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Aim and Stats Now in our fifteenth year of operation, the aim of the "OD" and "BTA" sessions is to continue to foster an appreciation of InThinking within an emerging network that is developing inside Aerojet Rocketdyne and beyond. Dates for future "OD" and "BTA" sessions along with additional "thinking" opportunities for 2014 can be found in this announcement. OD + BTA Stats
For an update on OD and BTA statistics, this month's invitation is going out to 1900+ partners in the U.S., as well as fellow InThinking partners in Australia, Austria, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Chile, Dubai, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, 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 GenCorp, United Technologies, GM, IBM, General Electric, NASA, Bechtel, Kuwait Energy Company, Philips Electronics, and The Boeing Company.
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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 InThinking Roadmap seminars, workshops, and overviews within Aerojet Rocketdyne, or attendance at the annual In2:InThinking Network Forum, 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 e-mail 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 |
Meeting Notice Service - OD and BTA If you'd like to receive meeting notices on your Microsoft Outlook schedule for upcoming Ongoing Discussion conference calls and Better Thinking About... webinars, reply to Bill Bellows at william.bellows@rocket.com and your name will be added to our meeting notice list. |
International Participants
Our conference call sessions are toll-free within the U.S. and Canada. Several international participants have been able to connect toll-free using Skype for a VOIP connection, which we now recommend to others calling in from outside (or inside) the U.S. and Canada.
First, you'll need to establish a Skype account at www.skype.com. Once Skype is set up and functioning correctly the only thing that is different when connecting with our "InThinking Roadmap" conference call sessions ("OD" or "The New Economics Study Sessions") is the use of a pass code and security code. For our "OD" sessions, these numbers are provided once the "participant survey" is completed. For the "The New Economics Study Sessions," these numbers are provided in an email from Tim Higgins, who hosts these calls. In either case, when prompted by Skype to enter these codes, use the keyboard not voice option and be sure to turn off the computer's microphone, otherwise the numeric keys don't function. If the microphone is left on when the codes are entered, Skype's automated operator will reply with "number not recognized," as no number has been transmitted. Also, please note that the "pound key" in the U.S. (#) translates to the "hash key" in the U.K. New users of Skype are encouraged to perform a conference call test in advance of the scheduled "InThinking Roadmap" conference call. Contact Bill Bellows to arrange for a test call. |
Additional Reading Beginning in 2009, a series of articles have been prepared for the Lean Management Journal (LMJ) to share InThinking insights with the Lean community. This month's feature LMJ article, First Impressions of W. Edwards Deming (released with the permission of the LMJ), was prepared to introduce LMJ readers to W. Edwards Deming. Contact Bill Bellows with questions, comments, or observations about this article. |
| Good morning from the Los Angeles campus of Aerojet Rocketdyne, located in Canoga Park, California, on the western end of the San Fernando Valley.
Aerojet Rocketdyne's InThinking Network welcomes Beth Thompson, from Whidbey Island, Washington, to lead our second Ongoing Discussion conference call of 2014 on February 26th and 27th and also our 170th session since we began in January 2000. As for a topic, Beth has selected Experiential Learning, the Laboratory Methods and the Work of Barry Oshry, in her first time with us as a Thought Leader.
Beth has been a friend and thinking partner since 1998, when I met her while attending a seminar she offered within Rocketdyne, The Organization Workshop (OW), based on Barry Oshry's work. Once she was introduced to our "Thinking Roadmap" concept (now InThinking Roadmap) of interdependent seminars, workshops, conference calls, and webinars, we added the OW to our roadmap and began to integrate the thinking of Barry Oshry into our existing framework of ideas from W. Edwards Deming and Genichi Taguchi. Shortly thereafter, we became aware of the power of the thinking tools of Edward De Bono and Beth contributed to this integration through her certification in Six Thinking Hats, Lateral Thinking, and Direct Applied Thinking Tools. She was also instrumental in our partnership efforts with Russ Ackoff and Tom Johnson. Beth begins her Thought Piece with these words, "Power is not position; power is the ability to recognize and realize the potential of whatever position we are in." (Oshry, 1977, p. 1)
As life-long learners, many of us attend conferences and workshops in an effort to enhance our leadership skills. We hope that our learning will enable us to lead in new ways that will improve our workplaces and work lives. More often, conferences and training programs fail to live up to our expectations. Not all workshops are created equal and neither are all learning methodologies. This paper explores the experiential learning method and the laboratory method in particular. The work of Barry Oshry (Oshry, 1996, 1999) is presented as unique exemplar and an opportunity for significant learning.
As both theory and a practice, experiential learning has its intellectual roots in the work of Kurt Lewin who emphasized the central role that experience plays in human learning (Kolb, 1984). Rationalist, cognitive and behavioralist learning methodologies emphasize acquiring and manipulating symbols and focus on simplistic cause and effect relationships and rewards to imprint the learner (Skinner, 1968). In contrast, experiential learning theory is holistic, combining experience, perception and cognition in a way that impacts both the individual and the group (Kolb, 1984). Beth continues with these thoughts, The concept of power has been poorly understood and variously explained in social and in management theory. Traditional and economistic conceptions view power as a commodity, as
something that can be held or possessed or that a human being is endowed with. As such, power is commonly presented as power over, or as a representation of As getting B to do something they would not otherwise do (French, 1956). The French philosopher Michel Foucault (1990) associated power with practices and techniques. The concept of power was presented as relational rather than a commodity that one could acquire. No matter how it is viewed, the exercise of power is a reality and a necessity in human systems. In the words of Barry Oshry, "Power is not a dirty word. System power is the ability to act in ways that fundamentally transform whole systems, elevating them to new possibilities of experience and accomplishment for their members and for the systems as wholes (Oshry, 1999, p. 7)." Link here to download Beth's Thought Piece. Link here to register to attend.
Looking ahead, our Better Thinking About... webinars continue next month, with a focus on Systems Thinking (Part 1), hosted by Paul Hollingworth on Thursday, March 13th, from 11:30-1pm.
Link here to register to attend in advance of the announcement. Associate Fellow and Lead InThinking Network Aerojet Rocketdyne Canoga Park, California |
| February 26th - 27th OD Details Please join us for one or all of this month's series of OD conference calls. As always, you are invited to participate for as long, or as short, as you can in one or more of these sessions, Options 1-4. Note that these conference calls are "conversations, not presentations," which vary from session to session, due to a variety of causes, such as who participates, what questions are asked, and what learning transpires. This diversity is captured every month, as the calls are recorded, with links to these audio files shared with all who register to attend. Option - Date/Time (Pacific Time); 1 - Thursday, February 26th, 12:00-1:00pm 2 - Thursday, February 26th, 1:00-2:00pm
3 - Friday, February 27th - 12:00-1:00pm
4 - Friday, February 27th - 1:00-2:00pm The agenda for each option will be: Opening 15 minutes: Call in and Introductions Next 40 minutes: Ongoing Discussion Last 5 minutes: Farewells and Close
Please reply to this note by noon, Pacific Time on Tuesday, February 25th 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 Telecon lines (including a pass code and a security code) have been arranged for those who cannot join us in a conference room at our Canoga Park facility 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 Ongoing Discussion Conference Calls Mark your calendars - future Ongoing Discussion conference calls will be held on the following dates (subject to slight changes), from 12-1pm and 1-2pm Pacific Time.
Month, Dates, Thought Leader(s), Topics (link on each session to register): March 27-28, Julie Goodfellow and Hugh McAllister, topic to be determined April 24-25, Bill Scherkenbach, topic to be determined
May 19-20, Ravi Roy, topic to be determined June 26-27, Thought Leader and topic to be determined
July 24-25, Shem Cohen, topic to be determined August 21-22, Thought Leader and topic to be determined
September 25-26, Thought Leader and topic to be determined
October 30-31, John Pourdehnad and Larry Starr, topic to be determined
November 20-21, Thought Leader and topic to be determined
December 15-16, Thought Leader and topic to be determined |
Future Better Thinking About... Webinars
Mark your calendars - future Better Thinking About... webinars will be held on the following dates, from 11:30-1pm Pacific Time. Details for how to participate in this webinar series are provided upon registering using the participant survey for each event.
Date, Presenter, and Topic (link on each session to register): April 10, Elaine Johnson, How Literature Speaks to Business
May 8, Graham Rawlinson, Thinking
June 12, Systems Thinking - Part 2
July 10, Ariane David, Positional and Non-Positional Thinking
August 14, Mike Tveite, the System of Profound Knowledge
September 11, Gipsie Ranney, Causes
October 9, Don McAlister, the Interdependency of Project, Risk, and Knowledge Management
November 13, Tim Higgins, Thinking Tools and Processes
December 11, Bill Bellows, InThinking |
InThinking Together Seminar Description: This seminar explores the philosophies of a variety of management theorist, including but not limited to Russell Ackoff, W. Edwards Deming, Edward de Bono, Tom Johnson, and Genichi Taguchi, among many others; as they apply to the management of organizational resources, including ideas, innovation, knowledge, money, equipment, and space. Among the topics of discussion will be the concepts of "better thinking about thinking" (InThinking) and Purposeful Resource Management as well as Purposeful Resource Leadership. The seminar will introduce you to these ideas through a series of questions that are specially selected to create awareness of a new approach to working together, learning together, and thinking together. 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 InThinking Together classes in Canoga Park, CA for Aerojet Rocketdyne Class #CP-2014-02 (NEW DATES) Part 1 - 26-Feb - 7:00-11:30am Part 2 - 27-Feb - 7:00-11:30am Class #CP-2014-03 - to be hosted by College of the Canyons in Valencia Part 1 - 27-Mar - 7:00-11:30am Part 2 - 28-Mar - 7:00-11:30am Class #CP-2014-04 Part 1 - 24-Apr - 7:00-11:30am Part 2 - 25-Apr - 7:00-11:30am
Register to attend InThinking Together |
The New Economics Study Session
Description: A group of participants assembles, some in-person and some via teleconference, for this 14-hour series. Participants discuss W. Edwards Deming's last book, The New Economics, in which he introduced his concept of a "System of Profound Knowledge." The group reads specified chapters before each session and discusses the meaning and application of the ideas, as well as personal reactions to the ideas. Supplemental reading material become part of the conversations, as do reactions to video tapes of Dr. Deming.
Registration Fee - there is NO fee to attend. 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. Aerojet Rocketdyne attendees will be given copies of The New Economics. Non-Aerojet Rocketdyne attendees can purchase copies on Amazon at this link, with used copies selling for $15 and Kindle copies available for $15.95.
Prerequisite - there are NO prerequisites
Format - seven 2-hour sessions over three and a half weeks, presented as a teleconference event
Presented by: Tim Higgins Schedule for The New Economics Study Session Class #CP-2014-01 |
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