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Aim and Stats
Now in our ninth 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 2008 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, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, 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 Russell Ackoff included 62 partners from across the US (342 joined in for all of 2007, 444 partners joined us throughout 2006, 402 thinking partners joined us throughout 2005).
Yes, Grace, the diffusion process of connecting thought leaders continuuues... |
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Good morning from the west coast home of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, located in Canoga Park, California, on the western end of the San Fernando Valley in greater Los Angeles.
With Valentine's Day (world-wide) and Super Tuesday now behind us (in the U.S.) and the presidential candidates campaigning on the theme of change, it's time to come
together for a few hours of "thinking
together."
This month's
Ongoing Discussion is scheduled for
this Thursday, February 28th and Friday, February 29th,
from 12-2pm Pacific Time on both days.
Information on this month's Thought Leader, Sheldon Rovin, and his topic - Handling Uncertainty, 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.
For those who missed last month's "OD" sessions with Russell Ackoff, or those who joined in and would like to revisit the conversation, follow this link to find the four 1-hour calls posted as mp3 files.
Cheers...
Bill Bellows
Associate Technical Fellow and Lead
Enterprise Thinking Network
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
Canoga Park, California
william.bellows@pwr.utc.com
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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!!!
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Thought Leader - Sheldon Rovin
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's Enterprise Thinking Network welcomes Sheldon Rovin to lead our second Ongoing Discussion of 2008 (and our 98th since January 2000) on February 28th and 29th.
Sheldon's appearance this month represents his second "OD" session with us; his first a year ago on the topic of Boundary-Less Thinking. Since that time, Sheldon has accepted an offer to prepare a monthly column in the In2:InThinking Network's newsletter, as well as appear at the upcoming In2:IN Forum in April. All of this in addition to his position as Emeritus Professor of
Healthcare Systems at the Wharton School of
Business and past Director of Healthcare
Executive Management Programs at Wharton
Executive Education and the Leonard Davis
Institute of Health Economics. He is also
Emeritus Professor and past chair of the
Department of Dental Care Systems, School of
Dental Medicine; all positions at the
University of Pennsylvania. Among the
programs Sheldon directed at the Wharton
School are the Johnson & Johnson-Wharton
Fellows Program in Management for Nurse
Executives, the SmithKline Beecham Executive
Management Program for Directors of Hospital
Pharmacy, the Wyeth Ayerst-Association of
Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics
Program in Management, and the Wyeth
Ayerst-APM Executive Management program for
Chairs of Medicine. Sheldon is a diplomat of
the American Board of Oral Pathology and
holds DDS and MS degrees from the University
of Michigan.
Students of Russell Ackoff will recognize
Sheldon's name for his co-authorship role on
two recent books - Redesigning
Society and Beating
the System: Using Creativity to Outsmart
Bureaucracies. His writings include
over ninety journal articles and book
chapters, and nine books, including Medicine
and Business: Bridging the Gap and Managing
Hospitals: Lessons from the Johnson &
Johnson-Wharton Fellows Program in Management
for Nurse Executives.
In this month's Thought Piece, titled "Handling Uncertainty," Sheldon begins with a brief history of the uncertainty movement at the beginning of the 20th century;
The
world convincingly became uncertain during the first
third or so of the 20th
century. Yes, I'm being facetious,
but only mildly. The work of the
quantum-mechanical
physicists in the 1920's and 1930's made uncertainty
theoretically and practically respectable. Of course,
you and I know the world
was uncertain from the
very first, irrespective of how you think the world came
into being, big bang or otherwise.
Nonetheless, the
work of Max Born, Pascual Jordan, Werner
Heisenberg, Erwin
Schrödenger, and others (The
End of the Certain World) brought
uncertainty to the
surface. No longer
could the worldview be rigidly
deterministic. Now, chance, probability, freedom
and
non-linearity came into play.
Moving on from history, Sheldon offers 9 suggestions
for how to "live and function" under the conditions of uncertainty, each listed below and clarified with specifics in the Thought Piece...
- Be flexible
- Have alternatives
- Accept error
- Accept redundancy; Accept redundancy
- Use creativity and design
- Act reflectively
- Use the wisdom of crowds
- Question assumptions
- Confront fear
Contact Sheldon by email with any questions you would like to share with him in preparation for the OD sessions.
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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, February 28th - 12:00-1:00pm
2 - Thursday, February 28th- 1:00-2:00pm
3 - Friday, February 29th - 12:00-1:00pm
4 - Friday, February 29th - 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, February 27th 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
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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(s)
March 27-28, Bob Dickman & Richard Maxwell
April 24-25, Ariane David
May 28 & 30, Tom Johnson
June 26-27, Cyndi Laurin & Craig Morningstar
Follow this link to find our current list of Thought Leaders for all of 2008, as well as announcements for Thought Leaders in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
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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 February 2008, 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.
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Thinking Roadmap Seminars and Workshops
The following in-house "Thinking Roadmap" seminars and workshops are open to
employees of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR), 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.
Background information on PWR's Thinking Roadmap, in addition to seminar and workshop descriptions and upcoming schedules, can be found in a new addition to the In2:InThinking Network website at www.in2in.org/TR/.
The schedule below includes the next available offerings for the listed seminars in Canoga Park, California.
Contact
Bill Bellows to request additonal information.
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Enterprise Thinking
 Registration Fee - there is NO fee to attend
Format - two 4.5-hour sessions over two days, offered as an in-person event
Presented by: Bill Bellows
Schedule for Enterprise Thinking classes in Canoga Park, CA for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
Class #CP-573
Part 1 - 28-Feb-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Part 2 - 29-Feb-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Class #CP-575
Part 1 - 20-Mar-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Part 2 - 21-Mar-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Class #CP-577
Part 1 - 21-Apr-08 - 12:30-5:00pm
Part 2 - 22-Apr-08 - 8:00-12:30pm
Register to attend Enterprise Thinking
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Six Thinking Hats
 Registration Fee - $165, charged back to participant's department for PWR employees and paid by check for "Members of the Community."
Pre-requisite - attended Enterprise Thinking within the past 12 to 14 months.
Format - one 8-hour session, offered as an in-person event
Presented by: Tim Higgins
Schedule for Six Thinking Hats classes in Canoga Park, CA for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
NEW DATES TBD
Register to receive an announcement for the next Six Thinking Hats seminar in 2008
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Managing Variation as a System
 Registration Fee - there is NO fee to attend.
Pre-requisite - there are NO pre-requisites.
Format - three 3-hour sessions over three
days, offered as an in-person event
Presented by: Joe Onstott
Schedule for Managing Variation as a System
classes in Canoga Park, CA for Pratt & Whitney
Rocketdyne
New Dates TBD
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Kepner-Tregoe Problem Solving and Decision Making
 Registration Fee - $330, charged back to participant's department for PWR employees and paid by check for "Members of the Community."
Pre-requisite - attended Enterprise Thinking within the past 12 to 14 months.
Format - three 8-hour sessions over three weeks, offered as an in-person event
Presented by: Tim Higgins
Suggestion: If you are unable to attend all three sessions in a given monthly series, we encourage you to attend the first session and then attend the second and third in any order during a future monthly series.
Schedule for Kepner-Tregoe classes in Canoga Park, CA for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
New Dates TBD
Register to receive an announcement for the first Kepner-Tregoe seminar in 2008
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The New Economics Study Session
Registration Fee - there is NO fee to attend. A copy of The New Economics is provided to each participant. In addition, this is a toll-free call from the United States and Canada. International participants are welcome to join in as well, provided they do so at their own expense for the conference call.
Pre-requisite - there are NO pre-requisites.
Format - seven 2-hour sessions over three
and a half weeks, offered as a teleconference event
Presented by: Tim Higgins
UPDATE: The next session starts on Monday, February 25th and continues for 7 consecutive Mondays and Wednesdays in a 3-5pm Pacific Time format.
Register now to attend this session or to receive an announcement for the next TNE Study Session in 2008
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