It is the end of Day 3 of our Pollyanna Principled Immersion Course for consultants. Our expectations have already been surpassed so many times, we are now simply reveling in what continues to evolve. The combined experience of this group of 7 practitioners easily approaches or even surpasses 100 years. They have certainly been around … Read more
Anymore I can usually tell how good a consultant is in the first few minutes of our conversation. How? By how much they listen. By how much they want to learn, no matter how much they already know. By how much they ask questions instead of talking about themselves. By how much it’s not about … Read more
This post is the 3rd & final installment in a series. To begin at Part 1 head here. The Evidence We’ve established that Problem-Solving solves neither complex organizational problems nor complex social problems. And we’ve posited that the only thing that CAN solve such problems is to look beyond the problem – beyond “zero” – … Read more
This is Part 2 of this post. If you have not read Part 1, you will find that here. Reverse Engineering the Future We DO Want There is something that DOES work to solve the large, systemic problems our organizations and our communities face today. And that is to aim our efforts out beyond “zero” … Read more
The War on Drugs. The War on Poverty. The War on Illegal Immigration. Fixing a dysfunctional board. Team-building to boost employee morale. What do all these things have in common? If you answered, “None of them have solved the problem,” you would be right. Decades of fighting drugs, poverty, illegal immigration; decades of trying to … Read more
Several weeks ago I blogged about a conversation with my almost-85-year-old mom about Twitter. Explaining Twitter to Grandma Rose has become one of the most popular posts I’ve ever written, still being passed around the web (and please, keep sharing it!). This morning I offer you Part 2 of that story. I called Rose last … Read more
As part of the launch this week of The Pollyanna Principles, we hosted a 90 minute teleclass, Introduction to Community-Driven Consulting. The class touched on a range of questions, including these: • What is Community-Driven Consulting and how is it different from the consulting I’m doing now? • Will I have to learn all new … Read more
As we prepare for next week’s official launch of The Pollyanna Principles, I’ve been using the Possibility Journal I started last week to address every task on my to do list and every meeting in my schedule. While it has been insanely busy getting ready for the launch, that one step has made every task … Read more
In following up on Monday’s post, Nick has just transcribed the book list we generated from our 4 days of planning the Consultants’ Curriculum for the Community-Driven Institute. And so I thought it would be fun to share that list here. For those heading into Summer Reading Season, this list will keep you busy. For … Read more
Last week, something life-changing happened for 10 people who did not expect it. A group of consultants from across the U.S. and Canada gathered for 4 intense days, to develop the Consultants’ Curriculum for the Community-Driven Institute. I will try to describe our time together, knowing that instead I might simply say, “Magic happened.” We … Read more