[Ailist] Appreciation vs. Cynicism & Steve Jobs

Sat Mar 8 17:56:09 MST 2008

To All the Contributors,
	I am so grateful for the wonderful words that have appeared on this thread.
To all of you who are so appreciatively thoughtful, I want to thank you.  I
have learned so much from this discussion and all from the words cynicism,
and arrogance.   I have been greatly enlightened and my understanding of
appreciative thought has been deepened, and so I will pass it on.
Charlotte Denny-Henley
Open Door Consulting
Huron, SD

-----Original Message-----
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu
[mailto:ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu]On Behalf Of Chris Dennis
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 5:15 PM
To: 'Cheri Torres'; ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: RE: [Ailist] Appreciation vs. Cynicism & Steve Jobs

Cheri and other contributors,

I have taken a real interest in this thread as I am working on some
intractable leadership issues with a large client and terms like bullying
and arrogance tweaked some strong responses in the context of the work.

Starting with Hank Kearns link to CNN.money.com and reading through the
speculations about Steve Jobs, I wondered where the real background of the
man comes from and what his real drivers are.   I have, on several
occasions, sent this note to our children as they struggle to find their
feet in life.  The note is simple: it's the commencement speech given by
Jobs, verbatim, in July 2005.  The underlining is mine to illustrate some
key points in his philosophy on life.

Jobs loves what he does which is giving tools of great beauty to people who
can use them creatively.  He has a wide vision and via 'connecting the dots'
is able to stitch together disparate concepts into a composite whole that
takes people to a new experience. He does this by not living someone else's
life and escaping dogma ( the results of other's thinking).

If he loves what he does, he will be driven; he will push the boundaries and
ask you to do the same, in fact, expect you to get out of your comfort zone.
Some will call this arrogance, others bullying: it's your perspective.

What he has achieved is first to market with a lovely piece of equipment in
the Mac, a slim and light multi-media tool in the form of the iPod, a
completely different and intuitive user interface with the iPhone and the
courage to change from the Motorola to the Intel chip to take advantage of
all the Microsoft directed tools.

The key to Jobs seems to lie in his ability to juxtaposition very different
things yet show the relevance to many people as in his reference to the
Whole Earth Catalogue being the Google in paperback.  He lives the Whole
Earth credo of "stay hungry, stay foolish".  Through this, think of how many
people he has reached and changed their lives a little or a lot.  Think of
the appreciation of the jogger with an iPod on her upper arm unconscious of
the weight to the dying lady who was able to listen to her favourite music
to the end.

The debate is not about Mac vs Microsoft: it's about leadership and the
risks, the lonliness, the determination to swim across the stream, the
conviction that what you are striving for will benefit many.  It's about the
guts to live your life your way AND benefit others.  It is therefore
generative, the heart of Ai.

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu
[mailto:ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Cheri Torres
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 12:22 PM
To: 'Lionel Boxer'; kervick at comcast.net; ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: RE: [Ailist] Appreciation vs. Cynicism

It is curious to me that we've now had a couple of discussions circulating
on the listserv that point to the polarizing effect of labeling or
categorizing.

If there is some value to be gained by raising the concepts to explore them,
it might be valuable to lift the concept in question up off the individual
in order to learn together.

For example, with Steve Jobs--some valuable questions from my vantage point
would be:

*    What exactly is arrogance? Is it in the person or in the dynamic
between people, in which case-what part do I play in the creation of
arrogance when I judge that in another person?

*    Behavior that might be judged as arrogance from within one paradigm may
not be judged as arrogance from within another paradigm. What if the other
person is coming from a totally different paradigm than me?  We more readily
see this when it occurs between different cultures-and we excuse it as
cultural as soon as we understand it.  Might the same thing occur for people
who appear to live in the same culture, but actually exist in totally
different value memes (Spiral Dynamics)?  And if it seems like arrogance to
me, but its not, then what is it? How do I make sense of the other? How do
we learn to go on together (presuming that we want to!)

With Ms. Obama's quote, some questions that beg to be asked for me are:

*    What does she mean by the 'US'-is she talking about all the individuals
who collectively make up a country that is called the US?  Is she talking
about how the US is seen by others in the world? Is she talking about the
collective impact the US is having now (for itself and in the world) as
compared to say 1776 or 1965 or 1990?

*    Who was she speaking to and what was her intent? Was she 'right on' for
her audience, but way off base for the collective whole-which has people
from all over the map listening, each from their own frame and value
perspective?  Or did she miss the mark on those folks she was speaking to?
Context is so much of communication.

Each of these topics stimulate so many questions for me that have nothing to
do with the individuals associated with the concepts.  What difference would
it make if we learned to consistently just address the issues, concepts,
questions, etc., without labeling the people who have raised them? How would
this impact our organizations?  Communities?  Families?

Cheri

-----Original Message-----
From: ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu
[mailto:ailist-bounces at lists.business.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Lionel Boxer
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 12:10 PM
To: kervick at comcast.net; ailist at lists.business.utah.edu
Subject: Re: [Ailist] Appreciation vs. Cynicism

Having grown up and lived in Toronto from 1957 to 1987 I tend to agree

with Ms Obama and I think her approach is appropriate.  The great ideals

that started out in 1776 have been lost, but they were lost well before

Ms Obama was born.

This is why AI is so important.

Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256

Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au

Graduate School of Business

What's up?: http://intergon.net/events.html

The Sustainable Way: http://intergon.net/tsw

>>> "Kevin Kervick" <kervick at comcast.net> 09/03/08 1:39 AM >>>

>From Michelle Obama in the New Yorker magazine:

Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and

life is

not good: we're a divided country, we're a country that is "just

downright

mean," we are "guided by fear," we're a nation of cynics, sloths, and

complacents. "We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely

making it every day," she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. "Folks are

just

jammed up, and it's gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I'm

young. Forty-four!"

----

The conventional wisdom among some political observers is that these

comments may be unhelpful to say out loud but they are true. My

contention

is they are not true and they reflect misguided and cynical all or

nothing

biases that are not supported by the facts.  Unfortunately there is much

support for this line of thinking among liberal people, which may

explain

why liberals tend to be less appreciative and less happy than

conservatives.

Not much appreciative inquiry here. If Ms. Obama is going to go on a

reality

tirade she should get it right.  I like Barack Obama's message of hope

as

long as it also includes appreciation of the essential goodness of the

United States. Could she have made her point in a more appreciative way?

I have more on the Catalysts for Change blog at

http://catalystsforchange.blogspot.com/.

Kevin Kervick

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_______________________________________________

The Appreciative Inquiry Discussion List is hosted by the David Eccles
School of Business at the University of Utah. Jack Brittain is the list
administrator. For subscription information, go to:

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_______________________________________________
The Appreciative Inquiry Discussion List is hosted by the David Eccles
School of Business at the University of Utah. Jack Brittain is the list
administrator. For subscription information, go to:
http://mailman.business.utah.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/ailist