There will be 40ish of us gathered today. The first of three days at Pacific Lutheran University. People from many walks of life and leadership. Project managers, community organizers, government officials, educators, health care administrators. With varied interests and needs — to convene, to change the way meetings happen, to look at broader vision, to build support, to address conflict and challenge. The story I tell myself is that we are all hungry for better, more simple, and more imaginative ways of being together for the benefit of ourselves, our teams, our families, our communities, our jurisdictions. People care. It’s just that sometimes that caring gets lost in habituated systems and psyches that no longer serve as they used to.
Here’s the description from our event website — the context that acknowledges most of us are working in times of rapid change and high complexity.
Ready, go!
We all want to work better together. Yes, in rapid change. Yes, in high complexity.
This year’s Art of Participatory Leadership builds on a tradition of trainings in the region from the last several years. It is an intensive 3-day experience at which you will practice a set of simple yet powerful approaches for designing and hosting powerful conversations and meetings that change how you change. It is an effective way of harnessing the collective wisdom and self-organizing capacity of groups — most of us know that people give their energy and lend their resources to what matters most to them, in both work and life.
How Does The Art of Participatory Leadership Help You?
Better decision-making, more efficient and effective capacity building, and greater ability to quickly respond to opportunity, challenge and change. People get empowered and learn how to guide meetings to more desirable and supported outcomes.
Who’s In From the Region?
Regionally, in the US Pacific Northwest and Cascadia Bioregion, we are bringing together leaders from community, government, and business, social entrepreneurs, next generation leaders from many dedicated networks and efforts – building capacity in our communities and organizations to address the challenges of these times. See Partners for a list of organizations committed to brining this training to their networks and region.
What Will I Learn?
Lots. We work with collaborative methods, including The Circle Way, World Café, Open Space Technology, ProAction Café, storytelling and more. You will learn about mental models that underlay methods to more deeply enhance not only what you know, but what you will create as you grow your leadership.