[Ailist] AI - an established business strategy/Challenges of "doing" AI

[David J. Snider]

Hi Nancy

I enjoy your response to my thoughts about the challenges AI poses  
for those of us with a preference for Thinking in MBTI terms.

I am an INTJ.  Being competent is a key theme for INTJs.  For me that  
too often translates into "do it my way!"  AI offers a great  
alternative approach to competence for me.  Your comment that it is  
much easier to use AI in your work than to apply it in your everyday  
life feels very familiar.  Also, when I am in "unplanned" work  
situations, I too easily return to the challenging, negative critical  
approach.  I think that behavior comes most "easily" when I feel  
defensive.  Then I regress to old, familiar behavior, not to my still  
new AI behavior.

As I write this, I am aware that an AI approach to this personal  
issue is quite attractive to me.  Think of a time when I felt  
defensive and responded in a way that I really appreciate, value, and  
want to do easily and routinely.  What did I do to transform my  
response from a negative, critical, often distancing comment to a  
comment that let me affirm myself and the other persons present?   
What inner resources enabled me to practice an AI response?  What was  
I feeling that supported my AI response?  How do I feel about my best  
AI responses in conflict situations?  What about the situation  
supported my AI response?  What can I do to make an AI response my  
first, easiest response?  What help do I want from others?

When I think of the challenges I continue to feel in making a shift  
to an AI way of being and acting, I am encouraged by neuroscientists'  
findings in works such as Sharon Begley's, which I mention in the  
comment to which you responded.  Their findings encourage the parts  
of me that believe I can keep on changing by doing more of what I  
want to do and be.  And their findings also support my sense that  
continuing to do my relaxation response (the Herbert Benson approach)  
is essential.  I think the relaxation response (or any of a number of  
other meditation approaches) helps create the kind of "self- 
grounding" that increases our ability to avoid what Daniel Goleman  
describes as "emotional hijackings."   For me "emotional hijacking"  
is another way to describe what happens when I feel defensive and all  
at once find myself behaving out of the negative, critical stance  
that I once viewed as competence.

I really appreciate your response to my comments, Nancy.  What I hear  
is that some of my experience feels like some of your experience.   
What I now wonder is whether those of us with MBTI Thinking  
preference find it more difficult to shift to AI than folks with  
Feeling preference.  Or do we simply have a different set of challenges?

I would love to hear your thoughts and those of others on this question

David

On Mar 8, 2007, at 9:19 PM, Nancy Stetson wrote:

>> Hi David,
>
> Interesting comments.  I am an ENTP and, at first, it was a real  
> stretch for me to "believe" in AI.  However, once I started working  
> with it, I could see the results of an appreciative approach to  
> change. Six years later, I feel that I am more fully developed as a  
> human being, that I have begun to develop a stronger capacity for  
> seeing possibilities in people, situations, etc. And, yes, it's  
> still a streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch for me, especially in my personal  
> life. It's much easier for me to facilitate an Appreciative Inquiry  
> for a group or organization than it is for me to apply the approach  
> in my everyday life!  But I'm still working on it.
>
> . . . .
>
> Nancy
>
>> Cheri and Mukul
>>
>> Cheri, I believe that to truly embrace AI requires some  
>> individuals and organizations to change their way of being and  
>> doing.  I think AI is naturally easier for some people than for  
>> others.
>>
>> For folks, including me, who have a strong MBTI preference for  
>> Thinking to embrace a search for the best requires a real stretch  
>> and a shift in self-image.   We have to learn to suspend our  
>> highly-honed negative, analytical problem solving critiques.    
>> That means we have to revise our images of personal competencies.   
>> I think embracing AI requires those of us with Thinking   
>> preference to nourish and develop our Feeling preference much more  
>> fully.  And embracing AI calls for us to transform our negative,  
>> critical capacities into capacities for discovering and analyzing  
>> the root causes of best behavior.  AI can provide a new,  
>> transforming context for our analytical (formerly negative)  
>> critical skills.
>>
>> I am guessing that folks born with a preference (in MBTI concepts)  
>> for Feeling find Appreciative Inquiry a much more "natural"  
>> approach.  I am curious whether any of you have thoughts on  
>> whether my guess is accurate.
>>
>> I do think it is possible for those of us with a Thinking  
>> preference to embrace AI fully, and MBTI psychological theory  
>> supports the value and possibility of strengthening our ability to  
>> act out of our less-preferred functions, in this case our Feeling  
>> preference.
>>
>> Another hopeful perspective on our ability to change and embrace  
>> AI fully is in Sharon Begley's Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain:  
>> How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform  
>> Ourselves (Ballantine Books).  Begley reports fascinating research  
>> and conversations on  "neuroplasticity, the brain's capacity to  
>> change,"  which was the topic of  the 2004 Mind and Life  
>> Conference hosted by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India.  The  
>> Conference centered on recent research on neuroplasticity (and a  
>> Buddhist perspective) that provides a strong case that we can  
>> train our minds in ways that change our brains, literally and  
>> physically.
>>
>> So our possibilities for change to embrace AI fully may require a  
>> "brain change."  The good news is that our minds and our brains  
>> are up to the challenge!
>>
>> So then the questions, for me, become, what interests, drives,  
>> pushes, pulls, leads us to change, personally or as organizations?
>> What methods for changing ourselves and our organizations are  
>> already present?  And we are back to our AI, Positive Psychology,  
>> Positive Organizational Scholarship and kindred methods and ways  
>> of being and doing!
>>
>> I look forward to others' comments on my sense of the challenges  
>> of "doing" AI for folks with different natural gifts.
>>
>> Best to you,
>>
>> David
>>
>> David J. Snider, Ph.D.
>> David Snider Associates
>>  Consultants On Personal and
>>  Organizational Development
>> 17214 Wildemere
>> Detroit, MI 48221
>> O: 313 342 8060
>> Fax: 313 342 8650
>> davidsnider at mindspring.com
>>