Declaring a breakdown

本書重新define一D觀念，去幫助人地創做未來。每個chapter都有一個叫generative practices嘅section，俾你係日常生活練習D新concept

Part I: Getting start

What is conversation
- create action, meaning, listening, moods and emotions and future
- also include moods and body langage
3 types of conversation
- generative: create action, outcomes of action, possibilities, commitments, identities, etc
  - It is the most important type of conversation in leadership
- descriptive
- speculative: intent to explore possibilities
- active: create a mood for action and keep promise
Generative Practices
- Aware ‘word spoken’ != ‘idea heard’ in daily conversation
- Observe how one’s experience and culture affect ‘word heard’
- Aware how conversation provoke emotions
- Observe how conversation with emotion affect others
- Observe how conversation create future

What we see is we are looking for
- Sounds like confirmation bias
We live in two world, physical world and the linguistic world that we create and manifest
- We also live in the world we see, not alway the objective physical world
Our actions or inactions in the present leading us to a future

Interruption is a break in the transparent flow of action that we need to pay attention
An interruption may interrupt our attention, behaviour, practice, even expectations and interpreation of future
It bring us to attend the actions or events which were invisible to us before
It implies a possibility of change
Declare breakdown is to listen the interruption, to find out possibilities and take action to change the default future
Generative Practices
- Explore how the interruption that you choosen to create help you
- Reflect how do you observe interruption in the recent past

Declare Breakdown
- Declaring you will take action
Assertion
- Observe facts, action happend or did not happen
- No stories, no justification, no explanation or no reasons. Only focus on facts
Think about the default future, if no new action is taken
Figure out the new future you want
Identify the tension between ideal world and current situation
- Find out missing action and owkr on it
Take action

Care is fundamental to declaring breakdowns
Declaration brings forth new possibilities
Declare future with experience limit ourselves by the past, don’t do it
Declaration from persion who is not authorized is useless
Declaration is taking responsibility
Blame is ‘not taking responsibility’. It is choosing not be the cause of problem and hope someone else will solve the problem
Only you can declare a breakdown, other cannot declare it for you
Generative Practices
- Reflect what you care about
- Is there missing declaration on the area you care?
- Do you choose to take responsibility
- Do your team have a shared promise?
- Consider declare a breakdown every time the team prmoise is at threat or at risk

What is assertion
- Claims of facts
- either true or false
- standard established by the community
- measurable or evidentiary
- reveal thing being observed
- about past and the present
- the lanugage is most descriptive and least generative
- not determined by moods and emotions
What is assesssments
- judgements, opinions or conclusions
- never true or false, but can be grounded or ungrounded
- different observers make different assessments
- the language is generative and creately
- influence by moods and emotions
Need to make question to assessment, which may affect your future badly
People limited by assessments
Questions help you ground an assessment
- For the sake of what am I making this assessment?
- In which domain of action has this assessment been made?
- According to what or whose standard am I operationg when I have made this assessment?
- What true assertions support the assessment that I have made?
- What true assertions are couinter to the assessment that I have made?
What doess acceptance mean?
- acknowledgeing ‘what is’, but not acknowledging your assessments as ‘the Truth’
3Cs of leadership
Generative Practices
- Spend 10 minute to think about assessments you made about the events in the day
- Think 3 major situations that your are overwhelmed by your interpretation of the events.
- Get present and ground assessments you made about yourself
- Find out assessment you have on different people

The default future is most times simply a repetition of the past
Your past assessment -> your action -> default future
Awareness create choice -> declare breakdown to change the future
Generative Practices
- Consider the default future of following area
  - Health, Family, Career and organization, Hobbies, Emotional

Some conversation close and others open possibilities
Don’t need to know ‘how to achieve’ before get start, ‘What’ needs to come first and then
‘How’ starts to get disclosed
Take action with ‘not knowing’ is a skill

Commitment shape action
Conversation raise commitment
Listen to dissatisfaction to find our missing actions
Listening is an interpretation that the listener makes based on his or her context
4 important types of listening
- Listening to make yourself right
  - Only aware what you want to hear
- Listening for Objective Facts
  - Objective facts not always depend on past assessments
  - Help us to make grounded assessments and not depends on past ungrounded assessments
- Listening for Care and Commitment
- Listening for Possibilities
Need to build up relation before getting meaningful and productive results from people
Objective of conversion for relationship is to establish shared interest, shared care and shared commitment

Milestone of conversation for action
1. request
2. negotiation
  - accept
  - decline
  - counter-offer
3. promise
4. execution
5. declaration of completion
6. declaration of satisfaction / dissatisfaction
7. revoke / cancel
Generative Practices
- Are you making dffective requests? What elements of requests are generally missing for you?
- Are you committed to action, or are you committed to comfort?
- What do you do when you make a request and recieve a commitment that you canno trust? Do you accept this untrustworthy commitment?
- You have a choice to let the person know that you do not trust his/her commitment. and seek a commitment that you can trust