[Ailist] AI - an established business strategy--Challenges

[Don Austin]

Hello David,

I have INTJ preferences (as opposed to "I am an INTJ").  Actually, after 55
years of life and testing INTJ for at least a dozen times over the years, I
now test INFJ.  I find MBTI, and LSI, and EC, and AI all to be very helpful,
and sometimes very powerful.  I have often overused them, and I think that
most people who find them meaningful do overuse them.

AI is experiential at its heart, in my opinion.  When I first read the name
and description, and had it described to me by David Cooperrider, despite
some prior experience that could have predisposed me toward AI, I was
seriously put off BY THE DESCRIPTION.  When I first actually DID AI, I was
overwhelmed in a very positive way.

I believe that as essential as AI is, it would not be such a big deal if we
lived in a culture that did more of AI sorts of interaction routinely.
However, we are seriously screwed up, so AI IS very important.

I do not believe that trying to correlate disposition toward AI with MBTI
types is going to be very useful to you, in the end, although it is an
intriguing question (there are SO many intriguing questions for INTJ types,
are there not?).  Every MBTI type can have unique reasons for shying away
from AI, so your INTJ reasons are not someone else's.

Don

Don Austin, Ph.D. 
Bedrock Effective Action 
Developed for You-with You
 
Cobblestone Coaching 
http://cobblestonecoaching.com
78 Water Street, P.O. Box 21 
Elizabethtown, NY 12932
518-873-6891   
 

> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 19:00:17 -0500
> From: "David J. Snider" <davidsnider at mindspring.com>
> Subject: Re: [Ailist] AI - an established business strategy/Challenges
> 	of	"doing" AI
> To: Nancy Stetson <nancy at sonic.net>
> Cc: ailist at lists.business.utah.edu, aicowner at aiconsulting.org
> Message-ID: <99A042A0-FC0D-4197-B296-74036B395CA2 at mindspring.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
> 
> 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.
> >