Seeking an Agent or Publisher
I have written two books for which I seek an agent or publisher, Collaborative Decisions and Deciding Our Future. Both described below.
If you have ideas or contacts that might help me publish my books please write to me.
Collaborative Decisions
Principles and Practical Tips
Overview
Collaborative Decisions is an inspirational book with timeless insight brought to bear on a huge current challenge: how to make better decisions for our communities, our organizations, our governments, our Earth.
Each page is a meditation and the book as a whole is a complete toolkit. Unlike typical how-to manuals for group decision making, Collaborative Decisions promotes spirituality, encourages the heart, and insists on humility. It is based on the simple premise that, “We each have a piece of the truth and we make our best decisions when we put all our pieces together.”
Author
At the heart of the book are the “Tips:” one-hundred or so one-page nuggets. Craig has been writing them for years and they have been distributed widely by e-mail and via Craig’s website. Countless people have distributed specific Tips among their groups and contacts. They have gathered quite a following; an outstanding initial target market.
While the Tips are great for browsing and reading in random order, the introductory chapters explain the theory behind the practice. Craig not only explains why collaborative decision making is often best, but why it is so needed right now for our most crucial challenges. Collaborative decision making is fundamental to “the great turning of consciousness” called for by Joanna Macy and others. Enthusiasm for doing things differently has a huge and rapidly growing following; another outstanding market.
Because of its universal content and simple format, Collaborative Decisions is ideal for distribution among groups…….by the dozen, by the hundred. It is particularly appealing to those seeking new ways of making decisions. It is particularly useful to any member of any group who is frustrated with traditional ways of making decisions.
Status
The manuscript is entirely written and has been edited once. It is currently about 150 pages and about 30,000 words. If you would like to see a formal book proposal, I have it ready to go. Please write to me.
Outline
Introduction
What is a Collaborative Decision?
For Big Impacts
Attitudes and Actions
Process from Substance
Life Long Results
Why Collaborative Decisions
For the Earth
For your organization
For you
About the Principles and Tips
Connected Maps
Ways Without End
Invitation
Principles and Practical Tips
Act As If
Admit Mistakes
Agenda Setting Access
Agreements stand until changed
Assumptions Lead to Trouble
At Home and In Families
At least two ways
Best Solutions Begin with Self
Carrots Are Better Than Sticks
Change or Accept
Changing the Process is Rarely the Solution
Conflict Resolution Steps
Consensus Does Not Mean Casual
Consensus for Enduring Decisions....Only
Credit the group
Criticism private
Decide How to Decide
Define the Edges
Demonstrate Listening
Direct communication
Direction More Important Than Pace
Do What Say
Earth Community
E-Mail
Enforcement
Facilitation expertise
Fertile Soil Helps Creativity
Flat for planning, stacked for doing
Free from past
Freedom of Speech
Get a second
Good in Everyone
Good Information Makes Decisions Self-Evident
Gratitude
Ground Rules
Hands off
Head, Heart, and Hands....All Three
Humility
I don't know
If It Fits In My Head, It Is Probably Too Small
If You Don't Have a Stake, Get Out of the Way
Incrementally
Interests Rather Than Positions
Kindness
Know your lines
Last Minute Decision Making
Leadership
Let things die
Listen
Lose now, win later
Love
Make Others Look Good
Measure to manage
More Wagging, Less Barking
Multi-Vote
My First Thought is Probably Not My Best
My part
My responsibility
Name Leads
No Complaining Without Contribution
No One Dominates
Not All About Money
Not Her Fault, Her Type
Not that we make mistakes, but how we handle them
Objectives, Agenda, Ground Rules
Okay to change plans and rules
Okay to change your mind
Opt out
Our interests
Outside influence
Outside Issues
Plan, Meet, Write-Up
Pose Alternatives
Putting People in Boxes is Not Okay
Reflective Pause
Resentments Have Roots in Expectations
Revenge is never a reason
Rules First
Science trumps intuition
Separate Inputs from Outcomes
Separate Process from Program
Shared Expectations Minimize Conflicts
Shared Values
Shared Vision Required
Speak Your Truth and Let Go of the Outcome
Stakeholders at the table
Start with a question
Stories
Straw Vote
Structure Sets You Free
Take a break
Take a Step
Talk or Listen
Understand First
Understanding and Trust, Both Required
Us Over Me
What's Next?
What's the Problem?
Write On the Walls
Written Words Clarify
Appendices
About the Author
Word Index
Principles and Tips by Topic
Group Techniques
Creativity
Group Theory
Attitudes and Beliefs
Individual Actions
Personal Growth
Conflict Prevention
Roles
Conflict Resolution and Problem Solving
Communications - How
Communications – When
Communications - What to Say
Information and analysis
Efficiency
Deciding Our Future
A Reference Guide of Principles for Collaboration
This is a 320-page completed manuscript, edited once. Alternative titles: Decision Making for Earth Community, Principles of Good Group Decisions and Making Decisions as if it Mattered.
I believe we must change how we make decisions in order to save the Earth. I also believe corporations, governments, nonprofits and community groups can be healthier and much more productive by using collaborative principles.
For 15 years I have been collecting and writing about principles, beliefs, and practical techniques that help us make better decisions.
If you would like to see a formal book proposal, I have it ready to go. Please write to me.
Need
This book offers timeless principles in new language that could help us avoid extinction. If we continue certain human activities at current trends we will ruin the planet for us to live on. We simply must learn to make better decisions together. We must learn new ways to make peace and new ways to conserve natural resources.
For 5,000 years our hierarchical decision making traditions have encouraged us to stick up for ourselves and pursue personal desires at all cost. As a result, our world is rife with disagreement, frustration, low self-esteem, and greed.
While a few individuals win, our communities lose. Our economic systems return money to those who already have it. Decision making on behalf of groups is generally made by distant leaders with selfish motive. Local decision making with wide participation and community-minded motive is called for, desperately.
In his 2007 book, The Great Turning – from Empire to Earth Community, David Korten says we face three crises: global warming, peak oil, and collapse of our financial markets. Like Joanna Macy who coined the phrase “The Great Turning,” Korten believes we have all the tools at hand to address these crises. To save ourselves we need a massive cultural shift, a Great Turning to a culture of “Earth Community.”
The term “Earth Community” comes from the preamble of the Earth Charter, a document crafted by thousands of people from throughout the world following the Earth Summit in 1992:
"We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations."
This book is my attempt to help us toward a culture of Earth Community. It is my contribution to the Great Turning. It is a way of making group decisions that yield local, practical, economic benefits, and at the same time help our Earth Community.
Whether you use the principles in this book to help make your company, non-profit, or government more effective, or whether you use the principles in this book to help save the Earth, it is my hope that this book will help your group make good decisions.
Jacket Flap
In a world that desperately needs new tools for peace and sustainability, Craig Freshley provides a toolkit. Part reference, part theory, part how-to manual; Deciding Our Future reminds us what works and pushes us to change our behaviors and ways of thinking.
Timeless principles are presented in new language and organized for easy access.
Deciding Our Future is full of practical tips on meetings, committees, facilitation, and all the other basics of group process. Yet it goes much further and does not shy from promoting spiritual principles so often missing in today’s decision making.
The book serves as a reference for how to handle every type of group process situation. It serves as a single place for both spiritual principles and practical tips.
Deciding Our Future is easy to read and easy to get around. “This is not a novel with a plot that gets systematically revealed from start to finish. Rather this is more like a world atlas with page after page of maps,” explains the author.
Outline
Click here for a pdf version of the Book's outline.