Description: This workshop will explore important fundamentals about how we learn and examine our own learning styles with a self-assessment tool. We will examine new ways to think about team learning using the mutual learning model and through other useful tools.  These will provide the opportunity to shift our thinking at work and at home.

Workshop Participants Will:

• Assess their own learning styles

• Consider important models of learning

• Practice new ways of learning with others

Target Audience: This workshop is targeted at those who would like to consider new ways to engage with others at work and at home. We often find ourselves and others acting as “knowers” rather than as “learners”. When this occurs, we diminish our opportunities to interact effectively with others. For those who wish to create a better work or home environment, this is an opportunity to think differently about how we can change ourselves to change the situation and the future. Join us and engage with others in thinking about new opportunities for personal growth.

Organizational Issues: It is a common experience to have conversations that fail to explore a full range of assumptions and options. We find ourselves and others attempting to focus on selective desired outcomes rather than exploring a full range of opportunities.

As the “aware” person, we have the opportunity to assist in changing conversations for more robust outcomes and to develop a better environment for ourselves and others.

Objectives: Upon completion of this workshop, participants will better understand their own learning style and have the opportunity to consider changes that might help them be more effective in their conversations. They will be become aware of why important conversations are failing to satisfy their own desires for greater effectiveness. They will also better understand the reason for many unnecessary conflicts.

Materials Needed: none

Suggested Pre-Reading: The Learner’s Path: Practices for Recovering Knowers by Brian Hinkien (Pegasus Communications)

Date: Thursday, April 19th

Length: 3 hours (1:15-4:15pm)

Location: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne - 6633 Canoga Avenue, Canoga Park

Cost: None

Handouts: Available for download after the Forum

Biography: Jon provides a wide range of business consulting services through the Bergstrom Learning Center in Tehachapi, California. Prior to his recent retirement, he worked for Shell Oil Company and Aera Energy LLC for 35 years in a variety of engineering and management positions.

During the last five years of his career, he worked as an internal consultant in Aera’s Learning Organization and developed an appreciation for the challenges and opportunities involved in organizational change. He was personally involved in many company-wide change efforts.

He has provided team skills workshops for more than 1400 students at International Space University since 2000. The workshops for the Masters Program in Strasbourg, France and the summer sessions at locations around the world provide students with concepts and processes that enhance their team experience at the university.

Contact: Jon can be reached by e-mail at jonbergstrom@sbcglobal.net for additional information about this Pre-Conference session.

Website: www.websweare.com/bergstrom

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/jon-bergstrom/5/292/13a

Biography: Based in the Pacific Northwest, Steve consults with leadership teams, organizations and other communities seeking to establish or renew their essential conversation. His passion is helping human systems (www.helpinghumansystems.com) think, learn, and work together - better. Steve is a graduate of the Organization Systems Renewal (OSR), www.osr-nw.org, program at Seattle University, where he learned to design and lead significant change through collaborative relationships. Lately he’s contributed to a bloom of World Cafés in the Northwest, and in Olympia hosts a monthly First Wednesday Conversation at a local fair trade café. His favorite quote is from the poet and consultant David Whyte: “The conversation is the relationship.” Steve, with two colleagues, offers a public systems thinking workshop called New Habits of Mind for New Solutions (NHOM). He also offers several workshops through South Puget Sound Community College (Olympia): “Conversations That Matter”, “Thinking Together – Better”, and “Better Together at Work”. These workshops are highly interactive and based on the principles of co-learning. Prior to developing his practice as an organization consultant, Steve worked in quality management roles and shared his understanding of W. Edwards Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge. Steve is a life-long learner. In the last year he completed the “Powers of Leadership” seasonal retreat at the Whidbey Institute at Chinook, “The Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter” (Berkana), and “Sensing and Shaping Emergent Change” (OSR). He is co-chair of the OSR Alumni Association. He is deeply involved with the In2:InThinking Network, helping with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne's monthly Ongoing Discussion teleconference and contributing to the design of the annual Forum. When he and his wife, Janet, aren’t working, they can be found paddling kayaks, tending their garden, staying fit at the gym, or walking with Iris, their attentive Australian Shepherd.

Contact: Steve can be reached by e-mail at smbyers7@comcast.net for additional information about this Pre-Conference session.

Website: www.helpinghumansystems.com

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/steven-byers/3/613/267