I was honored to be on a panel of blogger interviewers this past weekend with legendary Cleveland journalist and social activist, Roldo Bartimole. A quote:

We’ve institutionalized homelessness but I don’t think we understand it better.

It’s an interesting commentary on the practice of institutionalized solutions that don’t work. We clearly need dialogue on the alternatives.

So this weekend, I’m finishing a handful of new articles for coaching clients to support our work together. Only to discover they’re apparently destined to be a part of an emerging book that now has a title, forthcoming website and emergent organization.

Yes, it’s book 6, starting even while making good progress on the planned 2006 release - “Dream Space.” I comfort myself with the reminder that a friend of mine usually works on 4-5 books at a time along with a full consulting travel schedule.

This will be essentially an appreciative approach to personal effectiveness. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction to Mountain Paths: An Appreciative Guide on the Journey to Discovering our Potential.

Traveling on a mountain path is always an interesting and rewarding experience. Purpose inspires us and attention organizes us.

The mountain doesnÕt care what we donÕt have, donÕt want, or canÕt do. It only supports what we do have, do want, and can do.

Whether itÕs a journey of a thousand steps, we can only take one step at a time. Whatever our desire for certainty, the mountain only reveals the steps that can be seen within a single mountain path turn. Obstacles on the path call on us to create new paths. The longer weÕre on the path, the more we learn about ourselves, the nature of paths, uncertainty, and the power of an appreciative process.

A journey on a mountain path is a simple and powerful metaphor for any journey of discovering our potential. It’s always a path that inspires us to understand and use our strengths and successes in new ways to achieve what matters to us.

Two observations I’ve been having about the basis for how people connect in their worlds:

1. People who have little passion for being interested or interesting tend to find each other and connect.

2. People whose passion is being interested and interesting tend to find each other and connect.

In a world of interdependence, there is no possibility of “taking care of ourselves” without benefiting others. Today is another good day to do something good for ourselves.

An interesting way to practice empathy is to take someone’s behavior that we judge as “irrational” and create a number of possible scenarios that would solidly explain the logic of that behavior. It works because that’s exactly what we do when we extend empathy to people whose logic we know and understand.

What we often discover in the process is that we actually don’t know what logic supports what we consider irrational. We discover that any of our scenarios might actually be valid.

The practice is based on the observation that all irrational behavior is supported by certain logic that is usually flawed yet totally compelling to the person directed by that logic.

Stated differently: we always we do the only thing we can based on our logic at the time - even when that logic is totally flawed.

I moderated a brilliant panel discussion and conversation last night about the innovation of “citizen journalism.”

When it comes to innovation, we need to start talking about action listening.

True innovations surprise the imaginations of the market and by definition do not come from market demand. ÒListeningÓ to the market, when it comes to innovations, is not possible through traditional market and best practices research Ð because it makes no sense to ask the market if it wants something itÕs never seen or experienced before.

Keep in mind that this was tried with innovations as humble as Kleenex, Post-Its and the typewriter. What did the market say when asked if they wanted these? A loud ÒNo.Ó Period.

The only way to see if a market (of early adopters) exists is to pilot/field-test the innovation real-time. To prototype and learn from the experience is Òaction listening.Ó This was the only way these three innovations won enough early adopter support to attract market tipping points and legitimacy.

Emory psychologist, Drew Westen, has led a study in which neuroscientists explore what parts of the brain are engaged when people are interacting from politically partisan positions.

No surprise: in these situations, the unconscious parts of the brain are most active and the rational parts of the brain tend to be quiet.

In a conversation today, we were talking about the strategic power of ambivalence. This is the advantage of knowing we don’t have all the answers over thinking we have all the answers. It’s the story of how certainty can disable learning.

We expect that certain places or situations can intrinsically bring us more peace or joy than others. This gives us the task of working hard to manipulate the world to serve this expectation.

An alternative is what Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance author, Robert Pirsig, suggests:

The only Zen you find on top of mountains
is the Zen you bring up there.

Have you noticed that … in the moment we’re clear on what matters, there are no problems to solve or decisions to make.

We just do what matters.