DIALOGUE AND THE ART OF THINKING TOGETHER: A Pioneering Approach to Communicating in Business and in Life

William Isaacs

Dialogue – the act of listening, talking, thinking together, sets the stage for action, based on the wisdom and insight of the collective mind of the group body.

William Isaacs, who is director of the MIT Dialogue Project believes that personal, corporate, political communication can be a process of thinking together, rather than thinking alone, and then trying to convince others of our position. He offers concrete ideas for listening and speaking and avoiding the forces that undermine meaningful conversation and ultimately sabotage action initiatives.

In the forward to DIALOGUE, Peter Senge, director of the Organizational Learning Center, Sloan School of Management, MIT, comments...“I have come to conclude that there is a deep hunger in the modern world for meaning and the core practices whereby human beings make meaning together. We may not go back to living in tribes. But we have an insatiable desire to live lives of dignity and meaning, and when we discover ways to do this, there is a quiet sign of relief. We have found our way. Now we must move along it.”

Currency/Doubleday-Random House, NY NY
ISBN: 0-385-47999-9

LEADING CONSCIOUSLY: A Pilgrimage Toward Self-Mastery

Debashis Chatterjee

In the wake of the Enron collapse, the issue of ethics in leadership is of paramount importance. Leadership in management involves much more than devotion to the “bottom line”.  In Leading Consciously, Debashis Chatterjee, brings together spiritual ethics and contemporary management techniques in a presentation in which Leadership is seen as a Sacred Path, a pilgrimage that begins with a discipline of self-awareness and leads to self-mastery.  The author parallels a “Conscious Leader” to a master “gardener who simply facilitates growth.” Chatterjee sees the relationship of Leader to Follower as one of unconditional love, in which the leader experiences a sense of gratitude and fulfillment based on this relationship, where joy is no less than that of the gardener who after a season of hard work sees his own energy manifest in a riot of colors. Each flower stands as a living testimony of love’s labor.

Butterworth-Heineman, Woburn, MA, ISBN: 0-7506-9864-0

LEADERSHIP and the NEW SCIENCE: Discovering Organization in a Chaotic World

Margaret J. Wheatley

Anyone who has spent time exploring the “inner realms”, metaphysics and “lightwork” has some awareness of the interconnectedness of all things and the impact of thought directed energy. This is the basis for much of the Personal and Planetary healing that takes place on a daily basis. Margaret Wheatly writes of this interconnectedness of nature and the impact of the new physics – which are closer to metaphysics than scientific thought would like to admit  -- on all organization – personal, organizational, institutional, political.  One reviewer quotes Wheatley...“Our old ways of relating to each other don’t support us any longer.... It is up to us to journey forth in search of new practices and new ideas that will enable us to create lives and organizations worthy of human habitation.”

Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA, ISBN: 1576751198

A SIMPLER WAY

Margaret J. Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Roger

The message of this book is simple and challenging!

“There is a simpler way to organize human endeavor. It requires a new way of being in the world. It requires being in the world without fear. Being in the world with play and creatively. Seeking after what’s possible. Being willing to learn and to be surprised.”

 This is the challenge laid down before leaders and managers of businesses, organizations, institutions and nations all over the world. It is the challenge inherent in the new consciousness that is erupting throughout human awareness

Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA, ISBN 1576750507

TURNING TO ONE ANOTHER: Simple Conversation to Restore Hope to the Future

Margaret J. Wheatley

In the word of Margaret Wheatley, “...Human conversation is the most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions for change – personal change, community and organizational change, planetary change. If we can sit together and talk about what’s important to us, we begin to come alive. We share what we see, what we fell, and we listen to what others see and feel.”... “I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again. Simple, honest, human conversation. Not meditation, negotiation, problem solving, debate, or public meetings. Simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well.”

A prophetic presentation in light of September 11, Wheatley states  ...“As this age of turmoil tears us apart, we need to reclaim time to be together. Otherwise, we cannot stop the fragmentation...We need to be able to talk to those we have named 'enemy'. Fear of each other also keeps us apart.”

Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA, ISBN: 1576751457

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