Bring Yourself To Work Day ™

Bring Yourself To Work Day

2007-05-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

Join us for Bring Yourself to Work Day

Study after study finds the greatest barrier to increased productivity is not process immaturity, not lack of motivation, and not lack of training. The greatest barrier is inability of people to bring their full selves to work.

When you get to work do you feel:

Harried?
Hurried?
Disconnected?
Numb?

Do you feel like any job but the one you have would be an improvement?

Do you wish there was another way to make a living and make a life?

There is!

Bring Yourself to Work today to discover a difference that could make a lasting difference!

Join others like you around the world on a very short adventure that could make a lasting difference. Bring yourself to work today and find the motivation and workplace freedom you long for. Invite friends and colleagues and multiply the effect of showing up.

If you've ever felt like you needed to check yourself at the door, dumb down, or leave your best self until after work, this day is for you. Try this for just one day and consider how everyday just might turn into Bring Yourself to Work day!

If you are part of a team or leading a group, Bring Yourself To Work Day is an opportunity to reflect on how small everyday choices - to not notice, not speak up, dismiss feelings, and over-ride intuition - accumulate to stifle engagement. If you are concerned with the engagement in your organization, you might use this day to observe and reflect on how your organization's policies and and the actions of managers and leaders might support or discourage real engagement.

If you are a person who loves going to work everyday, feels supported and valued for speaking up, and showing up fully, Bring Yourself To Work Day will be a day of appreciation, awareness, and celebration. You might find yourself encouraging and supporting others to experience their work in a very different way.

Bring Yourself to Work Day is sponsored by the Five Freedoms NetworkTM an international consortium of companies, consultants, and coaches dedicated to improving productivity and satisfaction through helping people really show up every day! To join The Five Freedoms Network contact info@fivefreedomsnetwork.org.

Warmly,
David Schmaltz & Amy Schwab
Founders of Bring Yourself to Work Day

Bring Yourself to Work Day Everyday!

2007-05-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

Today is Bring Yourself to Work Day!!!

Today we invite you to Bring Yourself To Work Day™. This is an invitation to experience work in a really different way and an opportunity to create with others a workplace that’s safe for you to be yourself.

Today we invite you to set aside the five workplace inhibitions and engage in The Five Freedoms instead.

The five workplace inhibitions are patterns that we pick up early in our work lives. These are the parts of our nature we too often learn to omit from our public selves. What begins as innocent attempts to fit in, repeated over time, can become work life-limiting patterns.

The Five Inhibitions

To see and hear only what should be, was, or will be, instead of what is here now.
To say only what one ought to say instead of what one feels and thinks.
To feel only what one ought to feel instead of what one really feels.
To ask only for what one is supposed to want and then wait for permission to act instead of asking for what one wants.
To choose to be “secure” and not rock the boat instead of taking risks in one’s own behalf.

Bring Yourself To Work Day is intended to disrupt this pattern. We invite you to exercise Virginia Satir’s Five Freedoms for just one day and see what happens:

The Five Freedoms
To see and hear what is here, instead of what should be, was, or will be.
To say what one feels and thinks instead of what one should.
To feel what one feels, instead of what one ought.
To ask for what one wants, instead of always waiting for permission.
To take risks in one's own behalf, instead of choosing only to be “secure” and not rocking the boat.

For Bring Yourself To Work Day, consider adding a sixth freedom, the freedom to choose when, where, and how to exercise the other five freedoms! Fully exercising these six freedoms is widely believed to be career limiting. We’re betting that it won’t be.

Here you'll find exercises for Bring Yourself to Work Day, ideas for team and organization wide activities, and links to others' experiences.

Share your Bring Yourself to Work Day with others. View others' ideas, questions, and comments at our Google Group. http://groups.google.com/group/bringyourselftowork?hl=en

If you'd like to contribute, there will be a short registration.

Welcome!

Bring Yourself To Work Day

2007-04-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

Almost twenty years ago, The Ms Foundation For Women initiated what has now become an annual workplace tradition: Take Your Daughter To Work Day®.

The originating idea focused upon providing young women, aged eight to twelve, exposure to the real world of work. When I took my daughter to work with me, she got to experience the numbing boredom of meetings, the uneasy exchange of information as a client critiqued a draft status report, and the disorienting choices in a corporate cafeteria. Because I was then working as a traveling consultant, she also got to experience two ninety minute plane rides, complete with frantic drives to overcrowded airports.

I still remember many of the details of that day because, with her present, I was somehow more present myself. It wasn’t just that I’d taken my daughter to work with me that day, but that I’d brought a little bit more of myself there that day, too.

And that memory got me thinking. How often do I really bring my full self to work with me? Recent studies show that people leave a lot of their real selves at home when they report to work, explaining that it’s just too risky to show up out of prescribed role. We each seem to learn early in our careers what parts of our nature we should omit from our public selves. What starts as an innocent attempt to fit in can, repeated over time, become a work life-limiting pattern.

My idea for a Bring Yourself To Work Day is to disrupt this pattern, if only for a day. What is this pattern?

Let’s call this pattern The Five Inhibitions. They work like this:

To see and hear only what should be, was, or will be, instead of what is here.
To say only what one ought to say instead of what one feels and thinks.
To feel only what one ought to feel instead of what one really feels.
To ask only for what one is supposed to want and then wait for permission to act instead of asking for what one wants.
To choose to be “secure” and not rock the boat instead of taking risks in one’s own behalf.

I invite you to bring yourself to Bring Yourself To Work Day everyday! This might be a really freaky Friday, where each of us sees work in a really different way. Where we work together to create a workplace that’s safe for us to really be ourselves.

On this day, I invite you to set aside the five great inhibitions and engage in The Five Freedoms instead. Virginia Satir suggested that we each have five freedoms. These freedoms are:

To see and hear what is here, instead of what should be, was, or will be.
To say what one feels and thinks instead of what one should.
To feel what one feels, instead of what one ought.
To ask for what one wants, instead of always waiting for permission.
To take risks in one's own behalf, instead of choosing only to be “secure” and not rocking the boat.

For Bring Yourself To Work Day, consider adding a sixth freedom, the freedom to choose when and where to exercise the other five freedoms! Fully exercising the six freedoms is widely believed to be career limiting. I’m betting that it won’t be.

Following posts will offer some warming-up exercises to help you get your six freedoms ready for roll-out on your own personal Bring Yourself To Work Day.

Please share this idea widely.

I think we have an opportunity to create together the sort of workplaces we each aspire to have.

Let’s get a real movement started!

The Sixth Freedom

2007-04-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

"The freedom to choose when and where to exercise the other five freedoms."

The sixth freedom might seem the same as the five inhibitions, but the sixth freedom brings choice. Inhibition is not a chosen response, but a rule-driven one. Further, inhibition focuses upon 'not doing' something, while the sixth freedom remains a positive choice.

Choice makes all the difference. To have a freedom cannot require exercising that freedom. We do not always feel safe exercising our freedoms, but we do not forfeit them when we choose to not exercise them. We lose our freedom when we are prevented from exercising them—or when we prevent ourselves from exercising them.

The sixth freedom is a powerful, empowering resource. As you move away from being driven by The Five Inhibitions, your first steps might well involve nothing more than choosing not to exercise your Five Freedoms, which need not be compulsively, consistently invoked for you to maintain them. While The Five Inhibitions can easily become the Five Imperatives, The Five Freedoms cannot become imperatives and remain freedoms.

No one can mandate the freedom to choose without forfeiting that very freedom.

The Five Freedoms

2007-04-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

To see and hear what is here, instead of what should be, was, or will be.
To say what one feels and thinks instead of what one should.
To feel what one feels, instead of what one ought.
To ask for what one wants, instead of always waiting for permission.
To take risks in one's own behalf, instead of choosing only to be “secure” and not rocking the boat.

Virginia Satir

The Five Inhibitions

2007-04-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

To see and hear only what should be, was, or will be, instead of what is here.
To say only what one ought to say instead of what one feels and thinks.
To feel only what one ought to feel instead of what one really feels.
To ask only for what one is supposed to want and then wait for permission to act instead of asking for what one wants.
To choose to be “secure” and not rock the boat instead of taking risks in one’s own behalf.

Dashboard

2007-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to be talking about dashboards, but common project and organizational dashboards usually amount to no more than a few so-called idiot lights. Idiot lights possess one attractive feature—they are simple. That’s why we call ‘em “idiot lights.”

Idiot lights light up to tell us something is happening, but they have two severely limiting factors. First: they can only sense the absence of something. They can’t tell anyone what to do. Second: they measure trivial things. They can only be usefully attached to easily measured, rather than necessarily meaningful, components.

Any idiot can sense a difference and illuminate a light. It takes a master to determine from scant evidence how, or if at all, anyone should respond.

The real world is filled with complications which cannot be meaningfully assessed by idiot lights. What should we have on our dashboards?

Among all the writing focusing upon the essential components of operational dashboards, I find some useful gauges commonly overlooked. Here’s a small sampling of gauges useful when piloting an organization.

Assumptometer: This gauge measures the divergence from reality of assumptions. It glows green when assumptions mirror actual experience. But it glows red when divergences appear. The skillful operator can use this indicator to determine the angle necessary to bend over to maintain funding for their effort.

Altimidator: This gauge measures the pressure exerted to report that everything is fine. This gauge is very sensitive to political pressure and answers correctly the implied, unspeakable question, “How high would you like us to be?”

The Fool Gauge: This gauge measures the cubic furlongs of foolishness embodied in the current strategy. When a strategy is foolhardy, a red needle indicates “F” or “Full Of It.” Where well-grounded, the needle points to ‘E’, which stands for “Excellent”.

Narrometer: This gauge measures narrowness of vision. On mandate projects, which are trying to implement a single imperative alternative, the narrometer blinks a steady, warning red. Where the project fluidly discards unworkable alternatives, the gauge glows a reassuring go-ahead green.

Communitator: This gauge measures relative insulation from the community it serves. Where isolated, segregated, or protected from influence (or where the community receives only conditioned information), this gauge blinks an annoying red. Where the project is fully engaged with and frequently inconvenienced by their broader community, the gauge displays a green-glowing thumbs-up icon.

Methodometer: This simple gauge measures the number of enforceable rules governing the effort. Where many rules and threatening punishments exist, this gauge emits an annoying ‘boink-boink’ sound. Where the effort is guided by a few, well-acknowledged principles, this gauge is silent.

Odorometer: This gauge amplifies the smell of an organization. The slightest hint of the place going sour floods the cockpit with a noxious wind assertive enough to awaken even the most thoroughly entranced pilot.

Soil Pressure Gauge: This gauge registers, in cubic foot pounds, the pressure preventing full “disclosure” of whatever shit has not yet hit the fan. Pressures exceeding 300 pounds per cubic foot are not uncommon on enterprise-wide initiatives. Government-funded DoD efforts, like the Star Wars program, have been calibrated as maintaining thousands of cubic foot pounds of pressure over decades. The engineering needed to maintain containments can far exceed the engineering employed to produce the organization’s product, and tends to increase over time. Historical readings from this gauge are useful when designing information-containment vessels for upcoming efforts. Containment failures tend to be memorable “Oh shit!” experiences, and are measured in “pants full.”

Vacuum Pressure Gauge: This meter monitors the cumulative effects of group think on an organization. The readings are colloquially referred to as “suck.” Useful for determining the number of IQ points beneath mathematical average of the members’ IQs to expect from decision-making bodies. Generally, low vacuum pressure can be interpreted as wisdom, high vacuum pressure as stupidity.

These gauges represent a few of the readings we might monitor to inform ourselves about the state of our organizations. Interestingly, most people have these sensors built into their standard sensing systems but learn to ignore them. Don’t let the idiot lights distract you. They could make you respond as if you are dumber than you really are.

The master mechanic listens for more than the warning bells and sees beyond distracting idiot lights. He learns from experience to trust his own good judgment. There never has been a gauge that monitors its own usefulness.

I recently learned that the ‘check engine’ light, which had been worrying me whenever I started my car’s engine, was caused by a faulty sensor. It never had anything to do with my engine’s performance. I had nonetheless developed over time a long ritual of warming the engine, turning it off, then starting it again to idle, which seemed to reliably cause the alarming light to turn off.

What reassuring but meaningless rituals have the idiot lights on your dashboard encouraged you to adopt?

5- Rocking the boat.

2007-04-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

This post is the sixth of a series of preparation exercises for Bring Yourself To. The purpose of this exercise is to improve your ability take risks in your own behalf instead of choosing to be “secure” - a sorry form of safety.

What IS risk, anyway? I define risk as a certain uncertainty with disruptive potential. My definition does not predict disruption with certainty, but merely declares my uncertainty. Yet, it’s intriguing to notice how often I act as though I was, or could be, certain about risk. I’m pretty good at behaving as if the imagined disruption were guaranteed, then avoiding whatever I’m uncertain about.

This tactic helps me avoid possible downsides, but it also guarantees that I’ll never experience any upside, either. In work situations, the very lack of confirmation my avoiding provides can encourage even more of the same avoidance, as if it were necessary, beneficial, and appropriate. I can feel safe when I’m only secure within chains of my own making.

How sane is that?

Look back through your work history and identify a couple of ‘proudest accomplishments.’ If you’re experience is anything like mine, you’ll notice one attribute common to these peak experiences. You stepped out of some safe, predictable space. You rocked the boat a little. This amplified instability, but also pushed you into some different equilibrium. You’re still proud about the result.

Chances are pretty good that at least one of those stepping outs was inadvertent. You leaned a bit and the boat started rocking, and you found a different balancing point. That’s good. One of the best ways to learn how to rock a boat is to notice that sometimes you rocked the boat without intending to, and the boat didn’t sink.

Accumulate a few of these experiences, and deliberately rocking the boat does not seem so dangerous. You’re probably in no danger of becoming a compulsive boat rocker. Check with others. I’ll bet their experience has been similar.

The workplaces where people are most terrified of being fired are those where no one is ever fired. The lack of experience surviving the risky experience fuels not safety, but paranoia.

Try something a little outrageous today. Confront that bully. Refuse that assignment. Say one thing you’re convinced can’t be mentioned, and see what happens. Some water might splash over the gunwale, your feet might even get wet, but your buoyancy might just be improved, especially if you find yourself riding the peak of some unanticipated wave as a result.

4- Asking for what I want.

2007-04-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

This post is the fifth of a series of preparation exercises for Bring Yourself To Work Day. The purpose of this exercise is to improve your ability to ask for what you want, rather than waiting for permission to ask.

What do you want? This is the miracle question.

I struggle to distinguish between like, want, and need. I can like something without wanting it. I can also want something without needing it. I suppose maturity helps me make these fine distinctions.

My wife Amy and I were plotting with a colleague, when she asked him, "What do you want?"

"I'd like ... ," he began.

To which Amy replied, "But what do you want?"

"Like, want, what does it matter?" our friend responded.

"Here's the difference," Amy continued. "I like you." She waited a few seconds as this statement sunk in before affecting a seductive look, then said, "I want you!"

Our friend almost fell out of his chair!

Before asking for what I want, it's helpful to make this one, small distinction between like, want, and need. Prefer what I like. Attract what I want. Go out and get what I need.

How do I attract what I want? I hold what I want close to my heart. If it sits comfortably there, it’s probably something I really want.

I troll for opportunities to get what I want. With this intention sitting comfortably close to my heart, I’m more likely to notice when my heart’s desire appears.

When it appears, if I wait for permission to ask for what I want, I’ve found that I do a lot more waiting than asking, and very little getting what I want.

But I can start small, even at work. by first getting clear about what I want. This seems a simple, invisible, unindictable preface to asking for what I want. Because if I’m not clear about what I want, I’m unlikely to notice when an opportunity to ask for it appears.

Now here’s the magic part. Rather than insisting upon asking for what you want when you notice the opportunity to ask appear, notice when you don’t ask. Don’t beat yourself up about it, just notice. Observe reflectively. If you find yourself asking less than noticing, you’ve shown yourself to be completely human. If you notice that you’re noticing a lot more than you used to, you’re perfectly positioned for the next step, asking for what you want.

Since wanting isn’t so urgent as needing, and more insistent than liking, missing opportunities to ask for what you want is no terrible crime. But not even noticing when the opportunity to ask for what you want occurs seems the very recipe for concluding that you can’t ever get what you want.

Notice today. Get clear about what you want, hold that close to your heart, and watch yourself choosing not to speak up for your heart’s desire. Your heart will teach you to ask, when the times are right, once it notices a few opportunities to ask for what you really want slip away.

3- Feeling what I really feel.

2007-04-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

This post is the fourth of a series of preparation exercises for Bring Yourself To Work Day. The purpose of this exercise is to improve your ability to feel.

I'm the sort of person who, when asked how he feels, most often responds by quite unselfconsciously replying, "I think I feel ... ." I recall one of my teachers responding, "I know you do, now WHAT IS IT THAT YOU FEEL?"

That's harder for me. Truth told, I don't often feel any sensation. I'm not stone, but I, well, kinda live in my head a lot. I can miss dinner and not feel like I've missed anything at all if I'm engaged in some satisfying intellectual pursuit. I inherited a remarkably high pain threshold. Before I had back surgery in 2001, I contracted shingles. When I reported my 'mildly annoying rash" to my doctor, he asked how that pain compared with my unrelenting back pain. "No comparison," I said. "Shingles don't qualify as pain."

"Let's go ahead and schedule that back surgery," my doctor replied.

So, when it comes to feeling what I really feel, I'm a master of cluelessness. Maybe this ability qualifies me to speak about feeling what I really feel. I have to work at it harder than some. For those who would classify themselves as 'natural feelers,' their feelings just seem to visit them, like my thoughts visit me. They might well struggle to define some meaning for them, but they have no problem experiencing their feelings. I, on the other hand, jump right to meaning and get stuck there. I know I'm feeling something when my thinking shifts. Invariably, when I remember to check my feelings then, I find something genuine gurgling there.

I've adopted a little trick to remind me to check in with how I'm feeling. I carry a stone in my right front pocket, a piece of rose quartz I took from Virginia Satir's gravesite in Crested Butte, Colorado. Satir, a pioneer in what came to be called family therapy, had the remarkable ability to sense another's feelings. I've studied her work for many years and found in it some clues to sensing my own feelings. The little stone reminds me to check.

It's too easy to check out when you check in at work. The old, familiar patterns blunting your connection between experience and feelings about the experience might seem irrelevant in the context of putting your head down and accomplishing something at work. Feelings CAN get in the way. But then, so can numbness, but how would anyone ever know it had?

Feel today. Wear mismatched socks if that will keep you alert. Carry a shard of rose quartz and remember, when you happen upon that stone while fishing around through loose change, to check in to wherever your feelings lurk when you're working. You might catch yourself delighting in something that never quite registered before.

What's so terrible about that?

2- Saying what I think and feel.

2007-04-11T16:07:00.000-07:00

This post is the third of a series of preparation exercises for Bring Yourself To Work Day. The purpose of this exercise is to improve your ability say what you actually feel and think, instead of what you should. This post is about feeling and thinking.

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to attend a function for a State board. I found myself seated next to an exuberant attorney who, I learned over dinner, is a member of the Board of Directors for Seattle's Discovery Institute, the organization promoting the Intelligent Design "controversy." I heard myself saying, "Does this mean that you're a right-wing nut case?" before my usual internal censor could silence me.

"No," he emphatically responded, "It means that I have real questions about how humans could have resulted from random dice tosses."

We had a more interesting conversation over the following few minutes than we'd had over the previous hour. Furthermore, when he found that I wasn't buying into his random arguments, he discretely changed seats, leaving me next to a man who, as a sixteen year-old Congressional page, had once T-Boned Barry Goldwater's pride-and-joy 1957 T-Bird in front of the sidewalk where Barry was waiting for him to bring him his ride.

Priceless.

Fact is, until that attorney mentioned the Discovery Institute, nothing we'd discussed had really sparked a feeling response in me. Once my feelings were aroused, it seemed my thinking kicked in, too.

Perhaps the key inhibitor to saying what I feel and think is that so little of what I talk about ever kicks me into feeling anything very deeply. Start feeling, though, and thinking seems to follow. So does speaking what I feel and think.

I know the popular myth says that should you commit a truth and actually say what you feel and think, bad things will happen. Has this really been your experience? It's too often my story, too, but try as I might, I can't validate this story with my personal experience.

Our workplaces today seem to be organized to inhibit feeling, which quite naturally inhibits thinking. No one can say what they feel and think if they aren't feeling anything. So today, in preparation for Bring Yourself To Work Day, conspire with yourself to feel something! Take offense! Or feel an appreciation! Lose control of your precious blood pressure! Step out of the feelingless trance your workplace induces in you and listen to what your mouth has to say about it.

If you can't feel, you can't think. And if you can't think, it probably doesn't matter what comes out of your mouth.

Bring the 'F' word (feeling) to work with you today and experience the difference a little feeling can make.

1- (continued) Seeing and hearing what is here.

2007-04-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

This post is the second of a series of preparation exercises for Bring Yourself To Work Day. The purpose of this exercise is to improve your ability see and hear what is actually here, instead of what should be, was, or will be. This post is about planning.

Why does the Leaning Tower of Pisa lean? Because it was built on swampy ground. Why was it built on swampy ground? 'Cause that's where the sponsor said to build it!

When we see the future without fully acknowledging the present, we can sink foundations into inappropriate ground. The charter that proclaims what shall be, assuming away even normal complications, as if anyone could simply declare a future without fully acknowledging the present, buys an unnecessarily surprising future.

Try sitting with the present mess for a while instead.

Today, before projecting an alluring future, spend a little time sitting with the present. Try to fix nothing before plotting to fix anything. Whether you get your feet on the street or your butt in your chair, take your head out of the clouds for a spell. You might be surprised how the future shifts when grounded in a clearer recognition of what you find right here.

1- Seeing and hearing what is here.

2007-04-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

This post is the first of a series of preparation exercises for Bring Yourself To Work Day. The purpose of this exercise is to scrape some rust off of your ability to see and hear what is actually here, instead of what should be, was, or will be. Getting feet-on-the-ground present, and opening up those two key senses might seem like a straightforward challenge. Or no challenge at all.

Let's see.

In your next meeting, spend some time with your eyes closed. You might be surprised what you hear when your ears are not distracted by everything you see. I often use this technique when facilitating a group because the visual noise can really distract me from hearing what is actually being said. Intonation seems clearer. Contradictions more profound.

After a few moments, open your eyes. You might be surprised at what you see before you. (Maybe you'll find a room full of people giving you the sneer, and wondering what the heck's gotten into you!! But probably not.)

Taking a few minutes of visual respite can bring what was always there but never registered into sudden, sharp focus.

Interesting how deliberately disabling one sense enhances another. Also interesting how refreshed a sense can be after a moment of checking out.

The 5ive Freedoms Network

2007-04-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

5ive Freedoms Network members are dedicated
to promoting the ability for individuals
to Bring Themselves To Work every day!

5FN Charter Members:

Initiating Partner: True North

"In the instant between perception and action,

belief and behavior, lies the power to change the world!"

David A. Schmaltz,
author of The Blind Men and the Elephant

Amy Schwab,
author of Taming Wicked Projects

Heartland Circle
Craig and Patricia Neal
Heartland connects, gathers and convenes leaders who are changing the world through vision in action.

Heartland's network and programs serve those called to be our social and organizational pioneers—those who are restoring wholeness to themselves, their organizations, and their communities. Experience the power of one multiplied by the power of many: attend a Thought Leader Gathering, sign up for an Art of Convening TeleTraining, or register for the next VisionHolder Call or Special Program.

Carol Ross, CPCC, PCC “The Whole Brain Coach”

Helping intelligent, analytical thinkers power up their creativity and energy

Carol Ross is a career coach/blogger/podcaster. A former Bell Labs engineer, she lived the 5ive Freedoms in creating a worklife that engaged both sides of the brain. Carol has been published at HR.com, CHOICE magazine, and the Association for Spirit at Work. Her iTunes podcasts include Leading With a Whole New Mind , Live Action Coaching, and Career Mastery: Insights from the Experts

303-666-0580

Sharon Jordan-Evans, President, Jordan Evans Group
Co-author Wall Street Journal bestsellers
Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay and

Love It, Don't Leave It: 26 Ways to Get What You Want at Work

805-927-1432

The Virginia Satir Global Network
THE VIRGINIA SATIR NETWORK^{®
To move forward}

Peter DeJager
Peter de Jager is a speaker/writer/consultant on the issues relating to the Rational Assimilation of the Future. He has published hundreds of articles on topics ranging from Problem Solving, Creativity and Change to the impact of technology on areas such as privacy, security and business. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Futurist and Scientific American.

SYSTEMODELS
III asks the questions technology tries to answer. Exploiting his four decades of systems experience and his skills as a master facilitator (and a degree in Dramatic Art), he coaches teams through strategic planning, chartering, essence modeling, tough decisions, retrospecting, brain liberty and having great fun doing good work. His co mpany (Systemodels) teaches and consults with projects and teams across North America, and has worked with clients in most primary sectors of the economy.

Acorn Consulting
Ainsley Nieshas been an innovator, synthesizer a nd leader for more than two decades in the people side of information systems work. She works with groups and organizations who want to perform at their highest level - creating collaborations, planning, managing programs/projects and helping organizations to be more agile. Ainsley also provides coaching for individuals, one-to-one and through Personal Retrospective workshops.

Tobias Fors
Tobias Fors is one of the owners of the Swedish software development consultancy Citerus. As a consultant, speaker and writer, his ambition is to show that software projects can be fun and profitable at the same time.

The Axelrod Group

The Axelrod Group designs collaborative systems which enable leaders and workers to jointly construct a company both profitable and worthy of pride.

Some have called their practices “organizational barn raising” because the focus and energy shown by participants reminds them of the old-time, community barn raisings, in which neighbors would erect a sturdy building in a weekend.

When a company is focused and the system its people work within calls for spirited involvement, remarkable things can occur quickly.