[Ailist] appreciative group 360

[Helen6451 at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/27/2008 7:14:38 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
rdavies at rtpcompany.com writes:

The  first time you sit in a room and have 8 people talking about you it's,
to  say the least, a little un-nerving. For you and probably for everyone
else  as they don't know how you will react. Of course doing it
appreciatively  will help a lot with that if everyone knows that you'll only
be talking  about the good stuff. I was fortunate in that the group of people
I was  with had an inherently appreciative focus and were very diplomatic
about  possible improvements. I heard that the same thing tried on a
different  site ended up with people in tears and weeks of fall out that was
not  good.


Hello, all:  
 
I wanted to share my experience from the Self-as-Instrument course at the  
JFK University program on Organizational psychology.  We had been given the  
challenge of helping students develop an openness to feedback early in their  
program, to enhance their capacity for learning.
 
What we developed takes AI as its foundation.  We begin with a  discovery and 
development of themes around their most  powerful experiences of receiving 
feedback and what supports receiving  feedback in ways that enable them to learn 
from it.  Many times the  debrief of the themes results in identifying the 
importance of  keeping  yourself "in control" of how you receive what you hear, 
what you are willing to  take in, and what you choose to do with it.
 
We then engage them in a structured exercise of receiving positive feedback  
which includes pauses for silent reflection on their internal experience at 
each  stage in the exercise: writing their positive feedback on each person's  
wall chart, preparing to receive/read their own feedback and after receiving  
their own feedback.  
 
Every time we have debriefed this exercise, most of the students (mostly  
adults returning for career change education) report significant anxiety both  ab
out providing the feedback and about receiving the feedback, some to the point 
 where they cannot take in the positive character of the feedback provided 
for  them.  This even when they KNOW THAT THE FEEDBACK WILL BE POSITIVE!
 
So one question we might ask is how to prepare both those providing and  
those receiving the feedback in ways that enable those on the receiving end to  
feel somewhat in control of what they do with what is offered.  
 
Helen Spector
Spector &  Associates
Organizational Process Consulting
9601 NW Leahy Road  #309
Portland OR 97229
1.503.296.7248 voice
1.510.701.4035  cell
1.503.296.7243 fax 








**************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.      
(http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/
2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)