"Building Consensus - How Individuals Influence Groups" - my new book is launched

I am very glad to announce that my new book is now available for sales. Please find it by clicking here.

The title of the book is “Building Consensus – How Individuals Influence groups”.









This book emerged out of our ambition to reflect upon our collective experiences in leadership development, teamwork and group facilitation. Throughout the last few years we have had the opportunity to meet and work with other youth leaders in over 40 countries. We have listened to and learned from many extraordinary individuals and one of our key realizations has been that the individual plays a central role in the formation of the world. We have come to believe that it is the actions of individuals that create the world. As creators of the world, individuals are responsible for what they create, but they also have the power to change the world.

This book provides a window to the processes that we use to create collective opinions, and more specifically it provides a look at the acts that constitute those processes. We hope that this book will help individuals to raise awareness of how they themselves contribute to peer pressure, groupthink and other social phenomena of which they are part. If this book can be the slightest support for individuals seeking to elevate themselves from their circumstances and observe how they contribute to what is going on around them, then we have succeeded. Towards this end, we provide practical tools that might be used by individuals and groups to more actively expose the processes that create consensus, and thus bringing about the ability to actively influence them.

The cover text is the following:
The processes through which we construct consensus are important, since they can contribute both to destructive groupthink, as well as rationally justified consensus. Taking Searle’s speech act theory and Habermas’ theory on communicative action as a starting point this study explores how individuals contribute to the construction of consensus. In addition, practical tools, which can be used to help individuals become aware of their contribution to consensus as well as to create rationally justified consensus are provided. Our account of these processes is developed through a case study on a Swedish non- governmental organization: AIESEC Sweden. This book provides insights for anyone interested in learning more about team dynamics, opinion creation and the ways in which individuals attempt to influence the construction of consensus in a team setting.
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The common theme in my two books, beyond that they are addressing the role and responsibility of the individual in the context she is part of, they seek to combine practically relevant issues in an academically relevant way. As opposed to be speculating on what our findings can mean for the world, “Building Consensus – How Individuals Influence Groups” make claims on what our re-search has shown. Thus, we allow and require of the reader to apply our findings in the context applicable for them.

This book should be considered as a work in progress. Should you have any questions or reflections, feel free to contact Aron Lindberg at aron.lindberg@gmail.com or me at emanuel.gavert@gmail.com.

Emanuel

the restaurants we will remember

majken and myself discussed the food and drinks experiences we have had here in buenos aires and we conclude that the below are the ones standing out:
Crizia - a universe and a new way of presenting food and wine
Olsen - a Scandinavian alternative with Argentina touch, also incredible.
La Cabrera - Argentinian meat, super bien, however, because of a lonely planet note, very touristic!
Hare Krishna - Palermo and no address here, but again like entering a new universe.
La Vaca in Puerto Madero - meat, meat, meat, all you can eat! 50 pesos inc a bottle of wine/person:-)
Meditation center restaurant in Palermo - (I do realize that I am bad a names) - sitting on the roof after a nice meditation hour and just eat some delicious healthy food is too good to be true.
The French restaurant - again a garden simply standing out...!

Cafe's that we will remember includes the following:
Tea Connection - super nice and productive environment, healthy fruit drinks!
Freddo - the best icre cream in the worl
Café Torini

Bar - the area around palermo, simple incredible. It is impossible to not be inspired by the creativity you encounter around the area of Plaza Serano, Palermo.

These were just few of our highlights to be remembered!

Emanuel & Majken

about one week left - cultivate the moment

The experiment of when I am not doing anything, what do I do is coming to an end? Argentina and South America will be in my heart forever and I know I will come back here. The best ice cream, meat and wine did leave an impression on my, but as always I came to love the people. I came here quite socially exhausted after an intense half a year in Stockholm. I haven’t felt the need really to meet too many new people and friends here, yet, the ones I have met, have all played an important role in shaping this experience to what it became.

As I arrived I wanted to be alone. I wanted to understand that if I don’t need to do anything, what do I do? If I don’t keep running, what is coming up? If I am in a learning environment that I am creating, how does it look like? If I don’t receive any inputs on how things are supposed to be, how are they? Now I few months later, I have answers to these questions and in addition a new energy. These questions might appear as basic, but for me at this point in my life they were crucial. If I arrived here emotionally, intellectually, physically and spiritually quite exhausted, I am leaving with a feeling of being ready again. I want to take on new challenges and I want to meet and be around people again! I have deep respect for the people and the experiences that have contributed to this sense of calmness again. Eckert Tolle writes in the Power of Now that you will enter periods of not feeling peaceful, the real challenge is how you can minimize those periods, not avoid them.

This journey has been about trusting. Trusting that whatever happens is the best. That whatever I encounter I am equipped to handle. Whatever that comes up from within I welcome. At times I have been confused and lacked clarity, but nature, important relationships and myself have made those periods short, discovering and empowering…I am leaving Argentina in a week from today with clarity about what this journey has meant to me, i.e. the recent past. I also leave this trip with flow feeling of not escaping from the now, but just trying to cultivate and love that moment, whatever is there. In addition I have clarity about my future. My immediate future in the sense that I am looking forward to go to Geneva for the Youth Forum (http://www.youthforum2009.org/) and then to Tallberg (http://www.tallbergfoundation.org/) but also to know what I want should happen in a little longer time perspective…! I am not sure it will happen, but what I can impact is knowing what I want, and I do. Having said that I don’t intend to run there, just focus on what I can impact, every moment.

This journey has also been about further developing my compassion. Compassion towards myself in the sense that I am allowing time every day to physical and spiritual growth and also towards my closest relationships. I have also developed compassion towards nature, discovered that nature makes me calm and cities makes me stressed. My nature discovery is not new, but this journey, because of my travels and experiences has deepened this relationship. I am connected on a spiritual, emotional, physical and also intellectual level. It is incredible how much nature have to teach us about how it organizes itself, its warning signals and beauty. Some of the strongest memories that I am taking with me is the Aconcagua expedition, the untouched grounds in Peru and Bolivia, "Bonito-Bonito", my volcano climbs in Colombia and of course Pantanal in Brazil.

This journey has also been about choice. Everything I have done here has been done because of my choice. At first a choice impacted by how I was supposed to feel and relate to the experience, but today a choice that is mine. How many times during the day do we forget our choice? How many times do we ask ourselves why these things happen to me? How many times a day do we complain about others, forgetting that we have a choice for how to relate to others, life and ourselves? I have great respect for people denying their choice because it is hard to every moment realize that you have a choice. The responsibility can be overwhelming. Some moments just doesn’t feel good so why I am choosing not to feel good? Probably because there are things that needs to come up for processing…as they come up, there is no need to try to shut them down, because they will come back, what is important is that you recognize that you choose to feel that way. As the choice is recognized you have discovered that you can impact the situation and you chose to process what needs to be processed. Though I am writing about myself in third person here, all of these are my struggles, struggles that I am proud to recognize because I learn from them.

It is hard to believe that I only have one week left.

Until next exchange
Emanuel

gratitude...

...that is the one word helping me articulating how happy I was for all my birthday wishes...! life is good and I love you all!!!!!!

my day was celebrated by walking the streets of Buenos Aires and concluded with an incredible dinner with lost of surprises together with my love...!

gratitude, gratitude, gratitude... that is what I feel!

Emanuel

about discovering distraction

"So we get distracted, but at some point we become aware that we haven’t been aware. In other words we regain our awareness."..."...Now we’re aware again. Now we’re no longer being driven by our habits. We have freedom again. We can decide that we don’t want to re-enter the world of distractedness. We have choice. We can choose to exercise being aware rather than be dominated by our habitual distracted states of mind. We have an opportunity to cultivate awareness by maintaining our mindfulness of the breath. When we realize we’ve been distracted we can take our awareness back to the breath." (Wildmind)

BsAs Urban photo competition - our image of Buenos Aires

This week we concluded a urban photo competition that we initiated here in Buenos Aires. The purpose was to capture the image of Buenos Aires. The winning pictures will be posted on the walls of the participants apartments.

the categories of the competition were the following:

• happiness
  
• food and drinks
  
holding hands
architecture

pollution

taxi driver
• a typical person
  
• black and white
  
• underground
  
the park

poverty

tango
a bus
• sport, e.g. running, soccer
  
• 2 photos of your choice - use your Creativity

To view the winning pictures and the participants image of Buenos Aires please click here!

until next time
Emanuel

Latin America - the place to be!

Today the Economist is writing about something that I sensed ever since I arrived here. Latin America is the place to be from a financial perspective going forward. "...Latin America will be its engine of growth in the next few years"

Because of a non-existing financial system in many of the countries here, there was nothing that could crash when the western/north American system crashed. The countries are clearly and naturally impacted by the crises, however, indirect. There are less people having money to go on vacation, there are fewer companies able to invest in Latin America and that can buy products from the Latin America companies, however, the safe financial markets are intact.

The financial system here is a discussion in itself. In short, it is not really possible to borrow money from the banks. The role of the banks is to store money, not to functioning as an engine in driving the development of the countries. A few months back I would probably had been very critical about such a system, however, today it is hard to deliver such a criticism.

Looking at the Latin American system in contrast to the western system, the two probably represents two extremes. The best and possibly the new balance will be a system placing itself somehow in between these two extremes. I doubt the Latin system would move towards the middle, thus, the major change naturally will happen in the western system.

To read the entire article, please click here!

A short personal update is that I am in Buenos Aires. I enjoy every day, which typically consists of studies, training and good food. In the weekend I went to Tigre, around 45 min with train from where I live. Tigre is an incredible part of the city. In a sense that trip became a Latin re-connection to the Netherlands, simply because of the extraordinary scenery with the canals and the nature. The day was about hiking and just feeling relaxed again in a non-city context. Beautiful!

Until next time
Emanuel