Human Resources: Thought Leaders

Thought Leaders
Industry Gurus Live

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Thought Leader: David Isaacs on Cultivating Collective Intelligence and Innovation

David Isaacs is co-founder of The World Cafe and President of Clearing Communications. With partner Juanita Brown, David co-authored The World Cafe - Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter. He recently spoke with Karen Elmhirst on his recent work.

KE: Conversational Leadership - what does that term mean to you?

DI: Conversational leadership is an essential strategy for cultivating collective intelligence and innovation and it starts with the assumption that in organizations, communities and businesses there is such a thing as collective capability, collective creativity, collective intelligence and the way that it is evoked or co-evolved or generated is by leaders literally designing, convening and hosting conversations around their organization's most important questions.

KE: You have a unique lens through which you view conversational leadership. It's called The World Cafe. Please tell us about The World Cafe and also what's unique about it.

DI: The World Cafe is a very simple process by which people of all stripes, of all capabilities, at any level in a system can have a conversation around an important question having to do with its future. It's essentially a small group conversation that has no limit to scale. In other words, we seat people with tables of four and have a conversation around a question that matters to that community of practice using some very clear but simple design principles, which we will speak about in a little bit. They engage in a conversational process that evokes the lifeblood of the individuals and more importantly, the collective capability in the community that leads to potentially the co-evolution or the generation of collective intelligence.

And it starts with the assumption that the collective intelligence is already present. It builds on the Carl Jungian concept that there is such a thing as a collective unconscious and that by being in a cafe conversation around a simple, but elegant question, that collective unconscious can become conscious and the collective innovation and creativity shows through. That serves to create value for the community, the organization, or the business that is using it.

KE: I'm curious, why did you choose the word cafe?

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Karen Elmhirst is a Senior Analyst with HR.com focused on learning and leadership. She is also co-host of our weekly Thought Leader Live interviews delivered via webcast each week. For a complete listing of our Thought Leader interviews,
click here.

Karen has over a dozen years of experience as a sales and marketing executive in various industries including recruitment and training; work as a communication coach, a writer, and editor. Karen graduated with a business degree from the University of British Columbia.

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Thought Leaders - October 6, 2006