New strengths-based planning process to be unveiled at workshop
LEAD process a simplified tool to unleash strengths and create positive change
Wednesday August 19, 2009 -- Jennifer Higgs
Ada Jo Mann is unveiling a new strengths-based planning process for individuals or teams called LEAD at an upcoming workshop in September.

Mann, a partner in Innovation Partners International, developed the LEAD process. The pilot grew from needs she perceived from workshop participants who were looking for a strengths-based tool designed to be easily accessible and teachable in a short amount of time.

According to literature on the workshop, LEAD is a four-step process that draws from the principles and findings of Appreciative Inquiry, appreciative intelligence, positive psychology and the strengths movement.

The LEAD steps are:

• Listen — clarify what you want to work on together, and identify relevant skills and successful experiences that can be built upon moving forward

• Elevate — focus on strengths as a starting point to envision the impact and “positive potential” you want to achieve

• Apply — consider all possible innovations, new structures, policies, attitudes and so on you will need to create or change

• Deliver — take action, create a “to do” list for each innovation, new structure, etc.

The LEAD planning process is different from others in two ways, says Mann. First, there is a focus on defining the task in a positive frame.

“Rather than seeing it as a problem, one of the first steps in the process is to move from problem to opportunity and use a process of reframing to state whatever it is you want to do in the positive, so that you create the image of what it is you want to end up with as a starting point,” she says.

Secondly, once the person or team identifies the desired outcome, there is a process for inquiring into and looking at times success has been achieved in the past.

This step ensures understanding and studying what’s best of what has already been experienced and then applying this knowledge to the current challenge.

Mann will deliver a one-day program entitled LEAD from Your Strengths: A Simple Way to Address Daily Challenges and Opportunities, Sept. 23 in Washington, D.C.

“I think it’s really going to be relevant for leaders at all levels who are interested in starting any kind of a conversation from a place of strengths rather than from a problem orientation, and I hope that they will leave with a tool that is very useful in their daily work,” says Mann.

“What I’m really looking forward to is seeing how people are going to be able to walk away after a day and have something in their pocket to pull out and use in their everyday life,” she says, adding people are always intrigued by a process based on strengths and success.

Mann plans to follow-up with participants to discover what the results are from the new process.

To learn more about LEAD and register for the workshop, click this link.

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