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By Carolyn, February 16, 2009 12:53 pm

Thank You, Volunteer Firefighters

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

“Motivation = Engagement : Apathy Is The Enemy!

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

Finding “One Small Thing”

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

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

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

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

Example One: Achieving Corporate Buy-In

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

Spaghetti Binds Community

Here’s another recent example from my own experience:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free Downloads:

Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages)

“Ajas” Instantaneos Mini-Manual

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

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

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

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

Click here for a free Intuitive Focusing Mini-Course

Click here for a free Focused Listening Mini-Course

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

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

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

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

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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By Kathy McGuire, February 27, 2008 2:00 pm

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

INTUITIVE FOCUSING EXERCISE: THE “TOUCHSTONE MISSION”

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

Finding A Talisman Object Symbolizing Your Work

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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

Comments (1)

By Kathy McGuire, February 23, 2008 2:52 pm

  
(To catch up with this topic, see Week One Empowerment Organization , Week Two Examples of “The One Small Thing”)
 
Motivation is a bottom-up, not top-down thing. Each unique individual must be in touch with their own Creative Edge, their own “felt experience” of aliveness and creativity.
 
Below you find an explanation of why taking the time to “sit with,” pay attention to the “intuitive feel,” the “something more than words” leads to maximum motivation as well as maximum creativity and innovation:

“Core Creativity      Cultura De Creatividad

• Every individual is born with a unique blueprint. Personal growth is the unfolding of this blueprint
• Every problem holds within itself the exact next steps needed for solution
• The site of new insights and creative solutions is at the edge of what is already known. This edge, The Creative Edge, holds implicit within it all past and future knowing about the problem, more than could ever be put into words in a linear way
• The Creative Edge is a right-brain phenomenon and is physically experienced as the murky, intuitive “feel” of the whole issue

Intuitive Focusing

• Creating at the Edge involves a back-and-forth nonlinear process between left-brain “symbolizations” and right brain “felt experiencing”
• The  Intuitive Focusing skill teaches specific steps which make problem-solving at The Creative Edge  and  “Ah, hah!” insights a predictable process 
• Central to Intuitive Focusing is learning to silently “sit with” the murky, intuitive, preverbal “felt sense” underlying an issue before attempting to find words, gestures, or images as “symbolizations

Focused Listening

• The Focused Listening skill is a powerful tool for helping another person to create symbolizations out of The Creative Edge and especially in finding the “intuitive feel” for each person in interpersonal situations, turning conflict into creativity
• Focused Listening also allows for empathic understanding of the Other and the possibility for conflict resolution which comes from empathic understanding. 

Creative Edge Organizations

• The Creative Edge Organization Method ensures maximum creativity and motivation at every level by encouraging Intuitive Focusing by individuals and Coordinated Collaboration in groups and teams
• Maximum motivation arises when people are encouraged to create their lives and solutions to problems from their own Creative Edge.
• Individuals are motivated when they are engaged at their Creative Edge. When organizational structures lose touch with The Creative Edge of individuals, apathy is created.
• True change, at any level, from personal to global, can only happen by engaging The Creative Edge of individual human beings. There is no lasting way to impose change from the outside.
• Lasting change is empowered from the individual entering into collaborative action with other individuals.

Paradigm Shifts

• Paradigms are fixed perceptual schemata, or Gestalts,  which determine beliefs, emotional reactions, and behaviors
• Paradigm shifts are the source of true creativity, innovation,  and change
• Intuitive Focusing results in shifts at the level of paradigms. The kaleidoscope turns, a new Gestalt is created,  and new thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are able to arise
• Paradigm shifts at The Creative Edge release blocked energy as well as creating new solutions”

Read on at this link  or en espanol  for the full model of how the use of Listening/Focusing turns within organizations insures motivation rather than apathy and creativity rather than stultification.

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

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

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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

Comments (0)

By Kathy McGuire, February 19, 2008 5:03 pm

 Kathy’s Experience: “One Small Thing” Focusing Exercise
(see Week One Empowerment Organization for Introduction)
 
    I did the “One Small Thing” Focusing Exercise included below on my own problem/goal: Getting Listening/Focusing Partnership skills incorporated into existing support groups, such as 12-Step, divorce/bereavement, cancer/other medical conditions, etc.
 
     Here’s what came up! Certainly a novel idea I had never thought of before. I’m not sure I will implement, need to talk with others, but here it is:  “Offer a free copy of the Focusing In Community manual to audiences filled with support group facilitators (magazines, e-discussion groups, websites) as a PDF file to support group facilitators signing up for the e-newsletter and/or Creative Edge Practice e-group — or something like that — assume, once they have seen the manual, they will buy the supporting audio/visual materials — or, at least, the word will get out and some will try the skill-training out.
 
    I hope you try out the Exercise on a project important to you. Here are examples for a variety of corporate, non-profit, and grass-roots endeavors, all where “empowerment organization = motivating from the bottom up” was being sought (taken from Instant “Ahah!” #6 in Mini-Manual):
 
Example One: Achieving Corporate Buy-In
 
   At Old Navy (Business Week, June,19, 2006), Innovation Champion Ivy Ross, catching the MySpace-type lifestyle of today, used a Facebook-style CD in an effort to bind old and new employees into one new group. Every employee filmed three minutes of “something so personal it would take years to discover it.” Ross had new and old employees hungrily viewing the CD. They quickly became bonded into one, new group, “infused — with a close tightness essential for innovation.” Ross had found the “One Small Thing.”
 
Example Two: Revitalizing the PTO at a public school
 
     The PTO of a public school was languishing. A handful of parents were doing all the work. A new property tax bill dramatically cut funding to the public schools, wiping out PE teachers, art, music, librarians, nurses — The parents suddenly had to raise a whole lot of money from a population of middle to low income parents.
 
     The small group of committed parents started selling Grocery Store Gift Certificates. The PTO could purchase the “scrip” at a 5% discount, resell it to parents to use to buy groceries, and make a 5% profit on something parents had to buy anyway. Everyone had to buy groceries!  They sold “scrip” in the front hallway before school and at school events and PTO meetings.
 
     Suddenly, everyone was buying “scrip” – grandparents, neighbors, as well as parents and teachers. People were coming into the school to purchase “scrip” and staying to paint walls or help with reading. The only people who were unhappy were parents who were on food stamps – they were furious that they couldn’t contribute!!!! The PTO had found the One Small Thing that allowed everyone to become involved.
 
     Now, parents had a “stake” in how the money would be spent. Attendance at PTO meetings grew to thirty, making decisions about how to distribute the funds, how to enlarge the “scrip” program. Teachers came to present proposals for funding.
 
     In the first year, the PTO raised $11,000 (at the 5% net profit, gross sales of $220,000!) to hire a part-time PE teacher who would teach the other teachers how to run PE classes. The “scrip” program spread to other public schools and, ten years later, a large banner in front of the town high school reads “Buy Grocery Scrip”.
 
     But, more importantly, the entire school was revitalized.  The parents had to establish a “volunteer lounge” at the school to accommodate all the volunteers!
 
Hypothetical Example: Global Warming
 
     You are Al Gore.  You want to get every day citizens involved in the issue of Global Warming. But most people feel apathetic: “Oh, there is nothing that one person can do — it is up to governments.”
 
     Well, maybe it is up to governments — but non-apathetic, engaged citizens are the ones to put pressure on governments.  So, you are looking for that “one small thing.” “What is one small thing that masses of people would be willing to do and which would act as a first step toward full engagement?”
 
     Here’s a possibility:  Purportedly, “idling” your car greatly increases the output of pollutants. Yet, everyone, without giving it a thought, “idles” at drive-up banks, fast food take-outs, school pick ups. What about a “Stop Idling! Stop Greenhouse Gases” campaign? With bumper stickers, flyers on car windows or handed out at drive-up locations — the double-entendre “Don’t idle and don’t be idle!” —
 
   If you can get people, all over the world, to “Stop Idling!”, you will have them engaged in thinking about global warming every day — and primed to engage in other actions which you initiate.
 
Empowerment Organization = Motivating From The Bottom Up

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

So, you have to keep looking until you find something so small that everyone can do it, easily, willingly, yet so important that it will feel like a real contribution, a first step of commitment to the larger cause. Then, you can invite these involved, engaged people into further Collaborative Decision Making about the project.
If your “One Small Thing” project is not having the desired effect, then the step is too big, requires too much motivation or commitment. If that is the case, then you need to look for a smaller step until you find the one that works.

INTUITIVE FOCUSING ON “WHAT IS THE ONE SMALL THING—?”
Your Turn
So, let’s use the Intuitive Focusing skill to find the “one small thing” to engage and motivate your target audience, be it consumers, citizens, volunteers, or employees. Click here for the full Focusing Exercise

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

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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

Comments (0)

By Kathy McGuire, February 10, 2008 2:27 pm

 Motivation = Engagement : Apathy Is The Enemy!

You are charged with finding that “one small thing” which will get every employee or volunteer or citizen fully engaged in your larger projects. No apathy allowed in a Creative Edge Organization!

You want to become alert to noticing apathy, people at any level who are not caring, not involved, and then work at involvement. You want every person actively involved at The Creative Edge, the lively, creative, energized “intuitive feel” of being a living, thinking, involved  Co-Creator or Collaborator.

Finding “One Small Thing”

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

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

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

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

Intuitive Focusing on “What is the One Small Thing?”

Your Turn

So, let’s use the Intuitive Focusing skill to find the “one small thing” to engage and motivate your target audience, be it consumers, citizens, volunteers, or employees. This could be the most important decision you make, so, one small session may not be enough, but it will start you thinking about Creative Edge engagement. It will put the pot on the burner so that creative insights can arise now or later. Try out the One Small Thing Focusing Exercise here

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

Dr. Kathy McGuire, Director

Creative Edge Focusing (TM)

www.cefocusing.com

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