Success Strategies and Learning Experiences
Why Consult Dr. Steve & the Wisdom At Work Team?
Courses offered by Widom At Work
Team Building
Performance Management and Development System
Business Planning Basics
Strategic Planning for Nonprofits
Appreciative Inquiry: An Innovative Process for Organization
Change
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Take a Complimentary Assessment
It's about the results, the benefits, the changes in performance the training will bring. Isn't that what you're really interested in? Wisdom At Work delivers much more than classroom training, it produces learning experiences - coaching, interactive internet, teambuilding teleconferences, performance management systems. Blended learning experiences, tailored to the specific needs, context and situation.
Think out loud. Talk with a professional with 36 years of training, team building,
leadership, management and organization development experience. There's no obligation.
Success Strategies and
Learning Experiences
View our client list
Benefits - Why Choose Wisdom At Work?
Guarantee
Organizational Renewal
The topics listed below can be offered in formats ranging from half hour keynote speech to, one, two or three hour sessions; half day or whole day workshops or one to two day retreats.
One of the most popular delivery systems is Wisdom At Work's high impact Teleclass format. Live instruction delivered to groups of learners over the phone. Eliminate travel, room and food costs.
Topics can be combined, modified and tailored to fit most situations and needs. Humor, experiential learning, role plays, discussion groups and state-of-the-art information make sessions with Dr. Steve Liebowitz and the others on the Wisdom At Work team both memorable and effective.
Why Consult Dr. Steve
& the Wisdom At Work Team?
Schedule your complimentary 20 minute consultation now!
View our client list
Benefits - Why Choose Wisdom At Work?
Guarantee
Sustainable Growth
You need new professionals, not old ones. You've gone as far as you can as you
were. "If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always
got."
For the past thirty six years, across the United States and throughout South Florida, Dr.Steve Liebowitz and the Wisdom At Work team has helped teams, organizations and individuals cope and even thrive on contemporary business conditions. Their unique blend of humor, inspiration, custom designed learning experiences and change management have made a significant difference.
The team of professionals associated with Wisdom At Work has more that 100 years of combined experience in management, organizational renewal, public administration, small business success, instructional design and training needs assessment, design, implementation and evaluation. They are prepared to offer the wide array of consulting services described here.
The team has it's greatest depth in small to mid size businesses, sole proprietorships, PAs - professional associations, government, not-for-profit, educational and health care organizations. Corporate clients looking for innovative approaches and breakthroughs do not despair! We're willing to take a chance on you, if you're willing to take a chance on us!
Schedule your complimentary 20 minute consultation now!
View our client list
Benefits - Why Choose Wisdom At Work?
Guarantee
Career Development - Live Your Destiny, Not Your History:
Self Awareness, Self Control & Motivation
Is your career where you want it to be? Who are you, really? What's your motivational
profile and what difference does it make in the quality of your career and life?
Learn to use values clarification, the hierarchy of needs, reality therapy,
behavioral reinforcement and cognitive dissonance to have the career and life
you really want.
People Do Business With People They Trust – Sales Skills
Sales skills are useful to everyone in every field of work. Consultative or relationship selling works better than traditional selling. Consultative selling in which the objective is to develop a relationship with the prospect and take a longer, more strategic view of the sales process has been shown to be much more productive than the traditional, quick sell method. Learn all about it and put it to work for you, now!
Networking - People Do Business With People They Trust
Word of mouth and referrals are the most efficient ways of marketing and reaching new customers. Networking is an excellent way to do this. Learn how to get your message out there, build relationships, make meaningful connections and have fun, too.
The Art of Getting Your Own Sweet Way: How to Do More
Than Get Along With Others
Establishing boundaries & comfort zones and how to defend them. Honoring and understanding other peoples' zones and boundaries. The relationships between zones, boundaries, selfishness and peak performance. How are aggressive and assertiveness behavior different? Is lying ever right? What's the relationship between manners, frankness and common courtesy?
Essential techniques for creating and maintaining positive relations with clients and customers: listening, body language, not taking it personally, courtesy, tone of voice.
What are the four essential elements of a good plan and an effective planning process? How to keep planning from becoming a "big deal" while routinely producing and implementing the different types of plans: SOPs, strategic plans, contingency plans and budgets.
Not all conflict is equal. There are ranges: degrees of strength and violence. Learn when to whisper and when to nuke 'em. Understand how conflict works, on and off the job and the techniques for turning most conflicts into "win/win" outcomes.
Does everyone have the potential to be creative? How can innate creativity be tapped? Learn the basic techniques for understanding, stimulating and developing one's own and other people's creativity.
Why are some people easy and others not? What makes someone difficult for you? This workshop emphasizes understanding why people, be they friends, bosses, spouses, customers or family are difficult for us, individually, and then using that insight to develop a plan to work through the difficulty.
The famous "TA" course. What are the three basic ego states and how can you manage them in yourself and others? How do crossed transactions deprive you of success and make your relationships weak and ineffective? Learn this powerful method for reinterpreting and redirecting your life and the lives of those around you.
How to cope with the symptoms of stress by using the relaxation response; nutrition; exercise; the flight or fight response and positive addiction. Identify, neutralize and then eliminate your stressors.
What is the 80/20 Rule? Can fishbone charts really solve problems? Amaze your co-workers and impress your boss. Learn to use basic operations research concepts to improve your ability to do more -- at home and on the job.
Techniques to improve the powers of observation and retention. Topics include: how to master word pictures; scientific study methods; memory rules; patterns of association; and the powers of intention and self confidence.
Master the fundamental elements: body language, word selection, tone of voice, spatial distance and gestures. Identify the everyday breakdowns and the ways to fix them.
The marketplace, customers, competition, technology and workforce are constantly changing. Identify how these trends are effecting you then learn how to "ride the horse in the direction it's going."
Procrastination, time bandits, setting priorities, scheduling techniques, designing a personal time management system, why time flies when you're having fun - the differences between subjective and objective time.
Can an Anglo sell to an African American or an Hispanic? What does "diversity" really mean in practical everyday terms? How can organizations and individuals recognize and make the most of it?
Who are you, really? What's your motivational profile and what difference does it make in the quality of your life? Learn to use values clarification, the hierarchy of needs, reality therapy, behavioral reinforcement and cognitive dissonance to live the life you want.
Two sessions: one aimed at HRD professionals, the other at employees.
How to become an effective trainer. Nuts and bolts techniques for identifying training needs, designing, delivering and evaluating short or long training.
Two versions: one for those conducting evaluations and one for those being evaluated.
The fundamental elements of business-like written communication: style, tone, grammar and clarity. Participants will practice writing, have that writing critiqued and then rewrite. Participants will use actual writing samples and assignments.
Building self confidence; using visual aids; gestures and body language; organizing the presentation; analyzing the audience; controlling stress and state fright.
What goes on in groups? How do they function? Why are some groups productive while others are destructive? Topics include: phases of group development, matching leadership style and expectations to each phase, cliques and sub groups, synergy and teamwork.
Working conditions that are unsafe actually slow the work and reduce its quality. Protecting people at work isn't just the right thing to do. It's the profitable thing to do. Topics: conducting a safety survey; workman's comp; accident review panels; setting-up and operating a safety program.
Taking messages; tone of voice; transferring the call; calming the irate caller; encouraging the caller; the dreaded hold. Goal: help people answering or using the phone all day to be more effective and to enjoy themselves, too.
Schedule your complimentary
20 minute consultation now!
View our client list
Benefits - Why Choose Wisdom At Work?
Guarantee
The Goal
Team building transforms a group of co-workers into a team. It provides a common language for teamwork, systematic methodologies for team based problem solving and other practical work tools to deliver high performance results.
Success in team building requires the energy, talents and ideas of everyone in the work group, even those individuals who seem heavily entrenched in counter-productive behaviors. The goal of Wisdom At Work's team building activities is to draw forth the best contributions from everyone, and to offer everyone in the group a series of opportunities to become fully functioning team members. When this happens, the improvement in bottom-line results are staggering.
The goal is to challenge and strengthen individual performance in the context of a team, to address both the individual and the group, and change the way they face challenges and take advantage of opportunities. Wisdom At Work's powerful team building experiences introduce theories, models, and applicable information that simultaneously impacts all levels of the individual and group to promote ongoing positive change. The goal is to foster reflection and innovation that will continue impacting the team and its members weeks, months and years beyond the initial short-term surface learning.
Wisdom At Work uses multi-layered interventions to dynamically build on the contributions from participants, interweaving theory, models and other relevant data to focus on prearranged workshop expectations. Experienced facilitators manage group dialogue and interactions towards understanding and consensus. Most of the learning activities can be delivered in a medium to large size meeting room and can include low-ropes elements, interactive discussion, instrumentation, activity-based problem solving exercises, coaching in groups and one-on-one, and communication/team development models.
PreparationHigh performance doesn't just happen. Even the most committed team won't succeed if it does not have the tools or systems for high performance. Are these in place? Are the physical working environment, computer and phone systems and software adequate, or better than adequate? It's best to have all this set before investing in team building.
Team Building OutcomesThese team building activities focus on "catching the team doing something right, "identifying what's working and deciding how to get more of it. Appreciative Inquiry builds a new awareness and familiarity among team members by focusing on their strengths, instead of their weaknesses. Reviewing past accomplishments and planning future action items is an important steps for a team's overall growth and effectiveness. Reviewing and even celebrating accomplishments, and revisiting common themes and shared purpose is critical to team stability. It also helps integrate new members that may have recently joined the organization.
The learning experiences used here also enhance communication, build trust and and enable individuals to gain insight into their own thoughts and motivations.
Phases of Team DevelopmentTheseteam building activities revolve around a model that explains the phases of team evolution and provide the skills to resolve the unresolved behaviors common to each development phase. Current challenges the team is facing are placed within the model and addressed by the team to both evolve the team and practice their skills. Participants gain critical skills and knowledge in team growth cycles, personality and interpersonal skill development, as well as creative problem solving. The seven growth stages are: Orientation, Trust, Goal/Role clarification, Commitment, Implementation, High performance, Renewal.
Partnering with CustomersThese team building activities focus participants on the value of viewing customers as part of the team process. Too often organizations have polices and procedures that tend to inadvertently keep customers at arms length. These Wisdom At Work learning experiences will explore techniques for going beyond customer satisfaction, to customer delight and how to turn customers into resources.
Strategic PlanningEffective organizations look to the future and plot business strategies for 3, 5, or 10 years out. Looking forward to virtual offices, more team interaction, and increased customer driven delivery, they see the internet and the shift from goods and services to information commodities as demanding new ways of conducting business.
Strategy, defined as the way an organization meets the challenges and opportunities presented by its environment, consists of a set of conscious choices about how to deliver value and distinguish itself from competitors. Strategies need to reflect the dynamic changes happening at an ever more rapid pace.
Team members will need greater individual flexibility, willingness to embrace technology, and view change as opportunities rather than as obstacles. While this seems to be common sense, individuals are creatures of habit and need training, support and reinforcement in their teams to demonstrate proactive thinking, coupled with real time practice on new thinking models. Participants will:
One of the most powerful ways to anchor and motivate individual improvement is instrumentation. The DISC, one of the most respected instruments in continual use, allows participants to complete it on line and receive a 25 page printout immediately. The scientifically reliable and valid data from the DISC, enables individuals to clearly understand their strengths and weaknesses.
When shared with teammates, DISC profiles facilitate rapid increases in trust, cooperation and communication. Team performance improves as members use their strengths more assertively, but get help and support with building up, and not having to hide their, weaknesses. The DISC equips teammates with a communication and thinking model that helps them transform misunderstanding and conflict into synergy and support.
Information from the DISC, also enables team members both individually and as a group, to better align their strengths with current team goals and conditions. A team balance is achieved by combining individual profiles to produce an overall team profile which, when viewed within the context of the team's purpose, highlights team strengths and weaknesses. The team can then develop strategies to maximize strengths and address weaknesses.
The Team CharterA final session to summarize all that has been accomplished and prepare a document codifying how the team will operate. Areas typically included: "What's our role?" - Team Role Statement; "What are we trying to achieve?" - Team Vision/Mission Statement; "How will we treat each other?" - Team Values/Supporting Behaviors; "How and with whom shall we communicate?" - Communication Strategy; "How will we track our performance?" - Performance Management System.
Next StepsBefore team building can begin, an in depth, on site needs analysis, consisting of observations and interviews with key stake holders: team members, management, customers and vendors, must occur. Based on that data, a proposal, consisting of the outcomes to be achieved; the number of sessions; the learning experiences - which simulations, ropes or games; and the costs, will be prepared and presented.
Performance Management
Systems
Schedule your complimentary
20 minute consultation now!
View our client list
Benefits - Why Choose Wisdom At Work?
Guarantee
Buy performance, not training!
Buy a Wisdom At Work Performance Management and Development System
When you buy training, what is it you really want? Performance, right? You assume that with the proper training, you'll get the desired performance. Sometimes that happens; often it does not.
Performance is what you want. Performance is the result of a complex interaction of many factors: clear standards, motivation, quality supervision, passion. Lack of knowledge or skill, the things training is best at, are only two of those factors.
Completing a training program does not = improved job performance.
Putting money into training without addressing the complex interaction of that series of factors is like throwing darts in a pub while you're drunk and blindfolded - only a few will hit the dart board, and fewer still will hit the target.
A performance development and management system addresses those factors and uses training for maximum effect. Such a system will be owned and operated by your organization. You will not be dependent on outsiders. Build it right, treat it right and it'll serve you well and long. It is an investment strategy.
Training without the framework of such a system, is a consumption strategy. You complete the training, maybe performance improves. Then you have to do it again or try something else.
With a soup-to-nuts performance management system based on clear standards negotiated and agreed upon with all the stakeholders, everything and anything that night effect performance, from the job description to the annual evaluation, from customer expectations to employee motivation is involved.
Buy performance, not training.
Everyone knows that human behavior is the result of a number of factors, some internal to the individual, some external. The more systematically these factors are managed, the better the behavior, that is, the more the behavior meets the expectations of all the stake holders: the individual, the team, management, customers, suppliers and the community as a whole. This document describes many of the most important behavioral factors and a skeleton or framework for managing and developing them.
Factors That Impact Performance and BehaviorVision, goals, purpose, measures, structure, plans, incentives, training, leadership, tools and equipment, time, money and other resources, respect, appreciation, recognition, opportunities to learn, grow and be creative, safety, trust, pride, enthusiasm, passion, ownership, a sense of power and efficacy, a sense of interdependence, specific rapid feedback, permission to be oneself, a sense of belonging, a sense of doing meaningful, soul developing work.
Systematic ManagementTo induce and maintain the kind of behavior and performance that meets the expectations of all the stake holders: the individual, the team, management, customers, suppliers and the community as a whole, all the above factors must be included. Hypocrisy, saying one thing and doing another, may be the greatest threat to the American Dream we have ever faced. Hypocrisy also effectively blocks managing and developing human performance. Building a performance management and development system, is the best defense against hypocrisy.
A system to serve and facilitate human development and performance, one that seeks to be excellent in both its processes and outcomes, cannot be designed, produced and installed in a vacuum. You can't build it in a factory, like a computer or a car, and then install it in your home or driveway and expect it to run. Standardized, off-the-shelf, solutions are rarely fully effective. One size does not fit all.
Tailor Made and Messy, TooThe best system for developing and managing human performance will be tailor made. But building such a system is messy. You can't take an organization off line and tinker with it. The show must go on.
Also, most organizations these days are stretched pretty thin - barely enough time, money, people and other resources to do the existing work, never mind finding the resources to design and install a performance development and management system.
But those are the very reasons deploying such a system is urgent. Given the current demands, things can't be done as they always have been. New ways - systems - have to be found.
RumorsA large part of the "mess" is associated with peoples' reactions to change. Unless they can see that it's in their best interests, people react negatively. The larger the scope of the change, the larger the reaction. The rumors start, the misinformation (I dated her once) drives out the good, and the confusion and fear commence. Therefore, it's essential that an education and marketing campaign be included in the systems design phase. As soon as management has some clarity about the framework, the system's goals and the design process, the information needs to be shared.
Not Reinventing the WheelYour organization is not the first to deal with all this. The experiences from other comparable organizations are available to guide and plug-in as applicable.
So What Does Our Wheel Look Like?Good question! Should it have a hub and spokes or should it look like a bagel? That's what the initial part of the process is about. We know we want it to be a system, an interconnected series of fluid, flowing activities that accomplish the mission with little friction or wasted motion. Right? That's important. It sure beats an incremental approach where unanticipated side effects create costly difficulties. We know it's gonna be messy, so we won't lose heart when that starts happening. We also know we want it to be responsive to the needs of all the stakeholders, not just management. Those are three important parameters. They give us some structure and direction right off the bat.
What's Included in the Performance Development and Management SystemBecause it's a system, and all the parts are interconnected, we define success as a congruent, almost seamless flow - from job descriptions, hiring: job announcements, recruiting and interviewing, new employee orientation, new employee training, on-going skills training, on-going personal growth and development, leadership development, succession management, to pay, incentives thru performance evaluation.
And because all the parts are interconnected, a change in one part of the system, may require a change in another part. For example, if the job description changes, so will the job announcement, interviewing, new employee orientation, etc, through performance evaluation.
At the training level, having a system means that training course content, whether that be turf management, stress management or leadership development, and training and development delivery systems - internet, teleclasses, coaching, or a weekend Retreat, all grow from the vision, purpose and clarity of the system. It means less day-to-day effort, struggling and confusion because we've invested in the system and the system will carry a lot of the load. As long as the system is maintained.
Factors That Impact Performance and BehaviorThe following factors, already listed on page one, must be managed. They are shown here in the three components: Core, Guidance and Enablers, of the Performance Development and Management System. Vision, goals, purpose, measures, standards, structure, plans, incentives, training, leadership, tools and equipment, time, money and other resources, respect, appreciation, recognition, opportunities to learn, grow and be creative, safety, trust, pride, enthusiasm, passion, ownership, a sense of power and efficacy, a sense of interdependence, specific rapid feedback, permission to be oneself, a sense of belonging, a sense of doing meaningful, soul developing work.
Everything that happens at work, from management decisions to peer pressure; from the choice to call in sick or give 110%, involve the factors above. They are interconnected, like the strands in a spider's web. A single decision in one seemingly isolated area, like the choice of air chiller vendors, can make the whole web shudder. The idea of our System is to make the web-like interconnections between the factors clear, so better decisions can be made. Our System divides the factors into three components: the Core, Guidance, and Enablers.
Factors that Compose the System Core, its Heart, the Energy Source that Fuels Everything ElseRespect, appreciation, recognition, opportunities to learn, grow and be creative, safety, trust, pride, enthusiasm, passion, ownership, a sense of power and efficacy, a sense of interdependence, specific rapid feedback, permission to be oneself, a sense of belonging, a sense of doing meaningful, soul developing work
Factors that Guide and Direct the System, the Aspiration, the Dream to be Made RealVision, goals, purpose
Enabling Factors , Procedures and Mechanisms that Enable the System to OperateMeasures, standards, structure, plans, incentives, training, leadership, tools and equipment, time, money and other resources
How the System Components InteractThe Core is the vital center, indestructible and permanent. Goals will change. Standards will change. So will plans, incentives and leadership. But the Core can never change. Like a compass, it points the System to true North. As long as the Core factors of respect, pride, trust, passion and the others are reflected in the System's Guidance and Enabler components, the System will function. The Core must always be honored and maintained as the soul of the System. Think of it as a nuclear reactor, red-hot, dangerous.
System Outputs - Keeping ScoreAchieving the vision, goals, purpose, standards, measures and plans agreed upon* by the stakeholders, with the anticipated resources, are the tangible outputs of the System. *Frequent adjustment up or down based on current opportunities and conditions are acceptable, so long as they are agreed upon by all the stakeholders.
Keeping the Core factors as described above, and red hot and dangerous are the intangible outputs of the System. If we're getting these intangibles, we're winning.
Monitoring the Core and Keeping Track of the Intangible OutcomesBecause they're intangible, management usually ignores the Core factors until they've caused a tangible problem. For example, morale is ignored until it's so bad, it finally creates a series of safety violations, with their attendant costs. A relatively simple set of informal measures can be designed to keep score of the intangible outputs before they have a tangible impact. Based on a semantic differential, the measures will enable every stakeholder, from managers and employees, to customers and vendors, to keep tabs on the Core. For example:
Core Factor: Passion "How's your/my passion now?" 1. Low------------------------------------2.Adequate------------------------------- 3. High Put an "X" on the place on the line that best answers the question.Managing Tangible Outcomes: Specifying the Guidance and Enabling Components
Achieving the vision, goals, purpose, standards, measures and plans agreed upon by the stakeholders, with the anticipated resources, is an ongoing, never ending, continuous loop process of re-formulating the job descriptions, hiring: job announcements, recruiting and interviewing, new employee orientation, new employee training, on-going skills training, on-going personal growth and development, leadership development, succession management, pay, incentives thru performance evaluation so there is a congruent, almost seamless flow between them.
Operating the SystemIn work teams, review all existing performance standards and measures and convert them to statements with a performance, a condition and a measure.
A performance: a clear description of the desired result - repair the chiller.
A condition: a clear description of the important factors in the working environment that must be taken into consideration when achieving the result - repair the chiller using the Z tools, on the roof, in the noon day sun.
A measure: a clear statement of how well the person must perform - repair the chiller using the Z tools, on the roof, in the noon day sun, safely, in two hours, so that it stays fixed.
First, the work teams learn how to review and convert existing standards. Then the new standards are written, reviewed by other stakeholders, changed as needed, then formally adopted. Changes in Enabler factors such as job descriptions, pay, training and performance evaluation are then made.
TrainingTraining is based on the standards. Once all the Enabler changes are in place, if an individual is unable to perform to standard because of lack of knowledge or skill, training would be recommended. If an individual is unable to perform to standard because of peer pressure, or because non-performance is more rewarding than performance, or because of other personal motivational issues, training would not be recommended. Some other intervention, perhaps one-on-one coaching with a professional coach, a chat with management, or some time off to think might be required.
Non-Training InterventionsIf an individual is unable to perform to standard because of peer pressure, or because non-performance is more rewarding than performance, or because of other personal motivational issues, training would not be recommended. Some other intervention, perhaps one-on-one coaching with an external coach, a chat with management, or some time off to think might be recommended.
Learning Management System (LMS)This is sophisticated data base software that enables individual learners to access the learning they need. It can administer pre and post tests, print regular performance reports and maintain a file for each person. It also enables administrators to know and report on the status of the entire System. For example: how many took "X" learning activity, completion rate, level of learning achieved; which learning activities were the most popular, or effective. An LMS is a required part of the Performance Management and Development System.
Next StepsBefore team building can begin, an in depth, on site needs analysis, consisting of observations and interviews with key stake holders: team members, management, customers and vendors, must occur. Based on that data, a proposal, consisting of the outcomes to be achieved; the number of sessions; the learning experiences - which simulations, ropes or games; and the costs, will be prepared and presented.
Schedule your complimentary 20 minute consultation now!
If you don't know the difference between a tablecloth and a spreadsheet, you'll definitely want to enlist more help. However, even if you're planning to eventually hire a business consultant to write your plan for you, you should still try to write a rough draft on you own. The first step in doing so is to familiarize yourself with the basics by reading through these typical components of a hypothetical business plan.
After you've read through these components, you should look at as many example business plans as possible, just to get a sense of what's out there. To get a company's business plan, all you have to do is call and ask for one. Many will not give it to you, but some may. If you pretend like you're going to invest in the company, then many will. Just be sure to give them a false telephone number or they'll hassle you for money until you die.
Strategic Planning
for Nonprofits
Schedule your complimentary
20 minute consultation now!
Preparation
Appreciative
Inquiry: An Innovative Process for Organization Change
Schedule your complimentary 20 minute consultation now!
By Diana Whitney and Carol Schau
From Employment Relations Today, Spring 1998
© 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Diana Whitney, Ph.D., is president of Whitney Consulting and cofounder
of The Taos Institute in Taos, New Mexico. She is an international speaker and
consultant whose work focuses on organization transformation, strategic culture
change, communication, and leadership development for corporate, nonprofit,
and government organizations. She applies social constructionist theory to mergers
end acquisitions, organization development and strategic planning, and works
collaboratively and creatively with executives, managers, end organization members
to build teams and support them in the construction of the organization's future.
Carol Schau is an employee communications manager for GTE in Irving,
Texas, and a member of the company's Culture Council. She has been actively
involved in the company's culture transformation, manages the positive revolution
for change among GTE's front- line employees, and uses communications to advance
the culture change effort. She is also a co-creator of a training course that
focuses on culture change, strategic business direction, and customer service
that is being delivered to all 45,000 GTE front-line employees twice a year.
Companies around the world are engaged in bold experiments with an innovative process of organization development called appreciative inquiry (AI). Developed by Dr. David Cooperrider and colleagues at Case Western Reserve University and The Taos Institute, AI is based on the principle that organizations change in the direction of what they study. Inquiry--whether it is an organization survey, a question posed by a manager at the start of a meeting, or the analysis used to redesign a work process--is fateful. It plants the seeds of the future.
Consider, for example, two ways you as a manager might welcome new employees. If you ask them to tell you about problems they encounter as they get acquainted with their new colleagues and new job, you are, no matter how well intended, planting seeds of problems and you will most certainly hear about them. If, on the other hand, you request that they try to discover what contributes to their new work group's high levels of cooperation and success, you are planting seeds of learning about cooperation and team success. On a daily basis, the agenda for organizational performance, learning, and change is established through inquiry and dialogue.
Appreciative inquiry deliberately focuses the attention, dialogue, and learning of an organization's members and stakeholders on what gives life to the organization when it is at its best. By assuming the best of people, organizations, and relationships, AI leaves deficit-oriented approaches behind and offers affirmative processes for organization development.
Appreciative inquiry engages the whole organization in discovering the best of what has been and dreaming about the best of what might be. Imagine an organization in which 850 employees interview one another to discover stories of their company at its best and how they contribute to it. Imagine an organization in which 250 labor union leaders and managers meet to discover the possibilities for partnership that will benefit the company, the unions, and their respective members and stakeholders. Imagine an organization that brings hundreds of people together on-line to share positive life-affirming stories and discuss and create global policies and practices. Imagine an organization in which 1,500 people are interviewed and 500 come together to envision and design their company's future.
Appreciative inquiry, by design an affirmative process, dismantles organizational habits of distrust, animosity, and blame, and replaces them with a willingness to learn, mutual respect, and cooperation. Imagine an organization in which daily conversations are stories of success and expressions of hope for the future, and fear is transformed into trust through mutual inquiry into what gives life to the organization and its people. Imagine hundreds of people engaged in interviews, focus groups, and large group planning focused on the best of their organization's past, their hopes and dreams for the future, and specific designs for change.
Appreciative inquiry assumes that as an organization's dominant stories change and evolve, so does the organization. Organizational stories are the habit patterns of the organization. They tell organization members what they must do and be in order to fit in and be successful in the organization. If we hear stories of leadership distrust and turfism, then we will certainly find and possibly create our own cases of distrust and turfism. If, on the other hand, we hear stories about management respect and collaboration across functional lines of business, then we will discover and display respect and collaboration in the workplace.
Exhibit 1
4-D Model of Appreciative Inquiry
The 4-D model of appreciative inquiry (see Exhibit 1) is a process for positive change. Based on the assumption that change occurs through thoughtful inquiry and dialogue into affirmative life-giving forces, the four phases of the process are: discovery, dream, design, and delivery.
Discovery-Appreciating What Gives Life
The discovery phase is a quest to identify positive stories and spread them throughout the organization. It brings into focus what gives life and energy to people, their work, and their organization. It is based on the assumption that life-giving forces are indeed present in every situation, but our habits of organizing and talking often overlook the positive in favor of analyzing obstacles, resistance, and deficits. The discovery phase shifts the balance of organizational attention from what isn't working to what is working and what may possibly work in the future.
An all-too-common myth is that we learn from our mistakes. Actually, all we can learn from mistakes is what not to do again. Positive learning and innovation come from studying, adapting, and replicating what works. An ancient Taoist adage suggests, "If you respect and admire a quality in another, make it your own. The discovery phase is a quest to fill the organization's conversations with talk of positive possibilities.
The starting point of any appreciative inquiry is the selection of affirmative topics. As organizations move in the direction of what they study, the choice of topics to study is significant and strategic. Topics are stated in the affirmative and must be something that the organization wants to learn about and enhance in their way of doing business. For example, a recent client raised concerns about employee turnover and wanted to use it as an inquiry topic. When reminded that topic choice is like planting seeds and asked if they really wanted more employee turnover, they quickly chose employee retention as one of their affirmative topics. Topics selected by one corporate culture change team included inspired leadership, fun, quality moments, customers first, and innovation. Topics selected for an executive-development effort were team leadership, collaborative decision making, work-family balance, and global contribution.
The discovery phase is a quest to fill the organization's conversations with talk of positive possibilities.
At the heart of appreciative inquiry is the appreciative interview. Generally done as a mutual interview among organization members, it may also be conducted as a focus group process. Interview questions are crafted around the affirmative topics and an interview guide is created. The interview guide explores a person's beginnings with the organization, what they value most about themselves, their work and the organization, their appreciative stories related to the topics, and their hopes and dreams for the organization's future. Discovery involves interviewing many--preferrably all--members of an organization. The mini-interview is often used to help the members rediscover these thoughts and stories. It becomes the basis for each interview. Sample interview questions are listed below.
Dream--Imagining What Might Be
The dream phase is a time for groups of people to engage in thinking big, thinking out of the box, and thinking out of the boundaries of what has been in the past. It is a time for people to describe their wishes and dreams for their work, their working relationships, and their organization.
The dream phase of the 4-D process encourages participants to consider what it is that their organization, whether a department, business unit, or entire company, is being called on to do. This phase connects the work of all the members of the organization to a greater purpose. The dream phase takes place in a large group meeting during which the data and stories collected in the discovery phase are shared. Wishes and dreams for the future of the organization are often acted out to further dramatize the positive possibilities envisioned for the organization.
The dream phase of the 4-D process encourages participants to consider what it is that their organization is being called on to do.
Design-Determining What Will Be
Appreciative inquiry is a high-involvement process. The design phase provides an opportunity for large numbers of employees and stakeholders to come together to co-create their organization.
Whereas the discovery and dream phases generate and expand the organization's images of itself, the design and delivery phases allow members to make choices for the organization. In the design phase, organization members and stakeholders, including customers and vendors, participate in crafting what are called "provocative propositions," or design statements.
Appreciative organization design is grounded in the data and stories collected during the discovery process. Whereas the dream process encourages possibility thinking, the design process focuses on creating action around the possibilities. Provocative propositions, however, are intended to stretch the organization as it moves to realize them.
Successful organizations navigate the white waters of change in ways that maintain the positive images of the company in the stories of employees and stakeholders. By participating in the design process, organization members quickly reorient and realign themselves to the changing organization and business environment (see Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2
Steps in an Appreciative Inquiry 4-D Process
Delivery--Creating What Will Be
Change occurs in all phases of the AI as it provides an open forum for employees to contribute and to step forward in the service of the organization. The delivery process specifically focuses on action planning at both the personal and organizational levels. During delivery sessions, commitments are made to ensure that the provocative propositions are realized. Individuals commit to applications and action plans; small groups work on areas that require collaboration; and teams may be established for new initiatives.
Alignment on actions to be taken is high as a result of the extensive involvement of large numbers of people in the discovery, dream, and design processes. By mobilizing a massive number of interviewers and holding large group meetings, the members get a sense of what the organization is really about.
During delivery sessions, commitments are made to ensure that the provocative propositions are realized.
The following story about a front-line employee, as recounted by the front-line employee who interviewed him, illustrates how an employee can move from apathy to leadership through the AI process
At the beginning of his AI interview, Ron told me he was not a positive person. He said there was nothing positive in his life. If he could, he would prefer to live alone in a cave, but his commitment to his wife and children kept him from doing that.
As the interview progressed, I could see that Ron did have positive ideas, comments, and suggestions. After the interview, I filled out the summary sheet and took the report to Ron to read. He read it and said, "Well, that's just because you are a good interviewer."
"No," I told him, "it's because you really do have good things to say."
I was surprised to see Ron at the summit meeting. I watched as he hung toward the back and gradually moved in to take part in small group discussions. At the end of the last day, he had taken the microphone twice to speak to the entire assembly. The last thing he said was, "We are going to do this."
When I asked Ron if I could tell his success story, I also asked him if he realized how far he had come in five weeks since the interview. He had gone from wanting to be a hermit in a cave to accepting the challenge of leadership on the issue of eliminating mandatory overtime. I told Ron how much I admired his change. He got a big grin on his face and said, "The summit is the most positive thing that's happened in my life in a long time."
Appreciative inquiry is a process for organization development. As such, the 4-D model takes shape differently in different organizations and contexts. The process may take place in one meeting, as was the case of a Brazilian food-processing company that closed the plant for five days and invited 700 employees, customers, and vendors to participate in redesigning the organization. The process may also take place over months, with each step involving progressively more people until the entire organization is engaged.
THE APPRECIATIVE ORGANIZATION SUMMIT
In most cases of appreciative inquiry, a large group meeting (100-1,000 people) called the Appreciative Organization Summit is held. The summit is designed around the 4-D model and takes a large group of people through the process simultaneously. The summit follows the mass-mobilization of the discovery phase. An appreciative organization report that collects and highlights results of the interview process is generated and distributed prior to the summit. The data and stories collected in the discovery phase are shared and built on during discussions at the summit.
Organization change succeeds when it balances continuity, novelty, and transition. The summit process includes dreaming (novelty), recognition of what needs to be preserved (continuity), and planning for implementation (transition). An organization life line is created to illuminate historical trends and to identify significant traditions and practices that must be maintained as the organization grows and changes. Groups envision the organization's future, and provocative propositions are crafted as a step toward organization redesign and renewal.
POWERFUL APPLICATIONS OF APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY
The applications of AI are varied, ranging from global organizing, corporate culture change, team building, and leadership development to selection interviewing and performance management. Although organizations benefit when using AI as a vehicle for organization change, comments from participants engaged in AI processes frequently revolve around its tremendous personal application and benefits.
Comments from participants engaged in AI processes frequently revolve around its tremendous personal application and benefits.
Organization Culture Change
The largest division of an international company used AI to engage 850 employees and some customers, vendors, and community members in their Focus 2000 process for organization culture change. Due to the tremendous success of AI, the 4-D process is now being used in the organization for strategic planning on an annual basis.
Another example of successful culture change is the use of AI at Hunter Douglas Window Fashions Division in Broomfield, Colorado, an innovator and manufacturer of high-fashion window coverings. Amanda Trosten-Bloom has provided organization development (OD) consulting to the organization for seven years. She writes of her recent experience using AI at Hunter Douglas.
In early '97, a subteam of the company's leadership team had just completed a two- to three-month state-of-the-company analysis. The annual employee opinion survey had, for the first time ever, shown diminishing levels of employee satisfaction. Traditional one-to-one diagnostic interviews with another independent OD consultant had unmasked issues related to leadership, vision, culture, communications, continuous improvement, and business process.
The subteam was preparing to present the issues to the full leadership team, along with a recommended plan of attack on how to address them. Their goal was to initiate formation of action teams to correspond to the identified issues. In the eleventh hour, two members of the subteam experienced AI as part of another project. As a result, they ended up proposing AI as an alternative-and more effective way of accomplishing the goal of culture transformation. After a brief experience with the process, the subteam and then the entire leadership team elected to "change trains" and use AI as the engine for driving the desired changes.
Less than six months after its initial introduction, approximately half of the company's 850-person work force is solidly on board with AI. Those who have not yet experienced the process directly have been educated in its principles and have begun to testify to the remarkable changes they've witnessed since its first introduction. Here are a few comments made by randomly selected employees when asked about the impact of Al on the organization:
- "I'm excited about getting involved in the company. People feel the company cares."
- ". . . people are starting to focus more on communications."
- ''Everybody is coming together as a team. People are listening to us."
- "People are more positive and outgoing. A feeling of openness-and we are made to feel welcome."
- "Individuals who normally don't get involved with areas outside their departments are now doing so."
In addition to these comments, employees have reported striking applications of AI in their personal lives:
- On the evening of their 31st wedding anniversary, an employee and her husband did an appreciative inquiry into their marriage. They spent all night talking. She reported it was their most intimate anniversary ever.
- Someone wrote recently of his use of AI with his son, who has attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He says it's [AI] the only intervention that he's found that has made a consistent and significant difference in his son's behavior, after six years of trying different approaches.
- An employee has reported that his use of AI with his partner who has been terminally ill for the past two years, has helped turn this otherwise devastating experience into an opportunity for personal and spiritual renewal.
"Employees have reported striking applications of AI in their personal lives."
AI has literally inverted the traditionally hierarchical structure of this organization. Line employees are making decisions previously made one or two levels above them. They are coaching their supervisors when the supervisors slip and fall back into the older, more familiar patterns of communication.
For example, one supervisor posted a mandatory overtime list for the coming weekend. More than half the members of his group refused the assignments. They told him they wanted him to tell them what needed to be done, and let them work out how it got done. He took their advice and posted a description of the business needs. Within an hour, most of the people who had previously refused the overtime were signing up for Saturday hours.
The results of this work have been quicker, deeper, and more dramatic than any I have witnessed before, in my nearly twenty years of organizational development work. In a period of months, this company and its people have been transformed. It will never go back to where it was again.
But perhaps more importantly, individual lives have changed. People who would otherwise have had little or no access to training or support in the area of personal growth have grabbed the ball and run with it. Al has created a ripple that has already spread far beyond this organization. It may well change the world.
Community Transformation
A community development process called Imagine Chicago is using AI as a vehicle to transform the city of Chicago. They are conducting one million interviews within the city--one for every household. After two years, results are apparent in the educational system and in the relationships among city, government, and business groups. Currently, AI is being designed into the educational curriculum throughout the city.
Similar projects have occurred or are under way in cities, states, and countries around the world including Imagine South Carolina and Imagine Africa.
A community development process called Imagine Chicago is using AI as a vehicle to transform the city of Chicago.
Organizational Renewal
A major health--care cooperative applied AI to engage 1,500 people-staff, nurses, doctors, administrators, and patients--in the creation of a renewal process. Interviews were conducted among 1,500 people, and 500 attended the summit, during which they envisioned, designed, and committed to the organization's future. As a result, collaboration is at an all-time high; there is a renewed sense of hope among employees and a steadily improving outlook for the organization.
Organizational Excellence
Corporations are using AI for enhancing organizational excellence in business units, departments, and work groups. Teams selected from various business units choose their own topics, develop interview guides and conduct interviews within their own organizations. Then they attend an AI summit along with eight to ten other teams. During the summit, teams share what they have learned with one another and design and plan change within their own organization. The cross-functional learning is extraordinary.
Customer Surveys
Companies are changing their survey strategies to include studies of their best customers and what satisfies them. As findings are collected and shared throughout the organization, significant increases in customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction occur. Employee morale increases as employees hear stories of satisfied customers. Stories from satisfied customers provide great insight into how to improve customer relations companywide.
Mergers and Acquisitions
A major accounting firm used AI to successfully manage the integration of several acquisitions over a short period of time. The new company was designed during an Appreciative Learning Summit based on interviews throughout the merging businesses. At all levels of the organization, managers and employees from merging companies interviewed one another to discover the strengths of the partnership. Newly created business units and work teams used AI to discover their own hopes and expectations and to enhance relationships with customers and vendors. The affirmative involvement of hundreds of people contributed to the successful integration--both financially and culturally.
Employee Relations and HR Management
Companies are using AI for performance planning and appraisal, 360-degree feedback, selection and interviewing, and employee relations. When people are given opportunities to hear how they are valued and contributing to their work group and the organization, they feel better about themselves and their work, and as a result they want to do more.
Companies are using AI for performance planning and appraisal, 360-degree feedback, selection and interviewing, and employee relations.
Mike Burns, vice president of HR for Hunter Douglas, offered the following thoughts on AI:
For years, I have used the analogy of the cup being half full rather than half empty when helping folks look at the positive side of issues rather than the negative. When individuals or groups see things from the perspective of the "best that has been" and the "best of what is" and they frame their future vision into the "best of what could be," the transition is magical. The whole perspective becomes positive; the energy level increases, and the cup goes from half empty to half full.
I have seen a very negative, hostile situation between two employees be turned positive by asking them to tell each other about the best experiences they have had with each other in the past and what their vision is for the relationship between them in the future. The conflict was put into perspective and resolved immediately with positive rather than negative energy.
In the employment interview process, frequently a stressful situation for applicants, I have found it helpful to ask about a peak professional experience from their past. This provides the applicant a chance to tell me about a positive situation. This gives me a great deal of insight into the candidate and helps set a positive tone for the interview.
DESIGNING THE FUTURE
Organizations can no longer afford to operate as if the needs of the business and the needs of the people doing business are at odds. They must begin to operate with the realization that people--employees, customers, and vendors--are not only the greatest resource for creating the organization's future, they are the only resource. Human resources professionals, along with organizational leaders, must look beyond the organizing principles, processes, and change-management practices of yesterday. They must seek out innovative processes, such as AI, that collectively and positively involve people in the design of their own future at work.
The appreciative approach
The appreciated world came into being with the development of man's capability for self-reflection, a faculty encompassing much more than just thinking. It holds the world-the physical, social, and spiritual aspects of man's world-as we view it not just through the understanding that our mind composes of it but through all forms of experience. It embraces our appreciation of what this world can do to and for us, and what we can do to and for it... Thus, the appreciated world becomes the motor for change induced by human action.
Erich Jantsch
Appreciative inquiry is a strategy for purposeful change that identifies the best of "what is" to pursue dreams and possibilities of "what could be." It is a co-operative search for the strengths, passions and life-giving forces that are found within every system-those factors that hold the potential for inspired, positive change.
The appreciative approach involves collaborative inquiry, based on interviews and affirmative questioning, to collect and celebrate the good news stories of a community-those stories that enhance cultural identity, spirit and vision. Appreciative inquiry is a way of seeing that is selectively attentive to-and affirming of-the best and highest qualities in a system, a situation or another human being. It involves an appreciation for the mystery of being and a reverence for life.
Local people can use their understanding of "the best of what is" to construct a vision of what their community might be if they identify their strengths, then improve or intensify them. They achieve this goal by creating provocative propositions that challenge them to move ahead by understanding and building on their current achievements. Provocative propositions are realistic dreams: they empower a community to reach for something better, but base that empowerment on an understanding of what gives them life now.
There are four steps to the appreciative approach.
The core task in the discovery phase is to appreciate the best of "what is" by focusing on peak moments of community excellence-when people experienced the community in its most alive and effective state. Participants then seek to understand the unique conditions that made the high points possible, such as leadership, relationships, technologies, values, capacity building or external relationships. They deliberately choose not to analyze deficits, but rather systematically seek to isolate and learn from even the smallest victories. In the discovery phase, people share stories of exceptional accomplishments, discuss the core life-giving conditions of their community and deliberate upon the aspects of their history that they most value and want to enhance in the future.
In the dream phase, people challenge the status quo by envisioning more valued and vital futures. This phase is both practical, in that it is grounded in the community's history, and generative, in that it seeks to expand the community's potential. Appreciative inquiry is different from other planning methods because its images of the future emerge from grounded examples of the positive past. They are compelling possibilities precisely because they are based on extraordinary moments from a community's history. Participants use positive stories in the same way an artist uses paints to create a portrait of the community's potential. They think great thoughts and create great possibilities for their community, then turn those thoughts into provocative propositions for themselves.
In the design phase participants create a strategy to carry out their provocative propositions. They do so by building a social architecture for their community that might, for example, re-define approaches to leadership, governance, participation or capacity building. As they compose strategies to achieve their provocative propositions, local people incorporate the qualities of community life that they want to protect, and the relationships that they want to achieve.
The final phase involves the delivery of new images of the future and is sustained by nurturing a collective sense of destiny. It is a time of continuous learning, adjustment and improvisation in the service of shared community ideals. The momentum and potential for innovation is high by this stage of the process. Because they share positive images of the future, everyone in a community re-aligns their work and co-creates the future.
Appreciative inquiry is a continual cycle. The destiny phase leads naturally to new discoveries of community strengths, beginning the process anew.
Why it works
Practitioners of appreciative inquiry believe this approach is true to human nature because it integrates different ways of knowing. Appreciative inquiry allows room for emotional response as well as intellectual analysis, room for imagination as well as rational thought. A successful athlete intuitively uses the appreciative approach when he visualizes breaking a record in his mind to help him break the record in reality. A successful leader intuitively uses it when she paints a picture the community's potential to inspire people to achieve it. The following principles help explain the power behind the appreciative approach:
The constructionist principle postulates that social knowledge and community destiny are interwoven. To be effective as development practitioners, we must be adept in the art of understanding, reading and analyzing communities as living, human constructions. The questions that we ask set the stage for discovering stories from which a new future can be conceived and constructed.
The principle of simultaneity recognizes that inquiry and change are not separate moments, but occur together. Inquiry is intervention. The seeds of change-the things people think and talk about, the things people discover and learn, the things that inform dialogue and inspire images of the future-are implicit in the first questions we ask. The questions we ask set the stage for what we find, and what we discover becomes the stories out of which the future is conceived and constructed.
The poetic principle states that human organizations, including communities, are an open book. A community's story is constantly being co-authored. Its past, present and future are an endless source of learning, inspiration and interpretation. We can study virtually any topic on human experience in any community. We can choose to inquire into the nature of alienation or of joy. We can choose to study moments of creativity and innovation, or choose to focus on moments of stress and failure. Appreciative inquiry chooses to focus on the positive aspects of communities.
The anticipatory principle postulates that current behavior is guided by images of the future. People project a horizon of expectation ahead of themselves that brings the future powerfully into the present as a mobilizing agent. Communities exist because the people who govern and maintain them share a vision of what the organization is, how it will function and what it is likely to become.
The positive principle states that momentum for change requires positive thinking and social bonding-qualities like hope, inspiration and joy in creating with one another. If development practitioners use positive questions to guide community development they will achieve more long-lasting and effective changes. In many important respects, people and communities move in the direction of their questions. Thousands of interviews about empowerment will lead a community in a much more positive direction than thousands of interviews about poor participation in projects.
IISD and its partners will apply these principles in its pilot projects, then share lessons learned with the development community at conferences, workshops, and through this Web site. We believe that the appreciative approach has the potential to transform development from an act of charity-giving training or material to those less fortunate than us-to an act of empowerment-helping local people identify their strengths, imagine a better future based on their current capacities, and then move toward that future.
This information on appreciative inquiry is based on work by David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney. It comes from, among other sources, their workbook entitled, Appreciative inquiry: A constructive approach to organization development and social change, Taos, New Mexico: Corporation for Positive Change, n.d.
The Tipping Point: How Little
Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell
Schedule your complimentary 20 minute consultation now!
If you were part of a brainstorming session to generate ideas about how to reduce crime, you wouldn't be surprised to see ideas such as: stricter laws, more police personnel, more jails, better control of drugs, more jobs, better youth advocacy programs and so on. You probably would be surprised to see something like 'repair broken windows.'
According to 'Tipping Point' author Malcolm Gladwell, New York City in the 1980s, was 'a city in the grip of one of the worst crime epidemics in its history. But then, suddenly and without warning, the epidemic tipped. From a high in 1990, the crime rate went into precipitous decline. Murder dropped by two-thirds. Felonies were cut in half. Other cities saw their crime drop in the same period. But in no place did the level of violence fall farther or faster.'
What made tens of thousands of people suddenly stop committing crimes? The normal answers of an aging population, economic recovery and decline in drug use don't provide adequate answers since, in New York City, the influx of immigrants was actually lowering the average age, the city's economic condition hadn't yet improved and drug usage had been in decline for several years without impacting the crime rate. So, what is the something else that caused crime to 'tip?'
It turns out that those broken windows played a major role and eloquently illustrate the second rule of epidemics: the Power of Context. In the mid-80s, George Kelling brought his Broken Window theory to the New York Transit Authority. This theory states that crime is the inevitable result of disorder and broken windows are a sign of that disorder and a signal that no one cares or is in charge. This leads to a sense of anarchy which spreads rapidly.
New York City acted upon the recommendation of Kelling and began rebuilding the subway system, focusing a great deal of energy on removing graffiti and litter from the cars. They developed a rule that once a car was 'reclaimed' (graffiti-cleaned and refurbished) it would never be allowed to return to service 'dirty.' Every reclaimed car was clean and graffiti-free at the beginning of the day ... or it was removed from service.
The Broken Window theory spread from the Transit Authority to the Police Department and other city agencies and now New York City is considered one of the safest in the world. This is not to make this sound easy, it involved a lot of hard work and risk. But, it does indicate that broken windows and graffiti are among those 'little things' that can make a big difference.
So, the question is: what are the little things, the context of our organizations, that if we changed them, we would tip our organizations toward innovation. Think about simple things ... such as our titles, where we sit, how we handle meetings, emphasis on 'right' answers, the way we do budgets. Somewhere in the mass of what we do in organizations, we have created barriers to innovation and while it's fine to do the 'big' things ... training programs, innovation fairs, idea management systems ... what are the 'little' things that might make a huge difference in the organizations you're a part of: your church, professional association, volunteer place? Share 'em with Dr. Steve
©2007 Wisdom At Work | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | This site uses XHTML, Flash | Site designed by Tekhne, LLC : Omar Khouri