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Of Interest

As we prepare for SoL’s 3rd Global Forum in Muscat, Oman, it seems especially timely that this issue of Reflections focuses on the importance of human relationships. I had the opportunity to speak with noted anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson about her take on how we “bridge the gulf,” the theme of this year’s forum. She related a story of a session she designed to improve working relationships between Americans and Iranians. In the process, she asked them what they valued most in a relationship. All answered without prompting that they valued both honesty and kindness; however Iranians overwhelming ranked kindness first, and the Americans ranked honesty first. She noted that this simple exercise sheds light on some of the roots of our cultural and personal misunderstandings: we assume that others value what we do, and if they behave in ways we don’t expect, we often attribute their behavior to bad intentions. Depending on your background, honesty can be considered as meanness, and kindness can be seen as lying. In this issue, our authors present a range of opportunities and problematic situations in which they are untangling the snags in our web of relationships to reveal more opportunities for inspired performance. Read Full Article

Feature

In this article, adapted from Diana McLain Smith’s new book Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength (Penguin: 2008), stories from the author’s own work and public sources allow us to peer inside the relationships that so often make or break the success of teams. Once you understand how relationships actually work, develop, and change, you can use that understanding to build relationships flexible and strong enough to create and sustain exceptional teams. Read Full Article

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In Presence, Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer and their coauthors Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers provided an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning. The theory was further refined in Otto Scharmer’s subsequent book Theory U (SoL: 2007). In both books, the authors seek to explain how profound collective change occurs. Ultimately, they tackle universal and persistent questions – What are we here for? How would the world change if we learned to access, individually and collectively, our deepest capacity to sense and shape the future? What do we really care about? How can we serve an emerging future that averts environmental degradation and species destruction—including our own? In this, the second half of an interview conducted by George Hall, Peter Senge and Otto Scharmer share their views on leadership and being present. Read Full Article

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Beginning in 1998, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) embarked on a journey of transformational change aimed at serving more people, in new and underserved markets. IFC founded its change effort on the principles and methods of organizational learning. Their decentralized approach focused first on using dialogue to create a shared vision that would inspire, and shared spaces for innovation. Ten years later the results speak for themselves – and the journey continues. Read Full Article