Program Information

• Creative Process
• Meditation
• Coaching
• Schedule
• Accommodations and Travel
• Scholarships
• Testimonials

Program Faculty

• Dorian Baroni
• Barbara Bash
• Mille Bojer
• Barbara Cecil
• Michael Chender
• Steve Clorfeine
• Glenda Eoyang
• James Gimian
• Jerry Granelli
• LeAnne Grillo
• Lanny Harrison
• Arawana Hayashi
• Yolanda Hegngi
• Adam Kahane
• Art Kleiner
• Marcelo Michelsohn
• Toke Moeller
• Wendy Morris
• Barry Oshry
• Karen Oshry
• Wendy Palmer
• David Sable
• Otto Scharmer
• Mary Stacey
• Bill Torbert
• Meg Wheatley
• Bob Wing

Highlights

From Ego-system to Eco-system: Embracing the Larger Forces of Change

with Otto Scharmer
Monday, June 7

“For leadership teams in global companies, international institutions, and local communities, change work is all about shifting the state of awareness from an ego-system to an extended stakeholder situation or, in some cases, to the larger ecosystem. That work is leaders' and change-makers' job number one: to help people let go of their narrow ego-system awareness and embrace the larger forces of change.”

Dr. C. Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer at MIT, the founding chair of the Presencing Institute, and a founding member of the MIT Green Hub. Dr. Scharmer has consulted with global companies, international institutions, and governments in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. He has co-designed and delivered award-winning business leadership programs for client firms including Daimler, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Fujitsu, and Google. He also facilitates cross-sector programs for leaders in business, government, and civil society that focus on building people's collective capacity to achieve profound innovation and change.

Scharmer holds a Ph.D. in economics and management from Witten-Herdecke University in Germany. He introduced the theoretical framework and practice called "presencing" in his book Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges (2007), and in Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society (2005), co-authored with Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers. With his colleagues, Dr. Scharmer has used presencing to facilitate profound innovation and change processes both within companies and across societal systems. More information about Dr. Scharmer and his work can be found at: www.presencing.com

In times when the status quo is often no longer an option, Dr. Scharmer's work has been hailed as an important breakthrough in the fields of leadership, innovation, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and organizational transformation.

Bringing Authentic Leadership into Action

with Michael Chender
Monday, June 7

“We're all working with hope and fear. We're all working with the yearning to see and act more clearly. We're working with the questions of when to let go and when to push further, and of how to make the next authentic move. Authentic is a process — a path — rather than any kind of ideal.

And if we look at our experience in the moment one thing we can usually be confident of is that there is a sense somewhere of uncertainty. So in this particular journey of authentic leadership we see the reliable fuel for moving along the road as being the willingness to acknowledge that uncertainty, the willingness to not know, and the willingness to follow our questions however awkward and embarrasing they may seem. And of course — as all of us have probably learned — the more awkward and embarrasing, the more generous and real the possibilities in those questions. So this kind of nakedness to our own experience is the ground for the practice of authentic leadership.”

Michael Chender is the founding chair of the ALIA Institute, and the founder and chair of Metals Economics Group, a leading strategic consultancy in the worldwide mining business since 1980. He recently stepped down as CEO of Coemergence, an award-winning knowledge management software company. He has managed to maintain his sense of humour (he thinks) by also studying and teaching meditation in the Buddhist and Shambhala traditions since 1970. His animating passion is exploring how the wisdom and compassion pointed to in these traditions can be developed in the life of the larger society.

“It is remarkable to witness how your conferences and gatherings have created such a rich and fertile practice ground for the tools and mindsets that are now moving into communities and organizations. It seems timely that as the world economy contracts, your work expands. There seems no better time than now  to offer a radical and compassionate new perspective for leading in difficult and complex times.”

—Michael Jones, Pianoscapes, Orillia, Ontario
2008 program faculty