September 2007 Ongoing Discussion Announcement, with Tracy Huston

Ongoing Discussion - September 2007

In This Issue

Welcome First Timers

Thought Leader - Tracy Huston

Future OD Dates

Systems Thinking Newsletter

Thinking Roadmap Seminars and Workshops

Enterprise Thinking

Six Thinking Hats

Managing Variation as a System

Kepner-Tregoe Problem Solving and Decision Making

The New Economcs Study Session

Aim and Stats

Now in our eighth year of operation, the aim of the "OD" sessions is to continue to foster an appreciation of Enterprise Thinking, as well as inthinking, within an emerging thinking network that is developing inside Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and beyond. Dates for future "OD" sessions along with additional "thinking" opportunities for 2007 can be found in this announcement.

OD Stats

For an update on OD statistics, this month's invitation is going out to 3500+ partners in the U.S., as well as fellow inthinking partners in Australia, Austria, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Brazil, Canada, China, Dubai, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the U.K.. Taken together, these individuals represent over 600 organizations in this list of nations, from elementary schools and senior high schools to colleges and universities, from one-person consulting firms to United Technologies, GM, IBM, General Electric, NASA, and Philips Electronics. Among this list of invitees, participation in last month's OD conference call with Michael Iva included 29 partners from across the US (239 have joined us so far in 8 sessions in 2007, 444 partners joined us throughout 2006, 402 thinking partners joined us throughout 2005).

The diffusion process to connect thought leaders continuuues...

Quick Links

In2:InThinking Network Website

In2:InThinking Network Newsletter

Insights

Ongoing Discussions

In2:InThinking Network 2007 Screen Saver

Good morning from Canoga Park, California, home of the California operations for United Technologies' Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.

With the pending 99th anniversary of the production of the first Model T by the Ford Motor Company and the beginning of 20 years of its "one color fits all consumers" production, it's time again to come together for a few hours of "thinking together." This month's Ongoing Discussion is scheduled for Thursday, September 27th and Friday, September 28th, from 11-1pm Pacific Time on Thursday and from 12-2pm on Friday. Information on this month's Thought Leader follows below.

Click here for the PARTICIPANT SURVEY for this month's OD and to receive the conference call information once you complete the survey.

And, in case you missed it, click here for the September 2007 edition of the In2:InThinking Network newsletter.

Cheers...
Bill Bellows

Associate Technical Fellow and Lead
Enterprise Thinking Network
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
Canoga Park, California
william.bellows@pwr.utc.com

Welcome First Timers

Your names have been added to this announcement list by virtue of your attendance in our series of Thinking Roadmap seminars, workshops, and overviews within Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, or attendance at the annual In2:InThinking Network Forum, or through a personal request, from you or a friend. Welcome to our thinking networks.

Click either link below to send me the name(s) and email address(es) of anyone you would like to have added to this mailing list, or let me know if you would like to be removed. Thanks!!!

ADDITIONS DELETIONS

Thought Leader - Tracy Huston

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's Enterprise Thinking Network welcomes Tracy Huston as our ninth Thought Leader for 2007 (and our 93rd since 2000) on September 27th and 28th.

Tracy Huston

In our view, this is an especially meaningful collaboration, as Tracy demonstrates the connection between our Enterprise Thinking Neywork, the In2:InThinking Network and Pegasus Communications. The In2:InThinking Network has a Forum each April in Los Angeles; Pegasus hosts the Systems Thinking in Action conference each November in either Boston or a west coast location. Tracy will present at the 2007 Pegasus Conference in Seattle (November 4-7) and presented at the In2:InThinking Annual 2007 Forum in April. We are grateful to have her for several hours of conversation later this week. Please join us for what promises to be a meaningful conversation about questions that matter.

Tracy's Thought Piece is an essay called "Out of the Woods, Into the Garden." The first sentence of this essay has a flag that should be clear to all systems thinkers. It has the phrase, "breaking the cycle." That is, where in this system can a person or group intervene effectively to make a lasting change, to break the cycle of undesirable behavior and patterns of events. In this case, the cycle of interest is a cycle of decay observed in the city of Detroit. This essay is exceedingly rich in language and content, and we urge each of you to read it, print it out, save it, share it - even if you can't participate in the call this week. You will find it applicable well beyond its immediate subject.

Tracy (and many others) asks: How do you show up in the world? This is a key question for all who would lead. We must reflect on this question, and respond honestly from our hearts. And then, if we are still inclined to lead, we must do the inner work to strengthen our ability to show up. So, the conversation this month could begin with consideration of "how do we show up" and the nature of the inner work we must do to increase this capacity.

Tracy has been supporting large system change and organizational performance since 1988. She is the Founder of Menlo Lab, a network of practitioners and consultants from business, government, and civic groups engaged in supporting whole community transformation. She joined Nissan in 2002 to design their first global executive development program for high-potential leaders, in support of succession and organizational learning objectives. Tracy recently returned to her consulting practice, focusing on leadership development and executive coaching in support of personal and systemic transformation. She continues to support Nissan's executive program through workshop facilitation and coaching, and is Nissan's Liaison Officer to the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL). She is a member of the design team for the SoL-MIT cross-sector innovation project, Emerging Leaders for Innovation Across Systems (ELIAS). Her work has been published in the SoL Reflections journal, and her book, Inside-Out: Stories and Methods for Generating the Collective Will to Create the Future We Want, was published by SoL in early 2007.

Contact Tracy Huston by email with feedback.

OD Details

Please join us for one or all of the hours of this month's OD. As always, you are invited to participate for as long, or as short, as you can in one or both of these sessions...

Option Time (Pacific Time)
1 - Thursday, September 27th - 11:00-12:00pm
2 - Thursday, September 27th- 12:00-1:00pm
3 - Friday, September 28th - 12:00-1:00pm
4 - Friday, September 28th - 1:00-2:00pm

The agenda for each option will be:
Timing: Topic
Opening 10 minutes: Call in & Introductions
Next 45 minutes: Ongoing Discussion
Last 5 minutes: Farewells and Close

Please reply to this note by noon Pacific Time on Wednesday, September 26th to confirm your plans to participate in one (or more) of these options. If you do plan to attend, please complete the OD PARTICIPATION SURVEY by using the link below...

PARTICIPANT SURVEY

Those of you connecting in Canoga Park can join in from conference rooms 205 and 206 in building 1 at Canoga. Telecon lines (including a pass code and a security code) have been arranged for those who cannot join us at Canoga and are provided upon completion of the participant survey.

As always, please forward this announcement to anyone we missed who would also like to participate.

Regards...
Bill

Future OD Dates

Mark your calendars - future Ongoing Discussion sessions will be held on the following dates, from 12-1pm and 1-2pm Pacific Time.

Month, Dates and Thought Leader
October 18-19: Gipsie Ranney
November 15-16 or 19-20: TBD
December 13-14, Steve Haines
January 24-25, Russell Ackoff
February 28-29, Sheldon Rovin
March 27-28, TBD

Obstacles to Creativity
Michael Iva

In addition to sharing his thoughts on the topic of "100 Ways to Kill a Concept", Michael Iva would also like to share his thoughts on the "Major Obstacles to Creativity Thinking - 3.0."

Readers are invited to contact Michael by email with feedback.

Systems Thinking Newsletter

Now available online for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne employees...

The Systems Thinker is an electronic newsletter made available monthly (on a subscription basis) by Pegasus Communications. Each issue provides articles and case studies on systems thinking concepts and is available only electronically (as a .pdf file). Tools and techniques for use in the Learning Organization are regularly included in this valuable publication. Featured authors include thought leaders and consultants well known in organizational learning and change management circles.

The current edition of the SYSTEMS THINKER, as well as archived issues from December 2002 through August 2007, is available for reading and printing by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne employees here.

Network friends outside of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne can learn more about this newsletter AND read a variety of sample issues and articles online. Individual and site licenses are available.

Thinking Roadmap Seminars and Workshops

The following in-house "Thinking Roadmap" seminars and workshops are open to employees of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, as well as suppliers, customers, family members, and "Members of the Community." "Members of the community" are individuals who are involved full or part time, or in a volunteer capacity, in community related work.

This schedules below include the next available offerings for the listed seminars in Canoga Park, California. Contact Bill Bellows to request additonal information.

Enterprise Thinking