OD Seasonings
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Volume 7, Number 3 • Summer 2010
From The Editor
Chapter 1: Four Life-Changing Reads
Four seasoned OD professionals tell us about a book that that changed their life and OD practice.
Toni’s Story
By Toni’s Story
Twenty-five years ago when I first read William Bridges’ book, Transitions, Making Sense of Life’s Changes, I was enmeshed in my own set of transitions—a separation after a 20 year marriage, returning to school for a masters degree 25 years after receiving my bachelor’s degree, and shedding the persona of a “stay at home Mom” to reenter to the workforce. While many friends, in their efforts to support me, spoke about all the new opportunities that were ahead of me, my only was feeling was that my life was suddenly unbelievably chaotic, full of turmoil, and more difficult than I thought I could possibly handle. Bridges transformed my thinking and helped me to see how I could survive all of these endings and in time, find new beginnings.
Read the Knott article >>
Sherry’s Story
By Sherry Camden-Anders, Ph.D.
Sometimes we question our contribution and value, and we wonder if we have chosen the right path, the right career as OD practitioners. This is my story of that time of questioning, the unfolding, and the book that helped me revisit my life, my practice...
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Peggy’s Story
By Peggy Grant, Ph.D
A book that has significantly changed the way I look at the world is Beyond Philosophy: Ethics, History, Marxism, and Liberation Theology by Enrique Dussel (edited in 2003 by Eduardo Mendieta; Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.). The book is a selection of Dussel’s writings that cover a span of more than thirty years of scholarship, which generated fifty books and hundreds of articles. As an ethicist, philosopher, theologian, and historian, Dussel presents a worldview from “the Latin-American epistemological ‘place’” (p. xi) that challenges the taken-for-granted assumptions of Western philosophy and its underlying hegemonic belief system. Confronting the tradition and objectivity of Western thinking, he presents his ethics as a practical undertaking grounded in the ordinariness of daily life. For him, the ethical relation is paramount because it confronts the dehumanizing decisions and actions of a globalized economy.
Read the Grant article >>
Regina's Story
By Regina Rowland, PhD
In fall of 2004, I had just completed what turned out to be a two-year project supporting the 2004 Assembly & Parliament of the World’s Religions as an intercultural expert. I had recently returned from Barcelona full of inspiration, and ready to try out some new techniques I had learned on the project, such as visual mapping. As a transdisciplinarian I am naturally thinking and sensing systems so any kind of mapping will get me excited because it facilitates relational awareness that supports “sense-making”. This is how I came to I pick up Wilber’s “A Theory of Everything,” a book that I had had on my shelf for a couple of years at the time, untouched, but obviously calling me.
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Chapter 2: A Seasoned OD Professional Reviews New Books
Reviewed by Don Bushnell
In the following section, Don Bushnell, Professor Emeritus of the Fielding Graduate University, reviews three new books that you might want to tuck in your briefcase or beach bag and enjoy for a good OD read this summer:
From Workplace to Playspace: Innovating, Learning, and Changing Through Dynamic Engagement by Pamela Meyer, Ph.D. (Jossey-Bass, 2010)
Appreciative Leadership: Focus on What Works to Drive Winning Performance and Build a Thriving Organization by Diana Whitney, Ph.D., Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Kae Rader (McGraw Hill, 2010)
Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World by Sheena Sharp. (John Wiley & Sons, 2009)