Category: Business

HARD-WIRED FOR COLLABORATION: PHYSICAL TOUCH INCREASES PERFORMANCE

By , March 1, 2010 1:23 pm

In Born To Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (Norton, 2009),  Dacher Keltner of UC/Berkeley discusses the relationship between physical touch and performance: a supportive touch on the shoulder can increase participation in classrooms, and new research by Michael Kraus and co-authors Cassy Huang and Keltner, soon to appear in the journal Emotion, shows that basketball teams where players touched each other, in a supportive way, performed better than those with less touch. Highest performing players were also those giving the highest number of supportive touches. As summarized in a recent article by Benedict Carey of  The New York Times, “Touchy-feely sports teams have edge, evidence suggests,”:

“A warm touch seems to set off the release of oxytocin, a hormone that helps create a sensation of trust, and to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol. In the brain, prefrontal areas that help regulate emotion can relax, freeing them for another of their primary purposes: problem solving. In effect, the body interprets a supportive touch as ‘I’ll share the load.’

‘We think that humans build relationships precisely for this reason, to distribute problem solving across brains,’ says James A. Coan, a psychologist at the University of Virginia. ‘We are wired to literally share the processing load, and this is the signal we’re getting when we receive support through touch.’ ”

More evidence for the assumptions of Creative Edge Focusing (TM)’s model for Creative Edge Organizations, where more “feminine” values of support, empathy, listening, colleagiality, and attention to relationships feed the bottom line, encouraging creative problem solving through collaboration.

Free Downloads: 

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (TM) (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

Resources: Free Articles, Training, Classes

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way

Focusing and Architecture: Designing From The Inside Out

By , December 14, 2009 7:17 pm

In The Not So Big House and Creating The Not So Big House books, Sarah Susanka (amazon link) advocates leaving the vaulted-ceiling mansions that have become the hallmark of house design and returning to designing houses that are specifically tailored to the very personal and unique needs of the homeowner who will live in the architect-designed home. Quality replaces quantity; intimate detailing replaces square footage.

Recently, as my husband and I hired an architect and began the schematic design process for our future retirement home, I found myself in the midst of an “archetypal” battle. I see it as defined by the clash of “masculine” vs. “feminine,” “Thinking vs. Feeling” modes of being, based upon psychiatrist C.G. Jung’s descriptions and psychological tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Keirsey Temperament Sorter (see “Jung, MBTI, and Experiential Theory”  for explanations and Creative Edge Focusing Personality Tests for links for some free versions of these tests).

My husband and I had agreed, after seeing the book New Minimalist Houses (this is Amazon link for great bargain price, $50 reduced to $15!), that Minimalist could describe the kind of house we wanted — lots of glass/concrete/steel, as little as possible between us and the surrounding nature of our 20-acre forest on a ridge. But, it turned out, this was about all we agreed on!

Mind you, both the architect and my husband are feminist, egalitarian, good listeners. And I am a Ph.D. scholar.Yet, there was something about this opportunity to design from a blank slate that engaged all of us in visions to which we desperately wanted to cling, making it almost impossible to “hear from” the opposing view .

The architect followed a method he is known for, going to the home site, hiking for hours, sitting for hours if needed, until he came up with an inspiration for the design of the house, knowing some about us but a lot about the site and location. He ended up discovering a totally different and much better site location for the house, in our twenty acres of forest, and offering creative and striking designs for a one- and two-story version of our house.

The architect’s proposed one-story design was much like The Air House in the Minimalist book — a long rectangle of glass, spread along the ridge, with views and light from North and South. My husband fell in love with it, as it let light enter every room from both north and south.

Okay, I thought, I can live with that, but I want the Guest Area/Project Room/Full Bath closer to the rest of the house, not across a breezeway, I said. I said the Garage and Shop can go across the breezeway. I knew that, at a distance, I would not use the space for Projects, and it would be empty, wasted square footage except when Guests came.

I also wanted the Full Bath to be shared with the two Studies at that end of the house, so that the three spaces, Guest/Project, Study, Study could function as bedrooms, if our future aging needs or future buyers needed such a constellation. I thought my husband would be happy with the striking southern views and light he could have from his shop. And he was okay with this compromise.

And here the epic struggle began. The architect would come back with his original design, saying “the house” needs the Guest/Project/Bath across the courtyard, or “there needs to be a living space across the courtyard to balance the design.” I would counter with “I” need them on this side of the courtyard, so they can function together as three bedrooms, if needed.

And yet his design would come back again, modified some but still with Project/Guest/Bath at a distance from the rest of the house (given geographical distance, we were communicating by email, not ideal!). Finally I said, “You keep trying to ISOLATE this space, and I am trying to CONNECT it.”

I also mentioned casually to my husband that I would like a Front Porch, where I could sit and watch nature go by, and where visitors could find a sheltered entry.

Reading Susanka, I also found some confirmation for my wish for some bay windows to serve as alcoves at the edges of the minimalist open floor plan. I was afraid that flat, rectangular expanses of glass wall would not “draw us in” to the view, would seem cold and distant.

And my husband, usually very mild-mannered,  freaked out: “No! No bumps! The house is to be sleek, sleek, not full of bumps and lumps.”

It seemed to me that each of them, husband and architect, were quite comfortable with accommodating the needs of the residents to the needs of the design, the conceptual needs of “the house.” They could look at a floor plan and fall in love with it.

I however, could not imagine living, feeling alive, in a house that was like a shell laid over and against my actual living, constraining me into a particular shape.

Through an epic struggle coming close to divorce and firing of the architect, we have come to an understanding, a compromise which I call “cozy minimalism,” incorporating Susanka’s sensitivity to the human longing for enclosed, sheltered “alcoves” at the edges of open floor plan spaces with the flying visions, open spaces, and angles of minimalism.

We are entering a period of design where the architect will mainly LISTEN as my husband and I articulate our intuitive sense of our own wants and needs, and then come up with creative, unique ideas and methods for incorporating, aned compromising, those needs.

Out of this new dialogue, already a possible “roof garden” and “sunroom/breakfast nook” alcove have arisen to soften The Air House into an individualized home, yet keep the soaring aspects of the architect’s inspiration.

For more on The Not So Big concept, designing from “the inside out,” from careful attention to the unique needs of the homeowner, see the Susanka books cited above.

For more on learning to Listen To Yourself through Intuitive Focusing and Listen to Another through Focused Listening, see the many resources and free downloads below.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads: 

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

 

 

 

CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN BUSINESSES: TEACHING INTERPERSONAL FOCUSING

By , March 16, 2009 2:31 pm

Creative Edge Organizations, using The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid  for application at all levels,  incorporate Interpersonal Focusing for conflict resolution as well as Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening to facilitate creative, innovative problem solving. Interpersonal Focusing can take place in a separate session or right during the flow of a Collaborative Edge Decision Making (CEDM) meeting. But how do you teach Interpersonal Focusing in an actual business or organization, if there are no conflicts evident? How do you introduce it without the stress of a full-blown conflict?

Interpersonal Focusing can involve the use of a Third Person Listening Facilitator mediating between the two people in conflict. Download the entire Interpersonal Focusing Chapter from Focusing In Community: How To Start A Listening/Focusing Support Group. Order the complete manual and multimedia Self-Help Package .

From a Certified Focusing Professional bringing the CEDM model, and Creative Edge Pyramid, into two businesses:

“Can I ask you a question? I have tried to teach the same group that was so happy about CEDM, your Interpersonal Focusing, when people disagree about something. They find it hard to practice the method, without two people really having an argument. Do you have any suggestion how to “train” this skill, listening to another that you have an argument with?

Because the people I teach, they say something like “No, I could never listen in a Focusing way when I am mad at someone”. Maybe just practicing focusing is the best?”

My response: The question is a good one: how do you teach Interpersonal Focusing when there is no conflict going on?

  1. Sometimes I have worked instead on even when one person in the group has strong positive feelings about someone else, like “Wishing I could be like you,” “Thinking you are so self-confident,” etc.  Even hearing this kind of positive information about oneself can be difficult to hear and provide a good exercise in Focused Listening to emotional material.
  2. And you can decide to have a discussion about a topic likely to bring up some conflict. E.g., it is not difficult to find two people who have differing views about politics, for instance, or any other controversial topic.
  3. If this is a group that works together, there can also be a fear of uncovering any negative feelings or interpersonal conflicts, so saying “Oh, we don’t have any of those.” Maybe done the road they would feel safer.
  4. Usually, when I have an ongoing 10-week group, I look for small conflicts we can practice on, as simple as whether we should invite new members, or whether we should have tea and snacks.
  5. Also, if I see a conflict happening, I drop the lesson for the day and practice Interpersonal Focusing right then instead.
  6. You could also have a Focuser work on their feelings about someone outside of the group that makes them really, really mad — so, as Listener, people could at least have the experience of Listening to someone who might be really angry, but it would be less threatening than working on their problems with each other. I think this is a great idea! Getting people used to being around anger when it is not directed at them, getting them used to just reflecting it.

But, you are correct, the more people practice Focusing, in the sense of “owning” their own internal reactions, and Listening, being able to set aside one’s own reactions and really “hear” another, the more these skills will be available when a conflict arises— 

For more on dealing with anger, see  my “yelling at the wall” component in the Passive Listening Turns model  and my Active Listening Turns short article.

Five Minute Grieving might be helpful (what to do if a patient, client, friend, colleague starts crying) and bring up interesting discussion about the role of emotion in business settings.

These are all Instant “Ahah!”s in the sidebar of my website homepage and also in the free download, Instant Ahah Mini-Manual, which you can find below.

Especially in businesses whose work is helping and supporting and healing others, it is important to find a way to nurture those who are trying to help others. That, to me, has always been the great gift of teaching Listening/Focusing to staff — that they can choose to use it to support each other as well!

See my article, “Creative Edge Organizations: Businesses and Organizations As A ‘Kind’ Of Focusing Community” from The Folio: Thirtieth Anniversity Tribute edition at The Focusing Institute, www.focusing.org .

You can learn all about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening with the many resources listed below:

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

THE CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING PYRAMID IN BUSINESS SETTINGS: FOCUSING, LISTENING, AND COLLABORATIVE EDGE MEETINGS

By , March 15, 2009 6:07 pm

In the Creative Edge Focusing (TM) model, The Creative Edge is the bodily-felt, intuitive “something-more-than-words” that anyone can find if they simply pause, for at least a minute, paying attention in the center of their body for the “intuitive feel,” the “bodily-felt sense” of any issue or idea or problem to form.

The PRISMS/S Focusing Process  shows how Intuitive Focusing, often coupled with Focused Listening, can allow this non-linear, right-brain, intuitive knowing to unfold.

The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid shows how these simple self-help skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening can be incorporated into all levels within a company or organization, as well as for stress relief, conflict resolution, and emotional problem solving at home:

Focusing Alone for Personal Growth
Focusing Partnership for Ongoing Creativity
Interpersonal Focusing for Conflict Resolution
Focusing Group/Team for Innovative Problem Solving
Collaborative Edge Focusing Decision Making for Win/Win  Meetings
Focusing Community To Facilitate Diversity and Mutual Support
Creative Edge Organization To Motivate People For Collaborative Action

Creative Edge Organizations  benefit from the innovation, creativity, commitment, and collegiality which come when each person is engaged at their own Creative Edge and sharing and supporting Creative Edge exploration in others. Read Creating At The Edge: The Culture of Creativity

Here is feedback from a Certified Focusing Professional teaching Listening, Focusing, and Collaborative Edge Decision Making (CEDM) in two companies:

“I am teaching two small companies focusing and I also have workshops and individual sessions for everyone interested. I have also done a few talks on focusing, and I want to develop that more. I want to develop everything more!!!
 
I just want to tell you that the people at the companies, were really amazed about your method for decision making. I translated it all and made sheets for them to work with and it all went so well. We have done it twice in two different groups, and the next two weeks we will try it again.

Afterwards one woman said: “I feel like I have a lot of energy after the meeting, usually I am all tired and out of energy.”

Another one said: “I am a slow person, and have often been told, just hurry and pick the word and say what you want. But I don’t feel like doing that, it just makes me feel so stressed. I rather just stay quiet.” And she really enjoyed this kind of meeting.

I could “feel” the stress disappear when everybody understood that they were going to have their piece of the time for saying what they wanted.

And when I told them that they all had the same responsibility for creating a meaningful meeting, it sort of started twinkling in their eyes.

Most amazing of all was that the ones that volunteered for the timekeeping both times we did this, were two people that usually have a hard time being on time (according to the others in the group). Strange, isn’t it?

And more:

“Thank you for the links you gave me here. I am thinking about translating both “5 minutes of grieving” and “Active Listening: Short-Circuit Angry Confrontations”, they are so good, and the people I work with do need something very “resolute” to get started with Focusing in their daily work … there is really a need for a tool that is respectful and very human. (that’s a need everywhere of course!)”

“The staff that I am teaching Focusing are more and more getting it in to their daily routines. They all say: When we start the morning with some Focusing, there is a calm feeling throughout the day! No matter how much stress they are facing.

So now they are trying, at least in one of the companies, to have at least 10 minutes each in the morning, just Listening to what is inside them right now. And at least once a week they do a longer Listening/Focusing turn two and two. And their meetings have really changed!”

See my article, “Creative Edge Organizations: Businesses and Organizations As A ‘Kind’ Of Focusing Community” from The Folio: Thirtieth Anniversity Tribute edition at The Focusing Institute, www.focusing.org .

You can learn all about Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening with the many resources listed below:

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

EMPOWERMENT ORGANIZATION: MOTIVATING FROM THE BOTTOM UP

By , February 16, 2009 12:53 pm

Thank You, Volunteer Firefighters

Thank You, Volunteer Firefighters

Every organization needs top/down and bottom/up forms of motivation, community-building, and creativity. See Interest Areas Creative Edge Organizations and Building Supportive Community for Creative Edge Focusing(TM) models for incorporating collaboration into hierarchy. Here is the Introduction to “The One Small Thing” method for bottom/up empowerment from The Creative Edge Focusing (TM) website:

“Motivation = Engagement : Apathy Is The Enemy!

You are charged with finding that “one small thing” which will get every employee or volunteer or citizen fully engaged in your larger projects. No apathy allowed in a Creative Edge Organization! You want to become alert to noticing apathy, people at any level who are not caring, not involved, and then work at involvement. You want every person actively involved at The Creative Edge, the lively, creative, energized “intuitive feel” of being a living, thinking, involved  Co-Creator or Collaborator.

Finding “One Small Thing”

In the ongoing life of your Creative Edge community or organization, the weekly exchange of Listening/Focusing turns in Focusing Partnerships and  Focusing Groups or Teams will keep individuals involved at their own personal, unique Creative Edge. However, in addition, or perhaps first or independently, you can use the “One Small Thing” method to find one over-arching project that will get everyone involved.

You want to find “One Small Thing” that every person in the community or organization can become involved in with minimal effort but maximum sense of satisfaction in contributing something to the larger mission.  If the first step of involvement is too big, too difficult, then most people won’t be willing to do it.

So, you have to keep looking until you find something so small that everyone can do it, easily, willingly, yet so important that it will feel like a real contribution, a first step of commitment to the larger cause. Then, you can invite these involved, engaged people into further Collaborative Decision Making about the project.

If your “One Small Thing” project is not having the desired effect, then the step is too big, requires too much motivation or commitment. If that is the case, then you need to look for a smaller step until you find the one that works.

Example One: Achieving Corporate Buy-In

At Old Navy (Business Week, June,19, 2006), Innovation Champion Ivy Ross, catching the MySpace-type lifestyle of today, used a facebook-style CD in an effort to bind old and new employees into one new group.”    Please read more and  find “The One Small Thing” exercise at our website.

Spaghetti Binds Community

Here’s another recent example from my own experience:

For two years, my rural fire department (I am on the Board) has been trying to find a volunteer, a “strong leader,” to head up a federal program called Citizen’s Emergency Response Teams (CERT). Candidates appeared but chose not to proceed.

I wanted to do a Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser, start at the grass roots, with the community I knew that we did or would or could have easily: people who were willing to bring spaghetti sauce or desserts and help out at a the dinner.

I put out sign-up sheets at community events, built up an email network of willing volunteers, and got it all going. Firefighters and their spouses and families, Town Council members and spouses, Board members and spouses and church volunteers, teenagers, lakeside and rural and town people, all pulling together for a fun community event.

Two weeks before the event, a massive ice storm hit, wiping out the town’s electricity. I continued contacting my volunteers by phone, hearing their ice storm stories, meeting new people.

Along the way, I discovered that the husband of one of the spaghetti volunteers was a retired Fire Captain. I put out feelers: “Would he be interested in helping with the CERT Program?”

By the evening of the dinner, 40 volunteers were involved, 100 people came, we had located two possible co-chairs for the CERT program, and neighbors who had been through the ice storm together were ready to mobilize into CERT Teams. We fed 150 people (including many free volunteer meals) for $210.37 and raised $1000+, including tickets for a drawing for a gift basket and outright donations.

But equally important, we had planted the seeds for community involvement, appreciation for the Fire and Rescue Department, and citizen’s emergency response.

So, starting from the bottom, with the “One Small Thing” of bringing food to the fundraiser, we started the motions to accomplish a larger community goal.  Try the “One Small Thing” Focusing exercise here.

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out    “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! 

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See  Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See  Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

FOCUSING AND BUSINESS: BUILDING COMMUNITY AT WORK

By , January 30, 2009 12:14 pm

In Creative Edge Organizations, everyone learns Intuitive Focusing ( PDF: Focusing Intuitivo: Destreza Basica) to access the intuitive, right-brain Creative Edge of their thinking and problem solving, and everyone learns Focused Listening ( PDF: Destreza Basica: Escucha Focalizada)to help others articulate from the Creative Edge and to hear deeply the views of another instead of arguing.

The exchange of Listening/Focusing Partnership turns leads, not only to creative, innovative problem solving, but also to feelings of “buy in,” “loyalty,” and “collegiality.” The workplace becomes a community,  encouraging diversity and creativity rather than competition and backbiting.

Here is part of my recent article “Creative Edge Organizations: Businesses and Organizations As A ‘Kind’ Of Focusing Community“:

“— Businesses and Organizations ARE Communities

 

Doing my own Thinking At The Edge (TAE) process, I realized that businesses and organizations ARE communities. By their nature, coworkers are “trapped” in a face-to-face, interdependent situation which they cannot leave.

 

Some absolute essentials for workers:

 

• learning to work out their interpersonal conflicts

• having a successful model for making and implementing group decisions

• having a model for creative, innovative thinking and problem solving and for

 communication between themselves and their clients.

• For co-workers: the ability to work in teams, tolerate their diversity, and make

 the most of their “differing gifts.”

 

Businesses cannot afford the constant turnover and need for retraining that comes from irresolvable conflicts.

 

 The model I developed for Focusing Communities, articulated in the Focusing in Community manual (1981, 2007), included all of these things: not just Focusing Alone for creative problem solving, but also Focusing Partnerships in the context of Focusing Groups or Teams, Interpersonal Focusing for resolving conflicts, and Collaborative Focusing-Oriented Decision Making for task-oriented groups. Here was a “package” of skills and methods that could be brought into businesses and organizations.

 

At about this time, I gathered up some books at a kiosk at the Northwest Regional Airport near Bentonville, Arkansas — home of mega-business giant WalMart. Everyone who is a vendor for WalMart passes through that airport, so it seemed to me that the books sold there would be cutting edge —” 

 

Read the entire article “Creative Edge Organizations: Businesses and Organizations As A ‘Kind’ Of Focusing Community in the 30th Anniversary Tribute Focusing Folio online at The Focusing Institute.

 

CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm):  SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK

 

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, which can be applied at home and at work through The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid.

Based upon Gendlin’s Experiential Focusing (www.focusing.org ) and Rogers’ Empathic Listening, our website is packed with Free Resources and instructions in these basic self-help skills. Learn how to build Support Groups, Conscious Relationships, and Creative Edge Organizations based upon these basic skills of emotional intelligence.

You can try out “Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering You.”

Click here to subscribe to Creative Edge Focusing(TM)’s  Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!! Today’s blog is part of the year-long e-course offered through the Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter.

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

 See Core Concept: Conflict Resolution to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

See Core Concept: Intimate Relationship to find a complete mini-course on increasing intimacy and sexuality, including the “Sharing Your Day” exercise, Listening/Focusing Partnerships for The Way of Relationship, untangling and equalizing desire, tantric sexuality, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website, or download from links at top of this blog.

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

 

INTEREST AREA: CREATIVE EDGE ORGANIZATIONS

By , June 12, 2008 12:40 pm

Interest Areas: Seven Places To Start Practice Groups !!!

The Interest Areas under “Is This You” at The Creative Edge Focusing website (www.cefocusing.com ) give the First Ten Steps you might take to bring the model of Listening/Focusing into seven whole different areas of living: Organizations, Support Groups and Communities, Relationships, Parenting, Education, Spiritual Communities, and Helping Professions (psychotherapy, counselling, medicine, body work, etc.).

In the next e-newsletters, I will introduce you to each of these Interest Areas and possible First Steps so that you might start a Listening/Focusing practice group in any of these areas.

INTEREST AREA: CREATIVE EDGE ORGANIZATIONS

Below you will find the Introduction to bringing Creative Edge Focusing into businesses, corporations, non-profits, volunteer organizations, any place that has meetings. From www.cefocusing.com  with active links to website descriptions of core concepts:

Core Principles of Creating At The Edge

The Creative Edge Organization Method ensures maximum creativity and motivation at every level by encouraging Intuitive Focusing by individuals and Coordinated Collaboration in groups and teams

Maximum motivation arises when people are encouraged to create their lives and solutions to problems from their own Creative Edge.

When organizational structures lose touch with The Creative Edge of individuals, apathy is created.

True change, at any level, from personal to global, happens by engaging The Creative Edge El Borde Creativo of individual human beings. There is no lasting way to impose change from the outside. Lasting change is empowered from the individual entering into collaborative action with other individuals.

The Core Skills of Focused Listening and Intuitive Focusing provide the basic method for individuals, alone, in pairs, or in groups, to access The Creative Edge of thinking and experiencing from which totally new ideas and solutions can arise. They increase creativity and deepen communication and support in any volunteer organization or for-profit corporation.

The Creative Edge Pyramid

The seven methods of The Creative Edge Pyramid insure the application of the Core Skills at every level of organization:

Focusing Alone allows an individual to access the Creative Edge, anytime, anywhere.
Focusing Partnership provides a structure where pairs of individuals can help each other to articulate from The Creative Edge.
Interpersonal Focusing can be used to find The Creative Edge inherent in interpersonal conflicts.
Focusing Groups/Teams support continued Creative Edge exploration.
Collaborative Edge Decision Making provides structures for access to the Creative Edge during group and team meetings, creating innovative, win/win decisions.
Focusing Communities use Listening/Focusing skills to welcome diversity and overcome conflict.
Creative Edge Organization, including The One Small Thing component, insures motivation and “buy-in” from the bottom up, The Creative Edge of each individual.

Focusing and Group Decision Making

The fast-paced, argumentative, competitive nature of much group decision making discussion makes it impossible for anyone to pay attention to and speak from The Creative Edge, the right-brain, “intuitive feel” which can contain the newest, freshest, most innovative solutions. Given the energy expended on simply trying to interrupt and get a turn, participants cannot really listen to the contributions of others.

Under Instant “Ahah!” Collaborative Thinking, you’ll find the simple “How To’s” for groups which Dr. McGuire discovered when she undertook research to describe the difference between aggressive, competitive, and “listening” task-oriented groups. More on Focusing and Group Decision Making.

Win/Win Decision-Making

The most creative solutions, either in individual or in group decision-making, arise when the individual or the group is able to sit with polarized oppositions and wait until a newly-created “third way” can arise. We call this a “win/win” decision : instead of a painful compromise where each side really gives up more than they are willing to, and, later, finds reasons not to carry out the decision, a “win/win” decision, a totally new option, really does contain enough aspects from both sides to produce satisfaction, and thus motivation.

Pure consensual decision making can be extremely time-consuming, since no action can be taken until every member agrees to go along with it. The Collaborative Edge Decision Making (CEDM) method includes the use of Coordinated Collaboration as a method for brainstorming from the bottom/up without having decision-making bog down. More on Win/Win Decision Making.

Bite-sized Projects

The Creative Edge Organization method, with The One Small Thing component, continually breaks down projects to the level where as many individuals as possible can be actively involved in problem solving and decision-making from The Creative Edge and in carrying out projects.

This gives participants a feeling of “ownership” of the group’s work and also the benefits to community building of working together on a joint goal. Although top/down hierarchical structures can also be used for aspects of the work, The One Small Thing component works from the bottom/up to involve every person actively in action and decision-making where that is possible. More on Bite-Sized Projects.

See Instant “Ahah!” Empowerment Organization for a Focusing exercise to find “The One Small Thing.”

CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN TO CONTINUE WITH “THE FIRST TEN STEPS FOR BRINGING LISTENING/FOCUSING INTO AN ORGANIZATIONS YOU BELONG TO”   

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog below !

Click here to subscribe to our Instant “Ahah!” e-newsletter and get the latest exercises first!!!

 See blogs under Category: Conflict Resolution in the sidebar to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

DIVERSITY TRAINING 4: GOLEMAN’S EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE AND LISTENING/FOCUSING SKILLS

By , May 2, 2008 5:44 pm

Emotional Intelligence: More Important Than IQ At Work And Home

 Daniel Goleman, in his initial book Emotional Intelligence (Bantam, 1995) (click to go to Amazon.com description, reviews, other related books, and purchase), looked at actual neurological grounds in the brain for different kinds of problem solving, often referred to as “right-” vs. “left-” brain. He argues that a series of intrapsychic and interpersonal competencies, with involvement of the limbic and other areas of the brain, actually account for the expert behavior of the most successful managers more than intellectual IQ. He called this “emotional intelligence.”

Goleman got the concept of “emotional intelligence” from earlier theorists, Salovey and Mayer, who coined the term in 1990 and defined it as “a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.”(quoted in “Emotional Intelligence: What it is and Why it Matters” by Cary Cherniss, Ph.D., available at www.eiconsortium.org/research/what_is_emotional_intellgence.htm ).

The concept of “emotional intelligence” and competence in the workplace has been widely explored. As EQ, many have developed measures for various aspects of emotional intelligence and training programs for increasing these competencies.

Goleman’s latest book is Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. Here’s one review from Amazon:


I am a huge fan of Daniel Goleman. He’s the bestselling author who coined the term “Emotional Intelligence” with his 1995 book of the same name. Now he’s got a new book, “Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships.” Social intelligence is the ability to read other people’s cues and then act on them. Life is all about relationships, and there is a science to how we relate to each other. It’s fascinating to see how Goleman breaks down each aspect of communication. We can learn how to more effectively express ourselves so that we feel understood. And we can learn how to better “read” other people so that we can better understand. This helps to improve our interactions and ultimately strengthen our relationships. He talks about “synchrony” or interacting smoothly at the nonverbal level, which is an important, yet often overlooked, part of relating. Goleman also scientifically explains “the capacity for joy” and how that affects our social intelligence. He shows how our resilience plays an important role in our happiness, which comes into play as we express ourselves to others.” Lissa Coffey, www.coffeytalk.com  

I haven’t found a free, online test of EQ, although a variety of consulting businesses offer extensive testing and training program:
www.eiconsortium.org  (International consortium for theory and research with many articles to download but no free quiz)
www.danielgoleman.info  (the author’s site)
www.haygroup.com/tl/EI/Default.aspx  (Paid testing/consulting)
www.eqatwork.com  (training and certification testing with pre- and post-testing of skill learning)

Creative Edge Focusing (TM): Emotional and Social Intelligence

Forty Hours of Training for Human Literacy

We at Creative Edge Focusing TM believe that our core skills of Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, applied throughout levels from individual to interpersonal to organizational in The Creative Edge Pyramid (click to read descriptions of the seven applications), provide a most basic yet broadly applicable form of increasing “emotional intelligence,” or “human literacy,” across the board.

Remember the definition from above:

“a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.”(quoted in “Emotional Intelligence: What it is and Why it Matters” by Cary Cherniss, Ph.D., available at www.eiconsortium.org/research/what_is_emotional_intellgence.htm. ) 

Intuitive Focusing is exactly about learning to “monitor and discriminate among feelings and emotions and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.” Focused Listening is exactly about understanding other people’s feelings and emotions. Interpersonal Focusing teaches exactly how to use Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening as “social intelligence” to sort through interpersonal and group conflict situations.

In approximately forty hours of training, CE Focusing Consultants teach everyone involved the PRISMS/S Problem Solving Process, with its two Core Skills, Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, and how to use PRISMS/S in the Creative Edge Pyramid of Applied Methods.

Students, parents, teachers, physicians, executives, managers, employees, or community members, in approximately 40 hours of training, can acquire the “emotional and social intelligence” skills to:

Create new ideas
Change problem behaviors
Listen to another

Resolve interpersonal conflicts
Start a support group
Build supportive community

Create innovative solutions
Create win/win decisions in groups
Motivate others for collaborative action

 In our Case Studies section, you will find specific examples of each of the seven applications of The Creative Edge Pyramid.

Exercise For This Week: Study Emotional and Social Intelligence and Compare To Listening/Focusing Skills

Consider the basic premise that Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening, taught as self-help skills, are the actual basis of the various capacities that manifest as “emotional” and “social” intelligence.

Follow the links above and read articles about Goleman’s work and its application in business settings as EQ training. Order Goleman’s books through www.amazon.com  . Google EQ and “Emotional Intelligence” and “Social Intelligence” and Daniel Goleman.

Tell me what you think at cefocusing@gmail.com or comment on this blog ! Or email your findings to The Creative Edge Collaborators’ Group. Join at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/creativeedgecollab 

 See blogs under Category: Conflict Resolution in the sidebar to find a complete mini-course on Interpersonal Focusing and Conflict Resolution, including Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication, Blanchard’s “One Minute Apology,” Patricia Evan’s books on Verbally Abuse and Controlling Relationships, McMahon’s Beyond The Myth Of Dominance, and much more.

Download complete Instant “Ahah!” Mini-Manual, in English and Spanish, from CEF Website

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way 

INTERPERSONAL FOCUSING: THE ONE MINUTE APOLOGY

By , March 20, 2008 12:15 pm

THE ONE MINUTE APOLOGY
 
Ken Blanchard, creator of The One Minute Manager idea, and Margret McBride wrote a lovely short book called The One Minute Apology: A Powerful Way To Make Things Better (William Morrow, 2003). It’s for executives and others (and their employees and friends!) who have made a big mistake.

First, I am going to walk you through Blanchard and McBride’s method. Then I am going to invite you to use The Intuitive Focusing skill to “work” the method in a deeper way. Intuitive Focusing allows you to take any question inside and, instead of answering from the “already known,” to go deeper into making fresh words for the “intuitive feel” of it all that is “more-than-words.”
 
The book tells a parable about an assistant who sees that his boss has made this kind of mistake and is trying to cover it up. Through conversations with a number of helpful people, the assistant finds a way to help his boss “fess up” and fix the problem.
 
It’s a message for everyone, a great holiday gift for everyone you know. Although perhaps the method has a lot in common with the 12-Step approach to recovery from addiction, what is great is that the book sets a new norm. It provides a rationale, it makes it acceptable, it makes it possible for executives and others who find it difficult to acknowledge weakness and error  to — just follow this simple method! Now, they could just walk into a Board Meeting and say, “I need to make a One Minute Apology.” The door has been opened.
 
Here is Blanchard’s summary of The One Minute Apology method:
 
“I ask myself the following questions, and answer truthfully:
 
What mistake did I make?
Did I dismiss another person, their wishes, feelings, or ideas?
Did I take credit when it wasn’t due?

Why did I do this?
Was it an impulsive, thoughtless act? Was it calculated?
Was it a result of my fear, anger, or frustration?
What was my motivation?

How long have I let this go on? Is this the first or repeated time?
Is this behavior becoming a pattern in my life?

What is the truth I am not dealing with?
Am I better than this behavior?
 
Then I do the following:
 
I begin my one minute apology with Surrender
I am truthful and admit to myself that I’ve done something wrong and I need to make up for it.
I take full responsibility for my actions and sincerely recognize the need to apologize to anyone I have harmed, regardless of the outcome
I have a sense of urgency about apologizing – I act as soon as possible
I tell anyone harmed specifically what I did wrong
I share how I feel about what I did with those harmed

I complete my one minute apology with Integrity
I recognize that what I did is inconsistent with who I want to be
I reaffirm I am better than my poor behavior and forgive myself
I recognize how much I have hurt another person by making amends and demonstrate my commitment not to repeat the act by changing my behavior

Use Intuitive Focusing As An Aid In A One Minute Apology?(20 minutes)
 
Intuitive Focusing can help you get to the deeper roots of a problem, to get below the rational thoughts that spin in your mind but don’t help you move forward or find out something new. Intuitive Focusing means pausing, for just a moment, and letting the “whole body feel,” the “right-brain, intuitive information” come as A Creative Edge, a something-more-than-words from which new, non-linear answers can come.
 
If this fits for you in anyway, you can use a modification of Instant “Ahah!” #1, Focusing: Find Out What Is Bothering to spend some time sitting with the “intuitive feel” that comes to Blanchard and McBride’s basic questions, and then use their action suggestions to facilitate an apology:
 
Set aside some uninterrupted time and take a seat in a comfortable chair. Close your eyes if you can be comfortable doing that. Otherwise just stare into space —
 
Notice the feel of your body everywhere that it touches the chair, your feet on the ground, as a beginning step in going inside, becoming aware of your whole-body “intuition” —
 
Now just pay attention to your breath, just noticing the breath going in — and out — in — and out — in — and out —
One minute
Now notice where you have tension in your body. Massage those spots a bit with your hands if you want — your head and face, your neck and shoulders, wherever —
One minute
Now imagine that all that tension becomes a stream of water, running down your arms and legs and out of your body — just letting go —
One minute
Now ask yourself, “What mistake have I made that could benefit from a One Minute Apology? —-
“Is there something I have done which I carry as a weight, a fear, an unresolved tension?” —
“Have I dismissed another person, their wishes, feelings, or ideas?” —
“Have I taken credit when it wasn’t due?” —
These are just possibilities. Ask yourself, “Is there a mistake I have made?” Just wait quietly, as long as a minute, for the “intuitive feel,” the “felt sense” of that “whole thing” to form in the center of your body:
One minute or more
Spend some time going back and forth between the “feel of it all” and words or images or gestures that might capture it, until your body-feel says, “Yes, that’s right. That captures it. That captures my mistake” —
One minute
Now, if it fits for you, ask Blanchard’s next question: “Why did I do this? Some suggestions: impulsivity, thoughtlessness? Calculated? Out of fear, anger, or frustration? But ask yourself, “What was my motivation?” and see what comes inside, the “intuitive feel,” the not-yet words about the motivation for this whole mistake —
One minute
And, again, take some time to go back and forth between the “feel of it all” and words, images, or gestures which capture it —
One minute
And now ask yourself Blanchard’s question, “How long have I let this go on? Is this the first or repeated time? Is this behavior becoming a pattern in my life?” and see what comes — again, not the words you already know but the “intuitive feel” of the answer: “Is this the first and only time? How widespread is this behavior in my life?” —
One minute
And again carefully find words or images to capture “all of that” —
One minute
And Blanchard’s next question: ‘What is the truth I am not dealing with?” or “Is there a truth I am not dealing with?” and see what comes —
One minute
Go back and forth between the “intuitive feel” and words and images until the symbols fit and capture the “feel of it all” and your body says, “Oh, yes. That.” —
One minute
And ask yourself Blanchard’s question: “Am I better than this behavior?” and see what comes — not the known words but the “intuitive feel” —
One minute
And go back and forth until you find words or images to capture that —
One minute
And now spend some time with Blanchard’s action steps as listed above, asking yourself each time, “Am I ready and able to do this?” “What would be needed for me to take this action? What kind of support or help, if needed?” and make a list of how you are going to carry out these action steps. And then start your One Minute Apology!!!

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way 

CREATIVITY: FINDING YOUR UNIQUE “TOUCHSTONE”

By , February 27, 2008 2:00 pm

See previous blog Creating At The Edge: Culture of Creativity for introduction.
 

INTUITIVE FOCUSING EXERCISE: THE “TOUCHSTONE MISSION”

So, let’s modify the “One Small Thing” Focusing Exercise a little and use the Intuitive Focusing skill to find the unique “Touchstone Mission” which engages and motivates each of us in our work and living. In groups, teams, or organizations, it is also possible to go further by sharing and nurturing these “Touchstone Missions” in each individual person, while meeting the over-all goals of an organization.

Finding A Talisman Object Symbolizing Your Work

Each individual will use Focusing to find words and images for their unique mission, in their individual work and/or within an organization, the unique contribution which would matter enough TO THEM as an individual to keep them motivated. Then, the individual will use Intuitive Focusing to come up with a symbol and an actual object which could stand as a personal Talisman for this Touchstone Mission, a reminder to return to this source for energy and inspiration.

The symbolic object could be kept on their desk or worn as a lapel button or jewelry, as a reminder to the individual to stay in touch with their Creative Edge and also a way of easily communicating to others this core motivating factor.

For example, for me, the symbol of my Touchstone Mission is a prism: conveying the idea to as many people as possible that finding the “new” comes from using Intuitive Focusing to allow ideas and solutions to arise from the “pause,” from intuitive, right-brain knowing. So, I could wear a prism as a reminder to myself and to others about what matters to me, what motivates me or keep one on my desk. A kaleidoscope serves as a similar talisman for me: a reminder that, through Intuitive Focusing, the entire Gestalt changes, and new ideas and action possibilities arise.
 
For another person, the motivating factor might be interconnections throughout the globe, and they might wear a globe as their symbol.
 
For an engineer, it might be perfectly elegant designs, and a symbol of this.
 
For a human resources person, it might be something about the perfect match between person and job, or low turn-over….whatever it is, a simple symbol of that motivating factor.
 
Sharing Your Talisman and Touchstone Mission With Others
 
If deciding to share this exercise with others in a group or team or organization, individuals could share about their symbol and talisman after the Focusing exercise, or a game could be devised throughout an organization, with people visiting colleagues, discovering the talisman object, and learning th Touchstone Mission of the others. A prize at the end for whoever learns the most talismans and missions! Or some such version as an icebreaker at an organizational gathering.
 
Focusing Instructions: “What is my unique Touchstone Mission, the motivation that can keep my work fresh and alive? What could be a symbol representing this to myself and to others?” 20 minutes
 
As a group or individually, sit down and get comfortable Click e-newsletter archive for complete Focusing Exercise

Download Dr. McGuire’s article  Collaborative Edge Decision Making Method  en espanol

Find links to free articles, personality tests, multi-media Self-Help training, Classes and workshops

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way 

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