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The Art of Framing Powerful Questions: Conversational Leadership and the World Café

Pre and post Forum tours highlighting the best of Oman; its people, landscape and culture.

April 2008

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HE Dr Rawya Al Busaidi

HE Dr Rawya Saud Al Busaidi, PhD from Oxford University, was the first woman in the Sultanate of Oman to be appointed to full ministerial rank. and has held the post of Minister of Higher Education since March 2004 when she was also appointed as Chair of the Sultan Qaboos University Council and Deputy Chair of the Council of Higher Education. Among the other key posts currently held by Her Excellency are that of Deputy Chair of Oman’s new Science Research Council, and Chair of the Board of the College of Law.

She has initiated major projects for the reform and quality improvement of Education in Oman, including a Strategic Plan for all of Education in the Sultanate for the period 2006-2020, as well as a project to convert five of Oman’s government Colleges of Education to institutions specializing in a range of programs selected to reflect the growing diversification of Oman’s economy. She is also active in the GCC region where she is leading a project to develop common standards for the professions, as well as a regional Quality Assurance network.

Adam Kahane

Adam Kahane is a partner in Generon Reos LLC, an international consulting and capacity-building firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Generon Reos is a member—together with colleagues in Johannesburg, London, and Sao Paulo—of Reos Partners, a global partnership that supports innovation in complex social systems. Adam is a leading designer and facilitator of processes through which business, government, and civil society leaders can work together to solve their toughest, most complex problems. He has worked in more than fifty countries, in every part of the world, with executives and politicians, generals and guerillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials, clergy and artists.

Adam is the author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004). Nelson Mandela said: “This breakthrough book addresses the central challenge of our time: finding a way to work together to solve the problems we have created.”

During the early 1990s, Adam was head of Social, Political, Economic and Technological Scenarios for Royal Dutch/Shell in London. Previously he held strategy and research positions with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (San Francisco), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna), the Institute for Energy Economics (Tokyo), and the Universities of Toronto, British Columbia, California, and the Western Cape.

In 1991 and 1992, Adam facilitated the Mont Fleur Scenario Project, in which a diverse group of South Africans worked together to effect the transition to democracy. Since then he has led many such seminal multi-stakeholder dialogue-and-action processes, throughout the world. He was one of the sixteen outstanding individuals featured in Fast Company’s first annual “Who’s Fast,” and is a member of the World Academy of Art and Science, the Commission on Globalization, the Aspen Institute’s Business Leaders’ Dialogue, the Society for Organizational Learning, the Global Leadership Network, and Global Business Network.

Adam has a B.Sc. in Physics (First Class Honors) from McGill University (Montreal), an M.A. in Energy and Resource Economics from the University of California (Berkeley), and an M.A. in Applied Behavioral Science from Bastyr University (Seattle). He has also studied negotiation at Harvard Law School and cello performance at Institut Marguerite-Bourgeoys.

Originally from Montreal, Adam lives in Boston and Cape Town with his wife Dorothy and their family.
www.reospartners.com 

kahane@reospartners.com

Mary Catherine Bateson

Mary Catherine Bateson is a cultural anthropologist who has long been fascinated by how humans understand, create and adapt to the world in which they live. She has written and co-authored many books and is currently president of the Institute for Intercultural Studies in New York City.

Since the Fall of 2006 she has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Aging & Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College and is a special consultant to the Lifelong Access Libraries Initiative of the Americans for Libraries Council, with an emphasis on conceptualization, testing and implementation of her Active Wisdom model for community dialogues as a signature program of the Initiative.

In her most recent book, Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery; she chronicles her enduring quest for such knowledge dividing her rigorous inquiries into sections such as "Age and Gender", "Culture and Conviction" and "Ways of Knowing." www.marycatherinebateson.com

Nicanor Perlas

Nicanor Perlas is a thinker, activist, and author who won the Right Livelihood Award in 2003 (which is also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize). His book, Shaping Globalization: Civil Society, Cultural Power and Threefolding, is based on almost 40 years of active engagement in various efforts to create a better world. Nicanor is President, Center for Alternative Development Initiatives (www.cadi.ph), which is dedicated to the study, encouragement and implementation of sustainable development through partnerships in the Philippines. He chairs the Board of Directors of Lifebank, which provides financial support for the business initiatives of close to 100,000 micro-entrepreneurs among the urban and rural economically poor. He is co-founder and co-spokesperson of Karangalan, a series of national conferences highlighting important global and national innovations and achievements by Filipinos in many disciplines and fields.

Peter Senge

Peter Senge is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the Founding Chair of SoL, the Society for Organizational Learning. He is the author of the widely acclaimed book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990), which has sold a million copies worldwide and was identified as one of the seminal management books of the last seventy-five years by Harvard Business Review in 1997. He is coauthor of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (1994), with colleagues Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross, Bryan Smith, and Art Kleiner; a second fieldbook on sustaining change, The Dance of Change (1999), with George Roth as an additional coauthor; and the award-winning Schools That Learn (2000), coauthored with Nelda Cambron-McCabe, Timothy Lucas, Bryan Smith, Janis Dutton, and Art Kleiner. He is also coauthor of Presence, Human Purpose and the Field of the Future (2004), with colleagues C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers. Peter is widely known as one of the most innovative thinkers about management and leadership in the world, translating the abstract ideas of systems theory into tools for better understanding economic and organizational change. His work today focuses on fostering collaboration among diverse business, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations in order to address long-term systemic change that is beyond the reach of individual organizations. He received a B.S. in engineering from Stanford University, a M.S. in social systems modeling, and a Ph.D. in management from MIT. He lives with his wife and children in central Massachusetts.

Salim Al-Aydh

Mr Salim Al-Aydh is a member of the Saudi Aramco Board of Directors. He is Senior Vice President of Engineering & Project Management in Saudi Aramco and is currently responsible for the development of the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology project and three Administrative areas – Project Management, Engineering Services and New Business Development. He has over thirty-seven years of experience in a wide-ranging area of operations.

Mr Al Aydh received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tulsa in 1979. He attended the Management Development Seminar in 1986, and the Program for Management Development at Harvard University in 1990.

Mr Al Aydh is actively involved in the Society for Organization Learning (SoL), and recently established GulfSoL in the Gulf region, which is committed to fundamental innovation and change in organizations. The SoL network connects local SoL communities, organizations and individuals to form a world-wide collaborative learning community.

Frans Ade Nugraha Sugiarta

Executive Director of UID Forum

Frans Ade Nugraha Sugiarta, is the Executive Director of United in Diversity, an Indonesian non-profit entity set up with the purpose of forging collaboration and learning amongst diverse leaders and sectors in Indonesia to build trust and promote economic progress engaging with the world. In the aftermath of the Tsunami, United in Diversity has pioneered initiatives with local and international non-profit organizations in reaching out to the shattered communities in Aceh to help in logistics to remote regions, emergency relief, as well as rebuilding and reconstruction of the local communities. His current undertaking also includes liaison with donors and directing the allocation of resources to deliver United in Diversity mission.

Prior to joining full time as Executive Director of United in Diversity, Frans and his wife Gina Dharmawan, who are blessed with 2 children have long been active in United in Diversity and instrumental in the organization of the landmark United in Diversity Bali Conference attracting international interests and participation in reinvigorating confidence in Indonesia’s future after several bombings. Before becoming self made owners and operators of FG Organizer in 2002, an entity organizing International Forum, exhibitions, and private events, Frans served as the Executive assistant to the Chairman of Kuala Intan Group and National Sales manager of PT Pico Alfa. Frans career started in the food and beverage industry over 7 years, with extensive experience in all aspects of the business both in Amsterdam and Indonesia.

Frans holds a Bachelor degree majoring in Mathematics from Vrije Universiteit – Amsterdam Netherlands.

Salem Ismaily

Salem Ben Nasser Al Ismaily is a holder of degrees in Telecommunications, Liberal Arts, Industrial Engineering, Business Administration, Management and Philosophy from universities in United Kingdom and the United States.

Al Ismaily worked as the Managing Director of the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (PEIE) from 1984 to 1996. In 1996, he was appointed as the Deputy Chairman and Executive President of the Omani Centre for Investment Promotion and Export Development He also serves as a board member of many private companies in the field of financial services and energy, in a private capacity.

Al Ismaily has maintained interest on the influence of national and corporate culture on management styles, particularly in the context of the Gulf business community.

Graham Leonard, Phd

Graham Leonard (PhD in Education, Harvard) has had a close relationship with the Middle East for nearly 60 years, as a student, teacher, advisor, and consultant. Dr. Leonard has worked with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in the West Bank as an advisor on teacher education for UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). He has served in Jerusalem as management officer of the Program for Assistance to the Palestinian People through the United Nations Development Program. He has taught at a variety of institutions in the U.S., England, China and the Middle East; and has acted as a consultant on education, the Middle East.

Most recently, Dr. Leonard has been engaged in designing an Arabic Touchstones curricula, (MaHakaat), a discussion based program to revive Abbasid-Umayyad learning methods for students in the Arab world to engage with the classical Arabic literature while empowering (modernizing) thinking for 21st century globalization. MaHakaat is currently being implemented in Jordan—6th through 10th grades. This program is designed to overcome student language passivity, promote cognitive skills and improve critical thinking that will spread to the rest of the students' educational experience. Touchstones in Arabic (MaHakaat) will enable students better to problem-solve, to collaborate with others, and ultimately to teach themselves—through Arabic language and within an Arabic cultural context.

Lynne Dovey

As a career public servant, Lynne has expertise in the public sector strategy and policy environment with a particular interest in ‘joined-up’ and collaborative government with the purpose of making a difference in the quality of government for New Zealanders. She began her career with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where she worked as a diplomat for 5 years. She then moved into the health and social sectors for several years, working in both policy and operational management roles. More recently she has held a senior role as a public management practitioner at the State Services Commission (one of three ‘central agencies’ in the New Zealand Government), before joining the Ministry of Economic Development in late 2007 as the Manager in the Economic Strategy Branch. The role of this part of the Ministry is to lead the thinking and implement strategy that will result in a step change in New Zealand’s economic performance. The branch is currently engaged in work such as developing the innovation system for NZ firms, sustainable business, developing Auckland as a world class city and NZ’s future competitive advantage.

In 2001 and 2002 Lynne spent a year as a Sloan Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she studied systems thinking and organizational learning with Peter Senge and others. Since then she has been engaged in a range of activities across government to ‘seed’ and help develop this knowledge more widely within the New Zealand public sector. This has involved working with the non-profit sector and with a range of stakeholders outside core government, including educators, health professionals, local government officials and community groups. The current role offers opportunities to work more closely with the business sector again using these approaches.

Roberto Bocca

Since 2004, Roberto has led the development of the business to provide access to cleaner, safer and affordable energy solutions to a large number of emerging consumers across the developing world.

Starting in India, Roberto and his team have pioneered innovative solutions, collaborative business models and products that enable BP to serve “underserved consumers” profitably and sustainably. The business is now exploring opportunities in the Asia Pacific and South Africa.

Roberto joined BP in 1995 and held various roles in Business Development, Sales & Marketing and Supply & Distribution in businesses across Europe including France, Poland and the UK.

Prior to his role leading the Emerging Consumer Markets, Roberto was the General Manager for Business Development in India, responsible for the growth of local Refining & Marketing activity and co-ordination of the wider BP agenda in the region.

Before joining BP, Roberto worked in Italy for Telecom Italia and Finconsumo in Finance.

Roberto is an Italian National. He graduated in 1993 from the Turin University of Business and Economics.

Roberto practices several sports activities. He is a qualified ski instructor and runs marathons. He also enjoys playing the piano.

Nicanor Perlas

Nicanor Perlas is a global consultant and training facilitator on integral sustainable development, civil society, and societal transformation on the basis of profound inner change. He is co-founder and head training facilitator of the, a cultural-spiritual movement seeking to create a visionary Philippines.

He was former chair and currently training consultant and Board Director for Lifebank Group, which provides financial and other forms of support for over 160,000 micro entrepreneurs in the Philippines. He has given plenary contributions in over 80 global events and has written over 300 articles, monographs, and books on a diverse range of topics including emergent dialogue, globalization, and societal threefolding.

For the national and global impact of his work, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award or Alternative Nobel Prize.

Judith Flick

Judith Flick is an experienced facilitator with extensive cross-sectoral, multi-lingual experience in both leading cutting-edge initiatives and facilitating large change management processes.

She has a proven track record in:
• - rapidly assimilating complexities of what is present ‘on the ground’
• - determining appropriate responses which are genuinely innovative and practical
• - creating a variety of mechanisms for all stakeholders to be heard and share their interests
• - developing strategies, policies, programmes and processes to deliver the agreed responses
• - building team capacity through judicious selection, development and support of people
• - embedding the changes through support, coaching and networking

Judith was born in Greece, carries the Dutch nationality and is presently living in South Africa. She has more than 15 years experience in social development, mainly in Latin America and southern Africa, but lately also in South Asia.

Judith holds an MA in Social Anthropology from the Leiden University in The Netherlands, where she majored in Gender studies. This was followed by a post-masters degree in Management for Business Administration. In 2007 she become an ELIAS fellow after completing the first ELIAS course (Emerging Leaders Innovate Across Sectors), a joint leadership development initiative of a multi-sectoral group of global organizations, by the Presencing Institute/MIT, Boston.

Over the past 6 years, Judith has worked as a Regional Director for Oxfam Great Britain (OGB) first in South America and later in southern Africa, leading considerable change management processes. In 2004, she became OGB’s global lead on HIV/AIDS. In this role she established a Global Centre of Learning (GCoL) on HIV/AIDS, based in Pretoria, which she managed in 2007. The purpose of the GCoL is to define OGB’s HIV/AIDS policy and to facilitate learning about HIV/AIDS responses across the globe in search for more profound and lasting answers for people living in poverty.

At present, Judith is part of the Presencing Institute in Boston and specializes in the application of the “U-process” through facilitation of change management processes of cross-sectoral groups around complex, multi-dimensional, global issues. Examples are the initiation and co-facilitation of a cross-sectoral group of leaders in Zambia, who are forging innovative ways to induce systemic changes that could change the present course of the HIV and AIDS pandemic, co-facilitation and accompaniment of a large scale health systems change process and leadership development initiative in Namibia and the co-facilitation and co-ordination of ELIAS 2.0 and other Presencing Institute courses in Europe, the United States of America and Asia.

Zhang Shengsheng

Mr. Zhang Shegsheng is a leader from one of the 10 leading steel corporations in China who is focusing on the energy efficiency and economic performance of Laiwu Steel Group. He also is a researcher of engineering technology application and part time professor and instructor of doctoral students. He is an expert who enjoys governmental special allowance approved by State Council of P.R. China.

He is a recipient of Shandong Provincial Fumin Xinglu Labor Medal and The Great Contribution Yang Expert conferred by Shan Dong Province China.

During his career he acted as vice president of Steel Making Plant of Laiwu Steel Corporation, vice director of Technical Process Development Department of Technology Center of Laiwu Steel Group, Ltd, vice director of Steel Research Center of Technology Center of Laiwu Steel Group, Ltd., president of Steel Making Plant of Laiwu Steel Corporation, president assistant of Laiwu Steel Group, Ltd., vice president of Laiwu Steel Corporation, president of Laiwu Steel Corporation and vice president of Laiwu Steel Group, Ltd., etc..

Eiman Al-Mutairi, Ph.D.

Dr. Eiman Al-Mutairi earned her Ph.D. from the University of Bristol, UK, in the field of Bio-Organic Chemistry. She was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to continue her postdoctoral studies at Harvard University, USA, in the field of Molecular Biology/Genetics. Dr Al-Mutairi earned additional scholarships from the King Faisal Foundation and Harvard University to carry on further studies with the Genetics Profiling research. Dr Al-Mutairi then joined “PerkinElmer Life Sciences Research and Clinical Diagnostics" in the USA to work as a Genomics/Proteomics Technology Manager. In 2003 Dr Al-Mutairi joined Saudi Aramco as an advisor of Preventive Medicine programs and later worked as a senior planning and program analyst during which time she developed job fitness studies and an absenteeism tracking program with root cause analysis resulting in reduction of absenteeism. Recently Dr Al-Mutairi was assigned to manage the medical relations of Saudi Aramco Medical Services.

During the last few years Dr Al-Mutairi has helped in developing new disease prevention programs and recently has used “café” style sessions for a new approach in Kingdom to promote healthcare awareness of certain disorders.