Solving Tough Problems--An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities

Adam Kahane

BERRETT-KOEHLER PUBLISHERS, INC.

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Copyright 2004 by Adam Kahane

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 Kahane, Adam.     Solving tough problems: an open way of talking, listening, and creating new realities / Adam Kahane.             p. cm.        Includes bibliographical references and index. 

ISBN 1-57675-293-3

1. Conflict management. 2. Problem solving. 3. Communication. I. Title.

HM1126.K34 2004

303.6'9 ”dc 22

2004046130

First Edition

09 08 07 06 05 04 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Interior Design: Laura Lind Design

Copy Editor: Judith Brown

Production: Linda Jupiter, Jupiter Productions

Proofreader: Henrietta Bensussen

Indexer: Medea Minnich

To my family

About the Author

Adam kahane is a founding partner (with Joseph Jaworski and Bill O'Brien) of Generon Consulting, and of the Global Leadership Initiative. He is a leading designer and facilitator of processes through which business, government, and civil society leaders can work together to solve their toughest, most complex problems. He has worked in this area in more than fifty countries , in every part of the world, with executives and politicians , generals and guerrillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials, journalists and clergy, academics and artists .

During the early 1990s, Adam was head of Social, Political, Economic and Technological Scenarios for Royal Dutch/Shell in London. Previously he held strategy and research positions with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (San Francisco), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna), the Institute for Energy Economics (Tokyo), and the Universities of Toronto, British Columbia, California, and the Western Cape.

In 1991 and 1992, Adam facilitated the Mont Fleur Scenario Project, in which a diverse group of South Africans worked together to effect the transition to democracy. Since then he has led many such seminal multi-stakeholder dialogue-and-action processes throughout the world. He was one of the sixteen outstanding individuals featured in Fast Company's first annual "Who's Fast" and is a member of the Commission on Globalisation, the Aspen Institute's Business Leaders' Dialogue, the Society for Organizational Learning, and Global Business Network.

Adam has a B.Sc. in Physics (First Class Honors) from McGill University (Montreal), an M.A. in Energy and Resource Economics from the University of California (Berkeley), and an M.A. in Applied Behavioral Science from Bastyr University (Seattle). He has also studied negotiation at Harvard Law School and cello performance at Institut Marguerite-Bourgeoys.

Originally from Montreal, he lives in Boston and Cape Town with his wife Dorothy and their family.

Generon Consulting
900 Cummings Center, Suite 312U
Beverly, Massachusetts 01915
United States of America
www.generonconsulting.com
[e-mail]

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the kind help I have received in writing this book: from my colleagues, especially Joseph Jaworski, Otto Scharmer, Susan Taylor, and the late Bill O'Brien; from my readers and editors, especially Valerie Andrews, Janet Coleman, Elena Diez Pinto, Kees van der Heijden, Betty Sue Flowers, David Kahane, Art Kleiner, Steve Piersanti, Bettye Pruitt, and Peter Senge; and from my family, especially Dorothy.