Hello Everyone! 

New year, new President, new economic climate and a bunch of new challenges and opportunities:  Welcome to 2009!  As OKA greets the year before us, we have developed a number of type and MBTI trainer support tools, with more on the way.  In addition, we have incorporated a number of new tools into our training and consulting; this update will let you in on a few of these, paying special attention to Reversal Theory, a particularly compelling approach to self-awareness and leadership development.

Sixteen Ways to Love Your Lover   
 
16 Ways BookThis book, the last of the Type Talk trilogy that includes Type Talk and Type Talk At Work, addresses relationship issues that are always challenging and often entertaining, such as communication, sex and intimacy, finances, and conflict. This hardback book, usually $13, is for a limited time only $5 a copy.  Let this great relationship book help you celebrate Valentine's Day!  Read more and order!  Want a sneak peek at insights from the book? Download Handout: Relationship Type Talk

Visit OKA (www.typetalk.com)!
 
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New 2009 Workshops: Emotional intelligence and Generations!
 
Emotional Intelligence Training comes to the OKA Roster with the EQ-i & EQ360
 
For years, clients have been asking us at OKA about Emotional Intelligence as an avenue toward self-awareness and leadership and organization development efforts. I am proud to say that OKA is becoming a significant contributor to this field as a Certification training provider of the EQ-i and EQ360.  While these popular tools are well respected and psychometrically sound, I also look forward to applying OKA's approach in developing training that drives toward actionable outcomes to this up and coming line of training.
 
To learn more about the EQ model or to register for OKA's new EQ Certification workshop, which launches in May, visit Emotional Intelligence Workshop.  
 
Generations: Working Across the Divide & Generations and Type
 
For over a year, I have been telling myself that I needed to invest some time and effort into some on-line networking sites (Linked-In and Facebook) as vehicles to stay connected and networked both personally and professionally.  "I should do that. I need to do that," I repeatedly told myself.  Well, over the winter holidays, my 18 year-old nephew, a guitar player, came to stay with me while he was performing at a local club.  While at that club, he met some other musicians and formed a band. That night, while he and I were sitting in my living room watching a movie together, he was also clicking away on this laptop.  After a half-hour or so he said, "there, all done."  When I asked what he had been doing, he said, "I created profiles in Facebook and MySpace for the new band we created tonight, connected with a bunch of people and had them set up a fan site to give the new band some momentum. I was stunned, impressed, and shamed all at once. He did this in under an hour while watching a movie: a task I've treated as daunting that hung over my head for a year.
 
Generations see technology, leadership, tasks, the world, and their places in it quite differently. For years, OKA has made its reputation by bringing people personal and professional insights with the lens of type. We now want to have the same impact with generations training. Understanding what makes the generational groups distinct, and how best to communicate, motivate and interact with them is the goal of this innovative one-day training event, which launches on May 7, 2009.  To learn more, visit Generations Workshop. 
 
People interested in leveraging type to better understand and access the power of generations would also want to check out the one-day follow on workshop, Generations and Type.   
A Look at Reversal Theory - By Way of the Zoo
By Hile Rutledge, Chief Executive Officer, OKA 
 
Hile Rutledge
"Let's go see the elephants, Dad," said my 4-year-old son. I like visiting the elephants too, but given where we were in the zoo at that time, such a goal meant a mile-long uphill walk against significant foot traffic coming at us.
 
"OK, honey," I said with a sigh as I took his hand to start the trek. I was thinking both about not wanting to get separated in the crowd and wanting a faster way to get to the elephants at the top of the hill. My preoccupation turned to mild irritation when there was a tugging on my hand by my son, who now was trying to step only on every other pathway tile and then never on a crack. I remember thinking that we would never get there at this rate.
 
"You need to focus, son," I said, "if you want to get to the top of the hill."
 
"Be with me, Dad-do what I'm doing."
 
My son's reply was wiser than he knew. It was I, not my 4-year-old son, who had the lesson to learn. He was in the moment-enjoying it. I was far away-on route to here or there, weighing other paths, imagining abduction scenarios to guard against-a bit stressed and irritated.
 
My son's cuteness and plaintive request snapped something in me, and suddenly my drive to get to the elephants disappeared, and I found myself with my four-year-old son on a glorious Saturday morning-the sun was warm, the flowers were open and the sound of splashing water trickled in from a nearby fountain. I could just barely feel its mist from where we were standing. I started laughing at the funny faces he made as he leaped from one concrete slab to the next. We found that if we worked together, we could jump over two slabs at once and avoid the cracks almost every time. Then we ran along the cracks in the pavement like a maze, winding up and around the paths playing tag. I was a monster and he a super hero. I found the moment intoxicating, and I had almost allowed myself to miss it.
 
By the way, our play eventually brought us to a visit with the elephants.
 
Too often, people get stuck-stuck in bad relationships, stuck in hurtful patterns of behavior, stuck with bad decisions, stuck in the drive for a goal and missing the moment. I was briefly stuck while at the zoo until my son unknowingly snapped me out of it.
Reversing Forward Reversing Forward is a fieldbook intended to help you snap out of places that don't serve you, the wrong places at the wrong times, places in which you are stuck. Offered as a remedy to help you leverage insight and change in yourself and others, the book is an introduction to Reversal Theory, a remarkable set of ideas that casts a unique light on human motivation, emotion and behavior.

Reversal Theory is a psychological theory addressing the inconsistency of and changeability of individuals. The theory specifically focuses on motivation, proposing that people regularly reverse between opposing psychological states. Such reversals are healthy and necessary; as situations, people, relationships and tasks change, so do we and so do our motives.
 
Unique to Reversal Theory is its focus on motivation and emotion. Simply put, our emotions come from our motivational states. If our motives are satisfied, a positive emotion results, and if our motives are unfulfilled, negative emotions result. Reversal Theory is one of the few theories to connect action with theory when it come to emotions, and as such has unusual power and applicability.
 
Reversal Theory Links:
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