Letter to the President...

October 23, 1997

Dear Carol,

My experience with creative interchange goes back to 1991 when I had a two and a half day immersion into the process. This immersion resulted in a conscious ability to appreciate and understand the thoughts, thought processes and motivations of other people, and to integrate the best that others know with the best I know resulting in ideas and thought processes that are different from, and better than, any one of the individual parts.

Creative interchange has been invigorating, enlightening, and at times, scary. Being able to actively inquire about and appreciate others' thoughts, reasons, and thought processes has allowed me to not only learn more about diverse subjects, it has enabled me to apply concepts and principles learned in supposedly disconnected topics to problems in my personal and professional life.

Perhaps an even more powerful result has been an increased ability to deal with ambiguity and to approach new situations with a confidence that I can survive and thrive within that new situation; changes are now embraced rather than feared. I believe that I have achieved a dramatic increase in peace of mind now that I inquire rather react to new situations.

I've had the opportunity to provide training in creative Interchange for people who report to me in my professional life. I have observed an increased resilience on the part of those people who have embraced and practice creative interchange. Communications between employees and between employees and their managers have improved and are more open. ideas are offered, incubated, owned and acted upon by teams. Individuals and managers have more open and meaningful dialogue leading to more creative results.

People have had the courage and conviction to make career plans and decisions that have resulted in job changes within and outside of the company. These decisions have been shared with managers early and I have observed managers working with employees to plan the moves and employees working with managers to create and execute transition plan that have resulted in minimal impact from the employees' career changes.

Along the same lines, new employees have had, I believe, an easier time adjusting to a supportive, collaborative culture where active enquiry is encouraged. Employees have been very effective mentors to new employees.

The impact has been felt outside of work, also. Employees have shared positive results from Creative Interchange in their personal lives that have ranged from an increased ability to communicate with children, parents and spouses to being able to effectively work with a grandchild's school teacher in crafting a more individualized curriculum that is allowing the child to be challenged in a new school. As people (employees) have been able to communicate and innovate more effectively outside of work, their performance and attitude on the job has improved.

There are challenges with creative interchange. The concepts of inquiry and appreciative understanding are somewhat alien to existing corporate cultures. The biggest challenge I see is how to encourage with creative interchange when confronted with a culture that encourages debate and rewards individual ideas and accomplishments over collaboration and teamwork. Regardless of the use of the word "teamwork" in US corporations, the predominant cultures reward and encourage individuality. With creative interchange, both individuality and collaboration exist.

Creative interchange also increases humility. Individuals are able to deal with the concept that others have great ideas, too and, at the same time, that the individual's own ideas no matter what they are, also have equal merit.

Bottom line - individuals have an increased and conscious ability to achieve their true potential as employees and human beings.

Sincerely,
Harry Doscher
Manager, 
Cellular Infrastructure Group
Motorola

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