[Ailist] How does it work?

[Rob Voyle]

Hi Hank

Several things.

First AI isn't about ignoring.  To ignore something is actually a form of negative 
focus.  The harder you try to ignore something the more it comes into focus.  
And in AI terms what you focus on becomes your reality.

Second, while you don't have to have a problem to engage in AI, the fact is 
many people seek help because they are having a problem.  To ignore their 
starting point is an act of radical disrespect, not the radical respect that is at the 
heart of AI.

Third, while we don't ignore problems, we don't seek to make them smaller, 
rather we have to transform the problem into a life-giving (not just positive but 
life-giving) goal.  For example in conflicted situations we can't work to have less 
conflict or to manage conflict, we need to work for greater cooperation and 
collaboration. So take bullying.  That is a problem.  But you can't get a child or 
adult, or country for that matter, to do less bullying.  Ignoring it won't make it 
go away, in fact ignoring it is just a way of cooperating with the bully.  Nor do 
we need to waste our time trying to understand the cause of bullying.  What we 
need to do is find the cause of respect and cooperation and focus our aattention 
on getting more of that. 

Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King did not respond 
to bullying by being a bigger bully they went the route of radical compassion (I 
think of compassion as having 3 qualities, tenderness, fierceness, and 
mischievousness)  They stood their ground, in a way that had radical respect for 
themselves, their people and their oppressor.

So in responding to bullying we may need three different strategies, one for the 
person labelled the bully, one for the people labeled the victim, and one for the 
group or community in which the bullying occurs, but while the starting point for 
each may be different what we need to do is focs on what we want rather than 
on trying to get less of what we don't want.

I have recently put a series of fact sheets on the appreciative way applied to 
coaching on my website at
http://www.clergyleadership.com/coaching/coaching-fact.html

Dr.  King put it this way:
"To our most bitter opponents we say:
We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure 
suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force.
Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you.
We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation 
with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
Throw us in jail and we shall still love you.
Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you.
Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight 
hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye 
assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.
One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to 
your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory 
will be a double victory."
-  Dr. Luther King, Jr.

Rob
  
Robert J. Voyle, Psy.D.
Director, Clergy Leadership Institute
For Coaching and Training in Appreciative Inquiry
Author: Core Elements of the Appreciative Way 
http://www.clergyleadership.com/
503-647-2378 or 503-647-2382
  


On 3 Mar 2008 at 15:03, Hank Kearns wrote:

> I  am a retired health teachers. I have always been looking for  
> information to share with my students concerning mental health and 
> relationships. Sine I´m a "old as dirt," I started with Maslow and 
> his hierarchy concepts, that lead to Carl Rogers and his excellent 
> work on communication skills, followed by Albert Ellis, Timothy Beck
> and Cognitive Psychology, and more recently Positive Psychology lead
> by Seligman and Peterson.   Along the way I stumbled onto  
> Appreciative Inquiry. I tried to get my school to utilize AI
> concepts  
> in changing our school, but was not successful . I´ve been a lurker 
> to this list and a fan of AI for many years. Recently I have tried
> to  
> use AI in my personal life. I have no problem with the major  
> principles of AI, but I have to admit that I´m not convinced about 
> ignoring the bad.
> 
> Let me give you an example. Let´s say we are working with a school  
> that has a real problem with bullying. Can you ignore the physical 
> and emotional pain that is being inflicted while you identify the 
> positive and encourage it to grow? (I know I´m in trouble asking
> this  
> kind of question, but I am looking for an answer.) :)
> 
> Perhaps a less harmful situation. In your marriage your spouse is a 
> slob. He or she never puts things away. Besides that your spouse is 
> loving, supportive, and responsible at work and with your children. 
> They just are not very neat. Carl Rogers would say that you express 
> your persist feelings. You would explain that you are embarrassed 
> with the way your house looks, and you want him or her to take in 
> consideration your feelings and put things away when he or she is 
> done with.
> 
> I´m showing my ignorance here, but I have a problem with this.
> 
> Hank Kearns
> - -
> www.greydogmac.com
> 
> Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. Albert Eistein
> 
> 
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