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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 4000+ partners in the U.S., as well as fellow inthinking partners in Australia, Austria, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Dubai, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, 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 September's OD conference call with Peter Scholtes and Brian Joiner (now available for download in Mp3 format) included 51 partners from across the US (311 have joined in so far in 2008, 342 joined in for all of 2007, 444 partners joined us throughout 2006, and 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 the end of the U.S. presidential campaign upon us (not to mention the beginning of fire season in southern California), it's time to once again come together for a few hours of "thinking together." This month we feature Lew Rhodes as our Thought Leader on Thursday, October 23rd and Friday, October 24th. Details follows below.
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!!!
ADDITIONS DELETIONS |
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Thought Leader - Lew Rhodes
This month, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's Enterprise Thinking Network welcomes a long-time Ongoing Discussion participant, Lew Rhodes, as our Thought Leader on Thursday, October 23rd and Friday, October 24th. Lew will share with us a rich body of work - his own story of a "thinking-about-thinking journey that took me from consideration of what we think and how we think to why we think." Lew's story focuses on his extensive experience with and well-steeped wisdom around the American system of education. It's a powerful story that draws on the thinking of W. Edwards Deming, Lloyd Dobbins, Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan, the Sufi blind men, Sabu the Elephant Boy, Peter Drucker, Russ Ackoff, Margaret Wheatley, Peter Senge, and many other thinking partners. 
Many of us have observed and perhaps participated in "common sense solutions" applied to education - rewards for teachers, more accountability (punishment) for teachers, more money, more data to analyze, and so on. And we've seen the hoped-for results seldom prove to be scaleable and sustainable. Things don't turn out the way we planned - the behavior of these systems seems to be counterintuitive. Lew asks - why doesn't common sense seem to work any more? Part of the answer, Lew suggests, lies in understanding the nature of interdependent interactions among the parts of a school - or any - system.
Please invite your friends and colleagues who work in education to join the conversation this month. Just forward this announcement and remind them to complete the survey in order to receive the conference call numbers.
"We fix the blame, and not the process...because we don't know how the work gets done." Myron Tribus made this prescient statement over 30 years ago on an ABC News Special on American Productivity. The October Ongoing Discussion and Thought Piece will focus on how much has changed in this Deming-based observation about barriers to rethinking the work of individuals in organizational work-settings. To prime your mental pumps for reading and discussing, please consider these questions:
Who (in your own organization, community, or school) knows how Deming's System of Profound Knowledge could be applied to improve our organizations? If this knowledge is known by some, why isn't it to others? Instead of asking "Why don't they know it?," can we ask, "Can they learn it?" and "Can we help?"
Most of us in the West are products of a common thinking-shaping experience - Schooling. Though we emerged from it with varying degrees of success, can we agree on the common core nature of that organization's work? ...What it is, ...who does it, and ...how and where it all has to fit together? What do you think? What is the core nature of the work that the organization exists to support? And, what are the products of that core work? Who does it? Can they each do it alone?
Lew's career as association executive, consultant to federal and state government, director of national projects for foundations and government, private sector consultant, and as university faculty member has centered on problems that arise when people try to work together effectively in organizations. He has served as consultant to the U.S. Department of Education, Secretary of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Endowments for the Arts and for the Humanities, as well as numerous state and local education agencies.
In recent years, his efforts have focused on issues of systemic leadership and management for schools and other community human service organizations. Currently he is a principal of SABU, Inc., offering
thinking partnerships that deal with problems of organizations as coherent, connected systems. This work integrates principles of collaborative knowledge-building and quality management with information technologies to develop sustainable infrastructures that can support schools as they transform from organizations of natural learners into natural learning organizations. Please see his full bio at the end of his Thought Piece.
Contact Lew by email (LewRhodes@aol.com)
with any questions you would like to share with him in preparation for his OD session with us. |
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, October 23rd - 12:00-1:00pm
2 - Thursday, October 23rd - 1:00-2:00pm
3 - Friday, October 24th - 12:00-1:00pm
4 - Friday, October 24th - 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, October 22nd 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)
November 20-21, Joel & Michelle Levey
December 10-11, George Roth (NEW DATES for George)
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 September 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/. Links to descriptions for each session are embedded in the titles below.
The schedule below includes the next available offerings for the listed seminars in Canoga Park, California.
Contact
Bill Bellows to request additonal information.
Note that the dates below are subject to change. Follow this link to find the latest updates to our schedule.
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Enterprise Thinking
 Registration Fee - there is NO fee to attend
Prerequisites - there are NO prerequisites
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-589
Part 1 - 23-Oct-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Part 2 - 24-Oct-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Class #CP-591
Part 1 - 20-Nov-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Part 2 - 21-Nov-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Class #CP-593
Part 1 - 18-Dec-08 - 7:00-11:30am
Part 2 - 19-Dec-08 - 7:00-11:30am 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."
Prerequisite - 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
Class #CP-53
19-Nov-08 - 8:00-5:00pm
Register to attend Six Thinking Hats
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Lateral Thinking
 Registration Fee - $120, charged back to participant's department for PWR employees and paid by check for "Members of the Community."
Prerequisite - attended Enterprise Thinking within the past 12 to 14 months
Format - two 8-hour sessions, offered as an in-person event
Presented by: Tim Higgins
Schedule for Lateral Thinking classes in Canoga Park, CA for Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
Next class not scheduled
Contact Bill Bellows to attend the next Lateral Thinking seminar |
Managing Variation as a System
 Registration Fee - there is NO fee to attend.
Prerequisite - there are NO prerequisites
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
Class #MVS-92
8:00-11:00am for each session below
Part 1 - 10-Nov-08
Part 2 - 12-Nov-08
Part 3 - 14-Nov-08
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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."
Prerequisite - attended Enterprise Thinking within the past 12 to 14 months
Format - three 7-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
Next class not scheduled
Contact Bill Bellows to attend the next Kepner-Tregoe seminar
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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.
Prerequisite - there are NO prerequisites
Format - seven 2-hour sessions over three and a half weeks, offered as a teleconference event
Presented by: Tim Higgins
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