Methods

My unique way of thinking and my understanding of Inviting Leadership has been shaped by twenty-many years of study, practice, and the good fortune of working with many excellent guides. These are some of my most important teachers and influences:

Practices, Methods and Teachers

• Appreciative Inquiry as taught and practiced by Bliss Browne, Peggy Holman, Buddhi Tamang and others
• Asset-Based Community Development as taught and practiced by John McKnight
• Circle Practice as taught by Ora Schub, Cheryl Graves and Peter Newman via the Community Justice for Youth Institute
• Dialogue as taught and practiced by Sue Miller Hurst and Roger Breisch
• Dispute Mediation as taught by Margaret Master, Patricia Deer, and the Center for Conflict Resolution
• Experiential Education and Teambuilding as practiced with Steve Proudman
• Open Space Technology as practiced and taught by Harrison Owen, Anne Stadler, Brian Bainbridge and others
• Outward Bound, Adventure Learning and Wilderness Travel in Colorado and Maine (student), and Minnesota, Mexico and Chicago (staff)
• Systems Thinking, Process Mapping, Modelling and Simulation as taught by High Performance Systems, now iSee Systems
• Search Conference and Participative Work (Re)Design with Merrelyn Emery, Bob Rehm, Nancy Cebula, and Frank Heckman
• Technology of Participation as taught by the Institute of Cultural Affairs, Chicago
• Vipassana Meditation as taught and practiced by S. N. Goenka
• Wiki as developed, practiced and shared by Ward Cunningham and Cliff Adams
• Blogging (via WordPress), as practiced by Chris Corrigan, Euan Semple, Phil Cubeta, Shannon Clark and others
• Zapchen Somatics as taught and practiced by Julie Henderson

Interests, Influences and Inspirations

• Pattern Language and Nature of Order by Christopher Alexander
• The Fourfold Way by Angeles Arrien
• Spiral Dynamics as articulated by Don Beck
• World Cafe as developed by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs
• An Open Life, and stories of Transformation, (re)told by Joseph Campbell
• Toxic Emotions at Work, Managing with Compassion by Peter Frost
• Bucky Fuller Inventor, Designer and Life as Experiment
• The Work of Byron Katie
• State of Grace Document as developed by Maureen McCarthy and Zelle Nelson
• Nonviolent Communication as taught by Marshall Rosenberg
• The Fifth Discipline and Systems Thinking as taught by Peter Senge
• A Brief History of Everything and other works by Ken Wilber
…see also ReadingList and GlobalNetwork

Formal Education

• Economics, Business, and English as taught at Indiana University, College of Arts and Sciences
• Financial Analysis, Market Theory, Business Strategy and Critical Thinking as taught by the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business (now Booth School of Business).