| Recent Publications & Events |
The Upward Spiral at Pegasus' Systems Thinking in Action Conference
November 11-14, 2012
Many systems are at tipping points–our organizations and our schools, our economy, our society, and the environment. In times like these, how do we reverse destructive cycles and mobilize positive momentum – especially when those involved have little interest in thinking systemically? The upward spiral is a metaphor for growth that naturally invites systems thinking and suggests ways to raise one another’s level of aspiration, commitment, and action – even among those who disagree.
Here are the slides and worksheets we used as we applied the upward spiral as a guiding metaphor for bootstrapping systemic change in relationships, teams, organizations, and communities.
View the presentation
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How Does a Business Keep a Promise?
Presentation at The Lab at the Edmond J. Safra Center for the Study of Ethics
September 25, 2012
During the September Bonanza Kickoff event for this years' fellows, Elizabeth was able to share and get feedback on a new model that describes why it is harder for businesses to keep commitments than for individuals.This presentation will be the core of an article expected out in the next 2-3 months.
View the presentation
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Systems Thinker Article on the Upward Spiral
We're honored to contribute to Pegasus Communication's premier publication on systems thinking.
In this feature article for The Systems Thinker, Elizabeth Doty introduces a way to reverse destructive downward cycles and mobilize growth, health and regeneration. She articulates the six principles of the CPIRAL Model that can help leaders take small, effective steps to build trust, collaboration, and excellence, even in very difficult circumstances.
View the article
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Defector Greg Smith has been called dishonest, unprofessional, and self-serving. But what might he be telling us about how to do business responsibly? In her first article with Yes! Magazine, Elizabeth Doty outlines three questions for business professionals and reformers: 1) How do we distinguish good profits from bad profits? 2) What does it mean for a business to make a promise? 3) What do responsible business people do when market incentives are distorted?
View the article
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 Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern
Sponsored by Pegasus Communications
The upward spiral is a metaphor for growth that naturally invites systems thinking and suggests ways to raise one another’s level of aspiration, commitment, and action – even among those who disagree. Please join us as we explore the upward spiral as a guiding metaphor for bootstrapping systemic change in relationships, teams, organizations, and communities.
By the end of the session, you will be able to: 1) Understand and know when to apply the upward spiral as a meta-model for change, 2) Recognize the structures that keep downward spirals in place and how the upward spiral model uses those same structures for positive change and 3) Apply the six principles of the CPIRAL Model to identify and initiate small, effective steps that build trust, collaboration, and excellence, even in very difficult circumstances.
Listen to the recording
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Thursday, April 19, 2012, 6:30pm to 9:00pm
Co-Sponsored by The Hub Bay Area and The Bay Area Society for Organizational Learning
As we head into spring, 2012, many systems are at tipping points -- our organizations and our schools, our economy, our society, and our planet. Around the world, social entrepreneurs, business leaders, non-profit directors, activists and citizens see opportunities to build a better future. In times like these, how do we reverse destructive downward spirals and mobilize positive momentum?
Please join us for this highly interactive session, where we will practice applying six principles to help reverse downward spirals and mobilize upward spirals in relationships, teams, organizations, new ventures and communities.
$15 per person/$10 for Hub members.
Includes a light dinner. No one turned away for lack of funds.
The Hub San Francisco, 925 Mission Street, Suite 105, San Francisco, CA
Download the session flier
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1/27/12 Bay Area SoL: The Upward Spiral ~ Bootstrapping Systemic Change
San Francisco, CA: Interactive dialogue and practice activities with the Bay Area Society for Organizational Learning.
Download the Slide Deck |
11/9/11 ASTD Golden Gate: The Power of Coaching in the Workplace
Oakland, CA: As part of ASTD's series exploring the Nine Core Competencies of the ASTD Certified Professional in Learning and Performance, Elizabeth Doty joined three other coaches -- Judy Burgio, Paul Larsen, and Janet Chahrour -- in a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Pi Wen Looi, founder of Novacrea Research Consulting. Elizabeth focused on how coaches can help their clients when they face issues involving values or ethics. She shared four simple Decision-point tools to help coaches assist their clients.
Download Decision-point Coaching Tools |
6/16/11 USF Alumni Association
Tiburon, CA: The USF Alumni Network hosted an interactive conversation about "Compromises at Work: How to Thrive without Selling your Soul". Elizabeth and the participants explored the types of compromises that erode work-life balance, quality, and managerial effectiveness, or involve more serious risks, and what professionals can do to avoid them. |
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6/14/11 ICO Consulting Webinar Series
Virtual Session: Colleagues at ICO Consulting hosted a thoughtful dialogue on "The New Leadership Mindset: 10 Misconceptions about Compromise at Work, and How We Can Cultivate Widespread Integrity". As we recover from the economic crisis, many professionals are asking themselves: Can we avoid the widespread compromise and excess that marked the first decade of the 21st century? What would it take to cultivate widespread integrity and responsibility, especially in response to our society's most pressing challenges? Elizabeth shared her ideas about compromise, integrity, the misconceptions that got us into the financial crisis, and the new leadership mindset that can help cultivate widespread integrity, responsibility and well-being.
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5/24/11 Net Impact of San Francisco
San Francisco, CA: Elizabeth led a discussion about “Keeping the Mission Real in Social Ventures: The Challenges of Organizational Integrity”. What most stuck with participants was the idea that values are always in tension so we need more practical guidelines for working with them day to day, and the need for all professionals to master the "five positive plays".
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5/20/11 Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce
Albany, NY: Elizabeth spoke with members of the Chamber of Commerce about Growing Your Business by Building Customer Trust, showing how "heroic efforts" often create chaos and erode reliability. She outlined four steps to building customer trust in core processes: 1) Gauging your real capacity to keep promises, 2) Aligning promises with that capacity, 3) Targeting improvement, and 4) Making new promises to customers.
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4/18/11 Talk for The Rotary Club of New York
New York, NY: Elizabeth spoke with Rotarians about Three Misconceptions about Compromise at Work...and the New Leadership Mindset That Fosters Trust, Effectiveness and Integrity
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San Francisco, CA: On April 13, 2011, Elizabeth spoke to the club's Business and Leadership Forum on The New Leadership Mindset: 10 Misconceptions About Compromise at Work and How to Spark an Epidemic of Integrity.In this podcast, Elizabeth and the audience explore the common psychological patterns that lead professionals down the “slippery slope” of unhealthy compromise -- causing such catastrophes as the financial crisis, Deepwater Horizon and TEPCO – and what we can do to reverse this trend. (4/13/11) Listen to the podcast.
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Elizabeth spoke with employee engagement expert and interviewer extraordinaire, Zane Safrit about how we get into the compromise trap, the effect of power on ethics, and what Elizabeth would say to President Obama if he asked for help!(2/2/11) Listen to the interview. Read the transcript.
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1/26/11 - Talk for Women in Consulting
San Francisco, CA: Elizabeth spoke about Courage and Compromise: Redefining the Game in High-stakes Client Relationships. Participants learned a framework for weighing healthy and unhealthy compromise and a way to "redefine the game" that increases your impact with your clients and the larger world.
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Danville, CA: Elizabeth showed how organizational commitments tend to "drift", creating pressure on employees to compromise in ways that ultimately undermine the business. She then outlined three elements of a solution: 1) Leaders who really want to know what is going on on-the-ground, 2) Followers with high-level engagement skills, and 3) Regular "Opportunity Scans" to see where commitments are starting to drift. Download the slides... or view an overview of the Employee Engagement Opportunity Scan
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Boston, MA: A diverse group of professionals joined a lively conversation about how situational forces, self-justification, and organizational complexity can lead even "good guys" to act out of alignment with their values... and how the MBA Oath is a first step to counteract the process. The most promising idea of the evening was that situational forces can work for the good, creating an upward spiral toward more trustworthy organizations, and ultimately, societies.Download the slides... or check out the MBA Oath for yourself.
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10/23/10 & 10/26/10 - Talks for Executive Women in Texas Government and Wisdom at Work
Austin, TX: In two related talks on bringing wisdom to work, Elizabeth outlined why it is difficult for organizations to act wisely, even in these times when it is critical for them to do so. Rather than getting discouraged, Ms. Doty showed how professionals can shift their focus from "playing along" or "rebelling" to "helping the right thing happen", by developing their own sources of insight and courage.
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New Orleans, LA: Do organizational consultants make more of a difference by saying no to ill-conceived initiatives or by saying yes and "living to fight another day"? Elizabeth Doty and Dennis Riedlinger of Dow Chemical led a highly interactive on "Courage & Compromise: A Framework for OD Practitioners and Leaders Facing Choices Under Pressure".Download the slides...
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John Kador acknowledges the importance of career maintenance and offers up seven of his favorite career management books from 2010. The Compromise Trap is identified for this top list of career management books for its value in examining what to do when under workplace pressure and how to maintain “following the rules” while still keeping true to your own personal integrity and values.Go to the article online to see the full list of books selected and to read the chapter highlights from each one.
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Steve Watkins' article, Stick to your Convictions, which appeared in the August 5th edition of Investor's Business Daily, outlines how individuals can stay aligned with their own integrity and values, and why it is so important to remain true to yourself. He uses interview responses and excerpts from The Compromise Trap, to illustate how an individual can also bring value to their customers and organization in the process of facing those workplace challenges. His article provides a list of tips that are concise and can be effective in helping professionals address the common workplace issue of balancing work pressures and personal values.
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 Elizabeth Doty was featured as a guest on Good and Green Radio. Susan Davis, the host of Good and Green Radio, conducted an interview with Elizabeth on her book, The Compromise Trap. The discussion talked about the subject of healthy and unhealthy compromise, and the difficulty and challenges that arise in the workplace when an individual tries to remain true to their integrity and values, while being a successful part of an organization when sometimes demands may challenge those personal values. Hear the interview live by visiting, Good and Green Radio online.
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San Francisco, CA: Elizabeth opened a conversation on Using Compromise to Diagnose Employee Engagement Issues. Despite the proven business benefits of highly engaged employees, organizations often struggle to keep employees engaged over time. In this interactive session with the Bay Area Society for Organizational Learning, Elizabeth introduced the business side of The Compromise Trap, and invited participants to try out a new tool called an "Opportunity Scan" which allows leaders and teams to identify unintentional "commitment drift" that may be creating unhealthy pressure to compromise and eroding employee engagement. Learn more about the Opportunity Scan...
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San Francisco, CA: John Kador (author of Effective Apology) and Elizabeth Doty led a lively conversation with about 18 people about the ways that apology and compromise are both central to building successful relationships, managing conflict, and living with integrity. We explored apologizing when you are only partially responsible, delayed apologies, how to avoid the unhealthy compromises that lead to uncomfortable apologies and the art of saying no.
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6/29/10 - Keynote at Dow Chemical's Employee Development Day
Houston, TX: Elizabeth spoke with the Dow staff in an hour-long keynote focused on Courage and Compromise: Skills for Staying Engaged when Everything Changes as part of their annual session devoted to staff development.
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San Jose, CA: Elizabeth explored the ideas in The Compromise Trap, and how they can help with two types of challenges:
- Individuals facing tension and pressure at work
- Leaders looking for more initiative, responsibility and commitment from their teams, colleagues or organizations
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Susan Stamm of Book Ends discussion group and Elizabeth Doty have a lively conversation about what redefining the game looks like in practice and how each of the personal foundations makes a difference. Listen to the full podcast...
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According to ForeWord Reviews, "As a result of our work-driven culture, a new sub-genre [of the self-help genre] has developed to help readers get through the nine-to-five by improving their business skills and their outlook on work." They include a review of The Compromise Trap to illustrate this new sub-genre, showing how learning to recognize healthy and unhealthy compromise and "redefine the game" may help readers "not only transcend their ethical dilemmas but become better employees overall." Click here to view the article.
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Liz Guthridge, author Lean Communications: The 5-Step System for Doing More With Less and Getting Great Results interviews Elizabeth about finding good stories. See http://leancommunications.com/ for more about Liz's work. And click here to read the full article...
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The Best Practices in HR newsletter article "Speak Up When Work Doesn't Align with Personal Values" was featured today among the HR.BLR White Papers. The article, based on The Compromise Trap, and written by Kelly Griffin,describes how, by speaking up and being true to their values, employees can support the organization in becoming stronger and more successful. Click here to view the article.
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In his detailed review, Blog Business Success host Wayne Hurlbert "highly recommends" The Compromise Trap as an "insightful and must read book" that helps readers with "practical, hands on advice for recognizing ethical traps and for creating a more integrity based organization". He and Elizabeth Doty spoke live on February 2 about how good people can fall incrementally into unhealthy compromise, even while working for organizations and leaders they admire -- and how to "redefine the game" so you make the best choice for yourself and your company. Listen to the full recording here.
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Elizabeth Doty and On Your Business' host Michael Jetter explore the typical pressures facing business owners, why professionals fall into making unhealthy compromises, the long-term costs, and how redefining the game opens up new options -- especially in tough economic times. Listen to the interview.
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In this month's VisionHolder Call, Heartland Circle founder Craig Neal, Elizabeth Doty, and the Heartland Circle community enjoyed a reflective, exploratory conversation on the tensions between who we are as people and who we feel we need to be to succeed at work. According to Craig, "The topic of unhealthy compromise at work is VERY important to the transformation of our organizations and the people who care about them." Listen to the interview or read Craig's summary here.
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Many of the professional coaches who joined this thought-provoking conversation hosted by the respected Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara described clients who were struggling to retain a sense of inner-direction, purpose, and integrity amidst the gravitational pull of organizational life -- and found the concept of "redefining the game" a promising model to take forward in their coaching practices. Listen to the interview.
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In this 12-minute audio conversation with Dan Kennedy, Elizabeth Doty outlines the difference between healthy and unhealthy compromise, the Six Personal Foundations that prevent you from falling into the compromise trap, and the Five Positive Plays you can take in any compromise situation.
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Columnist Wallace Immen summarizes an interview with Elizabeth Doty, focusing on the impact of the recession and how easy it is for employees to cave on concessions out of fear. He provides a good summary of six specific ways we get trapped, what snares us and how to avoid the traps in the first place.
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In an informal conversation spiced up with recordings from Frank Sinatra and Etta James, Elizabeth Doty and Allan Holender discuss the challenges of organizational integrity, what to do if you're "mad" at your organization, and six practical ways to build the courage to live your values regardless of the situation.
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10/8-12/09 Berrett-Koehler Author's Retreat
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8/13/09 Business Ethics Network
Webinar: What Are They Thinking? How Corporate Employees Adapt at Work
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4/27/09 Sonoma State Organizational Development Program
Guest Lecture: The Dilemmas of Doing Good Work--Developing Your Professional Guidelines
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All-day Panel Discussion: Ethical Dimensions of Organizational Life: Influencing Organizations Towards Integrity -- with Art Kleiner and Marvin Brown. |
11/2/07 Investor’s Business Daily
Ten Secrets to Success, with Steve Watkins
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Global Webinar: Personal Ethics in the Corporate World: How to deal with the devil and survive with your ethics intact. |
