I sent to my students some time ago touches on the important issue of frustration during group work. How can we learn to be more comfortable in the "groan zone"—that time in group work where the conversation seems all over the place? "…As we discussed, we identified several issues that had prevented the group from making real progress as far as sharing and building new knowledge. The first issue that all of you have identified is the lack of purpose and the frustration that this causes you. Frustration comes from the Latin word frustra, which means 'useless.' I ask: was that moment in the conversation really useless? Is the frustration with the apparent lack of purpose of that part of the conversation simply the inability to deal with the time in group work called the 'groan zone'? Let me recap: we were talking about something very important. The questions on the floor were: • Is authority tasked to do the work of change? • What is the job description of a change agent? • What role is most effective to play in an organization in order to change it? All great points on very juicy issues. Yes, I could have intervened and told you =my opinions, but would that have helped? Paradoxically, I am not so interested in the content here, but more in developing the ability of each and every one of you to 'learn how to learn' from a group discussion. So the question becomes: what are ways in which we can manage the frustration of the groan zone in service of more effective group work? Three things to do to thrive in the "Groan Zone" I have suggested that you bring a different attitude to the conversation, that you slow it down by paraphrasing each other's point ('John, so you are saying that……' 'Liz, your point is' …. 'Have I missed something?') and that you work to acknowledge reality first and foremost. Different attitude. Would you rather win or learn? The point of a competitive discussion is "I win, you lose." If we bring to the conversation a different purpose ("I learn, you learn"), what would happen then? How do we change this? With intellectual humility. I would love to see this in action in our class! Without renouncing to advocating our own positions all together, but mixing it with them! Slow down the conversation. A second thing might be to recognize our defensiveness in action. We talked about the ladder of inference. Conflict is often the result of people dueling at high level of inferences and never recognizing that they do that. Catch yourself being hurt, cover up that you are being hurt, and creating a reaction to all this with a statement. This added level of awareness to your action is sure to be the best leadership lesson you might have learned in our class. Reality first. Ultimately making a difference by taking on a tough problem to make progress is done acknowledging reality. We have to acknowledge the forces at play in reality, the role that we all play in making it so, name a different reality and – in courageous conversations - calling spade a spade. This act is in itself a needed act of leadership in today's organizations. On this subject, here is a nursery rhyme from Dylan's book that describe what I am saying here: "There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile, He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile. He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse. And they all lived together in a little crooked house." Aren't today organizations so often "little crooked houses"? Leaders need to acknowledge the true reality of the organizations where they operate. Do not become "crooked" because you work in a "crooked organization". Reality first.

Does absence of criticism stimulate or hinder creativity?

Wednesday August 29, 2012 Alex Osborn, a partner in the famed advertising agency BBDO published a book in in 1948 called Your Creative Power. In a chapter on "How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas," he wrote: "Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it in the bud," We all know the rules: no criticism or negative feedback. Brainstorming seems like an ideal technique, a feel-good way to boost productivity. But there is a problem. Brainstorming doesn't work. In a test at Yale University in 1958 solo students competing against a brainstorming group came up with roughly twice as many solutions as the brainstorming groups. Psychologists have summarized the science: "Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas." But if brainstorming doesn't work, the question still remains: What's the best template for group creativity? Want Something Novel? Turn Up the Heat Most research and advice suggest that the best way to come up with good solutions is to come up with many solutions. Freewheeling is welcome; but researchers added that when the "debate" condition "is added as a rule – not just don't be afraid to say anything that comes to mind even if is critical of someone ideas, but you should debate and criticize each other's ideas – things improve dramatically. Most studies suggest that. When a group received no further instructions on the process of generating ideas, leaving them free to collaborate however they wanted, the results were telling: the brainstorming groups slightly outperformed the groups given no instructions, but teams given the debate condition were the most creative by far. On average, they generated nearly 20 percent more ideas. And, after the teams disbanded, another interesting result became apparent. Researchers asked each subject individually if he or she had any more ideas about the topic debated. The brainstormers and the people given no guidelines produced an average of three additional ideas; the debaters produced seven. Those studies suggest that the ineffectiveness of brainstorming is due to the very thing that Osborn thought was most important. Is imagination inhibited by the merest hint of criticism? Apparently it can thrive on conflict! According to number of studies, dissent stimulates new ideas because it encourages us to engage more fully with the work of others and to reassess our viewpoints. This weird notion that the most important thing to do when working together is stay positive and get along, to not hurt anyone's feelings is just wrong. Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will always be more productive. True creativity requires some trade-offs. The template for group creativity I have always thought that criticism – and conflict - allows people to dig below the surface of the imagination and come up with collective ideas that aren't predictable. And recognizing the importance of conflicting perspectives in a group raises the issue of what kinds of people will work together best. So the misconception behind brainstorming is that there is a particular script we should all follow in group interactions. But when the composition of the group is right—enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways—the group dynamic will take care of itself. All these errant discussions add up. In fact, they may even be the most essential part of the creative process. Although such conversations will occasionally be unpleasant—not everyone is always in the mood for small talk or criticism—that doesn't mean that they can be avoided. Hard to admit, but we have been wrong for so long – pleasant brainstorming sucks. The best template for group creativity is an open conversation and a reasonable degree of diversity of opinions. When I read these studies a long time ago, those ideas changed my concept of what creativity and innovation were all about. I hope they can be helpful to you too. Adriano Pianesi | ParticpAction Consulting, Inc.

Logging on, dialing in and ...dozing off in your webinars?

Wednesday July 25, 2012 I used to hate webinars: just plainly boring affairs where we log on, dial in and ...doze off. You probably know about this kind of webinars. You may have attended a few yourself. Perhaps you found them boring and un-engaging, with no chance to interact or ask questions to a guarded speaker. Did the speaker drone on as you – yes, you! – checked your email? Good news: we are not talking about that kind of webinar. Yes: there is another way! Why "THE ART OF ONLINE HOSTING"? As a facilitator, a trainer and an adjunct professor working primarily face‐to-face, I have noticed that the one‐way nature of most webinars and web conferences misses an opportunity to engage an audience and draw on the wisdom of the group as well as the knowledge of the guest speaker, salesperson or instructor.                                                                                                             As the use of web conferencing extends to management training and leadership development, interactive workshops and collaborative meetings, the requirements of webinars shift from pushing information out to pulling ideas and knowledge in through many‐to‐many collaboration and interaction. This requires a new look at the design and facilitation of webinars and the technology tools used to deliver them. This requires a shift from Powerpoint to POWERFUL. From presenters to hosts. Face‐to‐face workshops employ a wide range of collaborative learning techniques from case study analysis and group problem solving to role plays, inquiry circles and brainstorming.  Unfortunately as training programs and workshops have moved online they have become less interactive, limited by assumptions about technology choices and participant engagement. What are the opportunities of "LEADERSHIP 2.0"? The opportunity presented by a more interactive and collaborative approach to webinars is to reclaim the many learning methods used in face‐to‐face workshops and adapt them for a virtual environment. In addition, we can take the opportunity that web conferencing technology offers as a chance to redefine the meaning of learning together, of being an educator, and of being in the world. I see interactive webinars as an opportunity for more learning, shorter meetings, greater participation, and more ongoing collaboration. But also as an opportunity to update the work of learning (and teaching) as we know it, online and offline; as an invitation to join in defining the new exciting possibilities of "Leadership  2.0" ... Check out our new website for The Art of Online Hosting

Is Good Teaching Servant Leadership?

Thursday June 7, 2012 "Good teaching cannot be equated with technique. It comes from the integrity of the teacher"  - Parker Palmer If you are active in the search of your own philosophy of the teaching-learning process read this piece written some 150 years ago. I find it refreshingly current. A Point of View on Teaching "... if real success is to attend the effort to bring a man to a definite position, one must first of all take pains to find HIM where he is and begin there. This is the secret of the art of helping others. Anyone who has not mastered this is himself deluded when he proposes to help others. In order to help another effectively, I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him. If, however, I am disposed to plume myself on my greater understanding, it is because I am vain or proud, so that at bottom, instead of benefitting him, I want to be admired. But all true effort to help does not mean to be a sovereign but to be a servant, that to help does not mean to endure for the time being the imputation that one is in the wrong and does not understand what the other understands . . . For to be a teacher does not mean simply to affirm that such a thing is so, or to deliver a lecture, etc. No, to be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it ." Soren Kierkegaard, The Journal, 1864

How can you leverage Peer Coaching in your workplace?

Wednesday May 16, 2012 It can be seen as untapped resource in any organization and as an effective cost-reduction strategy. Peer coaching is like a special kind of friendship, providing a structure for personal development and growth. Found in many forms and used in multiple situations, the idea is simple; rather than hire an expensive external consultant, a peer coach can: ·         Walk beside new hires until they are up to speed, sharing his or her knowledge of the organization's processes and culture; ·         Show the ropes to a person with a less-than-stellar record of achievement for a given period of time, focusing on those areas that they have jointly identified as needing attention; ·         Stand by employees being groomed for greater management responsibilities and teach them how to give feedback and supervise others, modeling the expectations for supervisors or managers in real work situations; ·         Support a colleague in solving a problem by sharing experiences which can lead to skill building and increased awareness. In any of these scenarios, confidential peer coaching can serve as a useful process through which two or more professional colleagues work together to reflect on current practices; expand, refine, and build new skills; share ideas; teach one another; or solve problems. It is built around the philosophy of learn-teach-learn, and can be implemented at a very low cost, without tapping scarce training funds. One must wonder: Why isn't peer coaching adopted more widely and consistently in business and non-profit organizations and government agencies? Is it too good to be true? What obstacles reduce the impact of Peer Coaching? Peer coaching is not without its challenges. The objections or issues that I've encountered in the organizations I have worked with go like this: "The peer coach is busy!" Peer coaches have their own jobs to do.  When coaching, they may feel pressure to get back to work. Because of this, peer coaches might take short cuts, present incomplete information, or neglect altogether the needs of their coachees. At other times, busy peer coaches might forget something, or not fully recognize as part of their job the need to provide emotional support when their coachees are challenged by difficult tasks.  "The peer coach is not a coach!" Much of what a coachee learns is dictated by the peer coach's own way of working. But if the peer coach cannot clearly communicate with the coachee, it may lead to greater confusion. Knowing a subject matter does not guarantee being able to share it clearly and understandably with others.   "The peer coach is not able to connect with the staff member!" In organizations with dispersed offices, it might be hard for some peer coaches to reach the staff members they are working with. This is especially true when there is no room available or no administrative support for the coaching program.   Three ways to add value to Peer Coaching with technology Peer coaches can easily boot up their skills and use the latest technology to gain efficiency in working with their peers. Here are three strategies that I have successfully used to improve the quality of a peer coaching program: 1. Build mini e-learning modules. This can ensure consistent delivery of critical information while compressing the time to learn and reducing demand on the peer coach. Consistent messaging delivered through an intentional training design also allows you to review and assess the learner's understanding and progress with built-in measurements. 2. Create virtual training rooms by subject matter. If your peer coaching program relies exclusively on the phone or on Skype, you are undermining its effectiveness. By using a web conferencing system, you can minimize duplication of effort and share information more quickly. The system will enable you to use the same rich-media meeting room  again and again for the same topic. In other words, you do the work once and set up several meeting rooms, each on a particular topic, uploading relevant files, creating polls, etc.  When it's time for a session, the peer coach and the coachee together simply access the room devoted to that subject. 3. Encourage the use of an "Online Learning Journal." This creates a personal bridge between online and face-to-face coaching; something the learner always has access to. Besides helping with knowledge transfer, note-taking encourages reflection in action and often results in powerful insights. Learners can use checklists to record what they've learned as they advance. This can serve as a progress report for the learner, the peer coach, and his or her supervisor, enhancing the level of accountability in the program. Last but not least: Train your coaches in effective coaching techniques. The best peer coaching programs include a coach development component. Coaches should learn to use deep, probing questions as a way to review what was learned and assess the person's understanding, while encouraging further inquiry on a given topic. In supporting self-assessment, the coach might plant a seed of reflection and self-improvement that can go well beyond the peer coaching program. Adriano Pianesi and Anne Kelly | ParticipAction Consulting, Inc.

Can you talk politics with someone of a different party and still have fun?

Wednesday April 4, 2012 My mother-in-law was adamant: in good company, you do not discuss politics or religion. I had been living in the US for only a few years and those words seemed most curious to me, almost as curious as the word "controversial." (I distinctly remember asking my friend Val; "What does the word controversial mean?") Why? Where I'm originally from everything is "controversial" (and perfectly fine) and all people do is talk about politics and religion (and this is also ok). That's why this post is about your ability to have a political discussion with someone who doesn't agree with a word you say: Can you do it? Even better, can you do it and have fun? As we enter more squarely into this election year with a political system that many experts say is more polarized than ever before in history, I hope you find this topic interesting. One Simple Condition of Success This has nothing to do with the fact that I teach conflict resolution: I have been guilty myself of, ahem, unproductive political conversations. Eventually I realized that, unless the conversation has one necessary (but hardly sufficient) condition the effort is not likely to be successful. I've learned that context is key. Ideally you need to be sitting at a lunch table. And somewhere between your tagliatelle with porcini mushroom and eggplant parmesan, you can try talking about any controversial topic from abortion, to gay marriage, to animal rights. After all what do we really, really know about politics? So, give it a try: you and your lunch companion might end up agreeing on some matters. For instance, about what wine to drink and whether or not take another portion before the next round of pasta. But be warned: what will make your lunch memorable—besides the food— will be how deeply you will disagree, and how congenially. You run the risk of laughing a lot. Hopefully each of you will be able to finish your sentences. Isn't that nice? How satisfying is talking politics with people who agree with everything you say? Isn't what dazzles in these different conversations the slow realization that by talking with a person with dissimilar ideas reminds you of what you hold dear and firmly believe? So here are the ground rules: ·         Make sure you pay attention to the context (i.e. there's good food on the table or at least a congenial atmosphere). ·         Think about what the other person has to say. ·         Try like hell to listen rather than to talk. (The food will help!) Adriano Pianesi | ParticipAction Consulting, Inc.

Why is Engagement so Hard to Generate in Group?

Wednesday March 14, 2012 What are the cornerstone principles of engagement when working with groups? The same headache always arises. It doesn't matter if you are working to lead a group in an action learning set, a strategic planning session or in a teambuilding retreat: the principles of engagement are elusive, making this work an art more than a technique. Its tentative, improvisational, error-prone nature reminds us of the experience of "flow"... but doesn't' help us clarify it. I see groups as living systems and my work through the lens of service to the whole.  As such sometimes I wonder:  Why should I create engagement? What is engagement really telling me about the group? If I interpret engagement as success, whose success am I talking about? Mine? What if – more humbly – I simply focus on knowing what is really going on "deeply" in a group, drop my concern, and stop influencing a group towards engagement? What if I try to work on a deeper awareness of where the group is instead? With this perspective, I have found that my observation skills are greatly improved if I work with the concept of the four "flows." Inspired by David Sibbet, those are great and simple ways I use to improve my awareness and my ability to diagnose what is really happening in a group. back to top The Four Flows While working with groups is not a mathematical equation that can be solved in a distinct way, I believe that raising the quality of my awareness in groups is possibly the best and most honest help I have to offer. The four flows of Operations, Communication, Energy and Intuition can help you do it. The flow of OPERATION concerns all the logistical, control-oriented parts of a process, all the decisions, commitments, and constraints of the work:  design choices made with the client, methodologies , time allocations, agenda, recording equipment, room set-up, the invitation sent to attendees. In other words this is the ground zero of the work, the one that, if done right, frees your attention and energy for more important things. To manage this flow you need to be effective in coordinating and planning the session. Key questions: ·         What work before the session will contribute to the success of the meeting? ·         Have I embraced all the constraints of this work as an opportunity for creativity? The flow of COMMUNICATION concerns all the information, stated meeting roles and objectives, expectations, reflections, critical thinking, languages, artifacts, graphic recordings, and all the explicit communication taking place in a session. In other words this is the domain that is most visible and is where people pay most attention in meetings. To manage this flow you need to stay focused on the processing of the group as well as on the information being shared. Key questions: ·         Is everyone on the same page? ·         What do we need to unlearn to proceed? ·         Are we learning together? The flow of ENERGY concerns feelings, emotions, excitement, frustrations, and so on. This flow is hard to manage as it ebbs and flows through the pace of the sessions and the physical movements of the people. To manage this flow you need to be in it yourself or be on the sidelines creating opportunities for its movement through structured experiences. Key questions: ·         What's the feel of this group right now? ·         Where is the quality and direction of it? ·         What is the quality of participation? The flow of INTUITION concerns the intention, attention, and consciousness of the work in group. To manage this flow you need to be aware and centered in the complex field of a group in session. Done right this flow has the power to inspire, direct, and move group attention.  Key questions:  ·         Am I being present for this group right now or am I hiding/overpowering? ·         Am I open to the possibilities of this group without judgment? ·         Is the group tapping into its own collective intelligence? There you have it! I hope you find this helpful for your day-to-day work in teams and groups. I look forward hearing from you.

Why Do We, As Leaders, Tend to Apply the Wrong Solutions?

Tuesday January 17, 2012 In my leadership classes I often ask people what they think leadership is about. The answer is often something like, "Leadership is about solving problems and making good decisions." If for so many people leadership is about problem solving and decision making, then it might be helpful for all of us to identify the kind of problems that calls for leadership and, more importantly, what kind of solutions - longer term solutions vs. quick fixes - leaders tend to use to address those problems. Here are four examples of problems leaders might face: ·         #1: a co-worker is unable to do his share of work in a team project ·         #2: a software system has a different rate of adoption across different departments ·         #3: a CEO realizes that her company's traditionally most-profitable product is rapidly losing market share to its main competitors ·         #4: a local non profit struggles in establishing its first fund-raising annual campaign. Which of these problems require a quick fix and which a deeper change? Quick Fixes Vs. Deep Change Some problems cause disturbances that trigger certain responses. If we have the knowledge, the expertise and the cultural assumptions to deal with those problems, the action resolves the problem by providing the solution. In these situations distress is alleviated fairly quickly because it is within the know-how of the organization to solve. • in #1: the boss can talk to the coworker • in #2: the department heads can be asked by the top person to use the system more • in #3: the CEO can quickly develop a new marketing campaign to counter-attack its competitors and address the losing market share • in #4: the local non-profit can let go the current fund-raising director and hire a new one. All those actions can very well bring a solution in a relatively short period of time. And leaders are often under pressure to provide those fixes. They often do because responsiveness is understood as a measure of good leadership: the faster the fix, the more respected the leader. However consider what issue is left untouched in those good solutions: • in #1: how can every team ensure accountability in the process of working together on a project? • in #2: what are ways to develop a more customer-focused software development process? • in #3: how can we be more responsive to changing customer's needs? • in #4: in what ways can we make the culture of this organization more results-oriented? Many problems come bundled; they need quick fixes as well as longer terms solutions. Leaders' overuse of quick fixes can be deleterious. Why? Because when a more complex problem comes - one that requires deeper work and one where the distress doesn't go away quickly - a dependency on quick fixes makes people see their leaders as ineffective. They also see themselves as spectators rather than part of the solution. Engaging in Complex Problem Solving for Deep Change Whether they are called "adaptive challenges" or "wicked problems" or "swamps," many problems people deal in organizations are complex, and often resistant to quick fixes. When an issue - addressed before without success - explodes in a sudden crisis, causing a state of conflict, those are all indicators of problems that need a longer-term solution. These are issues that require for people to learn new ways. They require experimentation and patience because the organization currently does not have the know-how to fix it quickly. Exercising leadership in these situations requires keeping people focused on the ongoing efforts, the ongoing behavioral and aptitudinal change. When a more complex problem comes, leaders must engage in a different conversation, one that requires people to take responsibility, to learn new ways, and to allow solutions to emerge from a collective undertaking. In this work as leaders we need to keep people - often over a long period of time - in a "productive state of disequilibrium." This is a place that allows for people to be engaged while solving the problem without shortcuts, but also without such a level of discomfort that they are not working productively together. Our job as leaders or as people in a position of authority is to frame the right questions for which answers are discovered over time by the collective intelligence of all the people involved. Adriano Pianesi | ParticipAction Consulting, Inc.