Souq Session Abstracts

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Souq sessions abstracts

The Souq is composed of a variety of informal and loosely associated groups and expected contributions are listed below.

Diversity and Culture

The Gulf Arab Management Style as a source of strategic advantage: Building Global Strategic Capabilities On The Foundations Of Local Culture
William Scott-Jackson
Description
Global organisations have to maximize the development of strategic capabilities whilst leveraging local advantages and opportunities. In the acquisition and development of talent, in particular, this could be a key source of competitive advantage. Following on from extensive research sponsored by the UK Chartered Management Institute and in conjunction with the UAE Federal Government, this paper presents a method for identifying and building strategic capabilities together with an emerging process to identify those managerial cultural and social attributes which add to these capabilities as well as those that might detract. In particular, could a 'Gulf Arab MAnagement Style' be developed as a strategic capability to provide sustainable competitive advantage? Relevance to our theme: This session will explore the ways in which large global organisations can identify the key strategic capabilities required for future success and then develop those capabilities within national contexts. It will use Middle East examples as well as several Western-based multi-nationals. Contributing to SoL knowledge: The session will report on recent research carried out globally but with a Middle East focus. Consistency with SoL principles: The research was carried out with the active participation of senior managers from multi-nationals and will be presented for discussion and active input. Interactive Learning: The presentation will include a structured exercise to allow those present to input their ideas and experiences to the question of whether there is a 'Gulf Management Style' and, if so, what are its distinctive components and how can it add value. General Interest: Participants will be able to use the model in their work, whether in large corporates, the public sector or as academics.

Building community and organizational learning across cultures
Christine Anderson and Veronika Schreiner
Description
Objectives:

to share experience of living and working in an intercultural community
to identify the strengths of this community collaborating across cultures
to explore the factors that unite and challenge such a community organisationally and spiritually
to share the difference we are trying to make in areas of poverty and marginalisation
to reflect on authority and governance in a religious congregation of women with a view to learning from 150 year tradition of the organisation since its foundation by a married woman Madeleine d'Houet By presenting this session to the Forum we would share our own experience of community in living and working for 40 years and more across cultures. We would share the content,dynamic and purpose of an International Group of Women living and working in 15 different countries. The frameworks and methodology could be of particular interest drawing the participants into a sharing of an organisation propelled by love and service

Interaction Between Individual Morals, Corporate Ethics and National Culture Presenters
Dr Yuval Dror and Dr Uri Gloskinus
Description
The presenters will invite participants to search and reflect on ethics in global enterprises. Globalism requires people to take into consideration at least three levels of values: Personal values, Corporate Ethics and, National - Local culture In this workshop we will invite a reflection on 'just' and 'un-just' aspects of global corporate values as perceived from different views, by raising questions more then by suggesting clear cut answers, questions such as:

Can and in what ways different set of values co-exist?
What can individual organizational members and organizations actively do, to promote mutual contribution of different values (Individual, firm, national) and for what ends?
What types of individual & organizational flexibility and learning processes might help in decreasing conflicts?
How one can maintain his/her personal history and national heritage in helpful ways to the corporate culture?

Building Connective Organizational Cultures
Sherry Schiller
Description
Organizational culture is one of the most overlooked variables in building open, learning, thriving enterprises. One of the wisest investments leaders can make is to build a connective culture--one that links members to their shared purpose, to one another, and to their best selves--then aligns programs, structures, and systems to realize their purpose and reinforce their connective culture. The context of this session is evidence that:

Connective cultures produce more positive business results than disconnective cultures.
Most people recognize connective behaviors and want to work in a connective culture.
The behaviors modeled by leaders illustrate organizational cultural norms.
When presented with information about the gap between their current and ideal cultures--and provided proper support--people in organizations will create healthier, more connective cultures.

The approach will be to:

Draw from participants their experience with and interest in organizational culture, culture's role in fostering or inhibiting a learning organization, as well as their expectations for the session.
Define organizational culture, its symbols and artifacts, causes and effects.
Through a participatory exercise, identify cultural types and demonstrate how these are known and understood by participants, regardless of their cultural backgrounds and work histories.
Share the Schiller Center's Connective Positioning System (CPS), strategies, and resources for helping people in organizations build and sustain connective organizational cultures.
Discuss the role of connective leadership in creating and sustaining healthy, inclusive organizational cultures.
Explore together how organizational culture mental models can help teams work with greater purpose and harmony.

From Globalization to Global/Local Family and Consciousness
Frank Cardelle
Description
No creature can fly with only one wing great leadership occurs when head and heart meet. Daniel Goleman The earth provides enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. M.Ghandi Be a model of what you wish to see happen s Everyone needs love, support, trust, honesty, and recognition. Ask yourself: what of these qualities do you bring to your relationships. W. B. Turner FROM GLOBALIZATION TO GLOBAL/LOCAL FAMILY AND CONSCIOUSNESS In these last years we have seen Globalization's birth and its influence spread to the far corners of the planet. It has had such an impact, coupled with high-tech communication and various organizations such as WTO, World Bank and other corporate bodies that it has radically changed the way we do business and other affairs of our lives. It has had both negative and positive consequences. While some people and companies and orgaizations have benefitted greatly, others have dropped to social and economic levels of poverty, loss and suffering. During this same period we have witnessed the "horror" of September 11 and the "never ending" Iraq War, as well as other conflicts, both social, religious and militarily. Violence of our youth has escalated and the world has progressively become more tense and fearful. Despite, efforts and claims by various people and organizations, both academic, social and political that it is the opposite. Global Warming has also become yet another "wake up call" to all planetary citizens, as we are coming to understand the peril's ahead if we fail to heed these messages and warnings. We as "citizens" of the world, from all walks of life, both lay and professional, leaders in business, academia, government, both genders, and of all ages ect. are now having to meet the challenges before us and to create and find better ways to address these issues and conditions from the personal to the community, country and global level. In keeping with the goals and format of the Global Forum this workshop offering is a small contribution towards the fulfillment of this special and historic event. Drawing from over twenty four years of teaching and (learning), traveling and living in several countries and the richness of cross cultural lessons, not to mention the experiences that come from presentations and work in Psychology, Leadership, Team building, Coaching etc. in over 40 countries around the world. Can we evolve to a "True Global Family"? Can we join both our "heads and hearts" in meeting the challenges before us today? These are just a couple of the questions we will explore in this short workshop. We will use the tools of dialogue, small and large group sharing, personal stories, and other activities that will insure that we have an opportunity to be co-creative, co- explorer's and dis-cover's..and more. Some of the content and focus (within a flexible format) will be:

light and shadow aspects of Globalization
towards a paradigm of Personal and Global Consciousness
"living" the model of an evolving Global citizen (in both our personal and professional lives)
a look at Plato's idea of "World Soul"...can it be a guiding focus for us today on the planet or not?
finding ways to "cross borders" ,building understanding, trust and respect without offending to "stepping on one another's "toes"...of culture and custom
bridging head and heart and tapping into a more Wholistic frame
connecting the workshop activities and processes to the "goals and format of the Global Forum

Making Global Solutions Local - The Journey From Intent to Performance at the Major Energy Company
Ivo Wenzler and Peter Hendriks
Description
In an oil and gas exploration and production business each drilling location is a small world on its own, with often very different performance challenges, different ways of working, different priorities, and different cultures. In such circumstances building a sustainable, local solution based on globally standardized processes and systems is providing an organization with significant challenges, especially when coupled with the global performance improvement drive. The intent of this paper/presentation is to outline the approach we have chosen to address such challenges at Shell EP Wells community, and the results achieved. These challenges were characterized by three key issues: a) leadership was not articulating the importance of global standards with one voice; b) there was no clear accountability for different aspects of performance; and c) an effective response to the challenges required a substantial shift in behaviors of people. The journey we have chosen focused on enabling and managing performance, including activities such as engagement of stakeholders, training, coaching, resolving of process and system issues, definition of performance indicators, development of tools for measuring and communicating performance, definition of performance targets, and translation of these targets into individual performance contracts. The change journey was based on a pragmatic application of some key principles underpinning Theory U. The process contained seven steps: 1) Crystallize intent - Shared belief that the program is about people; 2) Move into context - Increased understanding about the current reality; 3) Suspend judgment - Real-life stories translated into essential aspects of perceived reality; 4) Let go - Collective understanding of a different way of working; 5) Experiment with new reality - Additional skills and trying of new ways of working; 6) Embed new reality - New behavior where people are asking for help and being open to coaching; 7) Deliver performance - Passion to improve performance of the whole process and individual contributions. The results were twofold, organizational learning as an implicit result and performance improvement as an explicit result.

Bridging the Divide: An Enquiry into Pluralism Ways to Transcend the Barriers of Conflict and Enjoy Our Humanity and Diversity
Lucy Nusseibeh and Jona Rosenfeld
Description
The Palestinian Israeli conflict has grown increasingly divisive. This especially over the past few years as this division has taken more and more concrete forms. Like Oman, this particular part of the fertile crescent (Israel/Palestine) had always been cross-roads, and known for the "broad diversity of its heritage and profound hospitality of its people." Therefore it has always been host to a mixture of peoples from different traditions, religions, and ambitions. With the paring down of identity that is happening worldwide, especially in relation to religion and/or ethnicity. We shall present "success stories" that have counteracted the divisions, that have expanded the connections, and that can become shining examples of pluralism as the path to inclusiveness and thereby to happiness, security and peace. These will touch on such issues as:

Pluralism - one identity or many.
Tolerating, enjoying, et al.
Static, separate diversity, or active, energetic, enquiring pluralism that "seeks understanding across lines of difference".
Learning/learning about, shutting off, shunning, et al.
Including versus excluding
Listening to/Seeing versus withdrawing from
From East/West clashes of civilizations, to celebrations of our wealth of complementary, conflicting, colourful cultures.
Welcoming the human breadth and beauty in diversity/seeing and loving the humanity or building walls and brainwashing.

All these ways are possible in our crowded world today. Indeed, we are not forced to interact except at the most official and superficial levels, we can choose to live in diverse ghettoes so might one choose the complex way of complex identities and complex connections? In the local Middle Eastern context, the traditions and the society are still essentially tribal. So how can pluralism fit in this context? This not just inside the tent, the family, the tribe, nor by protecting one identity by shutting out others. So, based on stories, one might envisage work with developing diverse identities to reach out to the diversity of others. Our project will select some case studies (joint Palestinian Israeli) from different communities, - health, education, media, social activism, - that have worked jointly with sustained human and professional interaction, and will look for lessons to be learned from them as a way to create new connections and strengthen our global community.

Engage to Create: Principles and Tools to Bring Out People's Voices
Isabel Rimanoczy and Ernie Turner
Description
This workshop, based on the Action Reflection Learning methodology, will allow participants to experience different principles and tools that create an engaging and participatory learning environment, while they actively work on their own current challenges. The ARL approach is a learning methodology originated in Sweden and developed intuitively by practitioners over the past 30 years. It was for the first time researched and codified by the workshop facilitators, authors of the book Action Reflection Learning: Solving real business problems by connecting learning with earning, therefore making it accessible to the broader public. In this workshop ARL will set a learning environment that combines work, reflection and learning exchange. This means that the participants will be able to make progress on questions related to their organization's role in building sustainable solutions - and their personal scope of influence therein, while at the same time experiencing the principles and tools that create an inclusive and creative learning environment. Therefore, there will be outcomes achieved both through the process and through the content. The ARL approach will ensure participants engage in debriefing the different steps and components of the experience, to extract maximum learning. It will encourage converting the take-aways into personal next steps - to convert the learning created in this experience into new actions.

Assessing Learning Organization: Michael Marquardt Model
Eiman Abokhodair
Description
Objective of the session: Developing the Knowledge & skills of the participants in assessing their organization by using Marqurdt Model. Context of the session:

Defining the learning organization.
Define the learning organization assessment.
Define & Describe Marqurdt Model for assessment
Why Marqurdt Model?
Describe The learning organization Profile (Assessment Tool)
Applying the learning organization Profile (Assessment Tool)
The organization readiness to apply learning organization concept.

Education

Acknowledging Diversity
Pieter Schrijnen,
Description
At the Delft University of Technology, the faculty of civil engineering stands next to the faculty of architecture. Some 40 years ago, an architectural company designed the two buildings. Civil engineering shows the raw materials of its construction: concrete, brick, steel and wood. Architecture has a lighter tone, with more attention to the finishing of walls and ceilings. When studying at Architecture, I took such differences for granted. Of course I belonged to the culture of my own faculty and more or less looked down on the civil engineers. Right now I am teaching at civil engineering. My students appear to have the same kind of stance towards the architects. In the working life of these professions, the quality of their collaboration has a major impact on the functioning of both transport systems and land use systems. Again and again, the mental models both professions hold over each other hamper collaboration, without them being aware of this. We are not well equipped for collaboration, for the open exchange of knowledge, values, intuitions or aspirations. Real openness is scary. Our mental models hold us back from such openness. We are trapped in this ambivalence. Many challenges thus remain unanswered, even if most of us are willing to meet them. This article addresses the theme of acknowledging diversity, as a challenge for education and a challenge for professional life. The article is based on an ongoing action research project on the collaboration between urban planners and transport engineers. The article gives the first outcomes of a round of interviews with students from both trades, exploring their mental models, on the way they work and learn in teams. The article uses Otto Scharmer's Theory U as a framework for research [1]. The models that the theory provides might be very helpful to explore the models that students and professionals hold, as well as helpful in acknowledging the variety of perspectives. The models might also be supportive in learning to deal with this diversity. The interviews explore the mental models or narratives the students hold over their work and over the relations between both professions. In due time, based on these interviews, suggestions will be done for the renewal of the education curricula, and for the design of project start ups for the collaboration between engineers and planners. Keywords Theory U, diversity, mental models, collaboration, leadership. [1] Otto Scharmer (2007): Theory U, Leading from the future as it emerges. SoL, Cambride Mass.

LIFELONG LEARNING: Looking into the Future...
Adrian Cottin and Simi Benhamú
Description
In this learning experience we seek to understand the importance of transforming organizations into learning institutions and the skills to drive that change. We will discuss what could happen to companies if they do not facilitate continual learning? What are the chances of their survival? How can we empower individuals to transform their learning into team learning? How can we promote innovation? What impact will global companies have on local ones? How do we find the best talent? What are the skills needed in the 21st century? The organizations that learn are able to facilitate team work, shared vision, and synergy. They are organizations that understand that their most important capital is their people and that by facilitating learning they can remain competitive. We will use the approaches of Peter Senge, as well as the experiences of the facilitator in accelerated learning processes. Objectives Based on the principles and characteristics of a learning organization, determine the actions that should be taken in order to transform an organization into a learning institution, applying the accelerated learning philosophy. By the end of this session participants will:

Review the 10 principles of a learning organization.
Identify 10 key issues for change.
Appreciate the necessity for personal & job skills development.
Be aware of how a company becomes a learning organization.

Corporate Education as Strategic Tool in the Civil Construction Industry
Fausto de Bessa Braga
Description
This article presents a bibliographical research based on Brazilian literature and it tries to know the main influences of the corporate education as strategic tool in the Brazilian civil construction industry. In the competitive market the companies have been looking for excellence levels not dependent just of mechanical practices. It is in this panorama that enters the corporate education; a system of people's development that makes progress by linking competences to strategic of business, because companies with similar technology are obtaining more profits and advantages in relation to the competition investing in the formation and in their collaborators' education.

Training and Teaching across Different Cultures
Gerhard Apfelthaler, Steve Bakalis, Martin Neubauer and Thomas Schhmalzer
Description
Learning happens everywhere. But does learning happen everywhere in the same way? Despite the fact that both the topics of learning styles and cross-cultural differences have been - independent from each other - important research themes for several decades, surprisingly little work has been done on the area where they intersect with each other. There are only very few comparisons of differing attitudes towards learning and studying across cultures and even less insights on how these might impact the work of teachers and trainers who are active in culturally mixed settings. The proposed submission is based on a series of large-scale research projects funded by the European Union and undertaken in several countries between 2002 and 2007, seeking to provide fresh insights into cross-national differences of attitudes towards learning and studying of university students. The paper starts with an outline of the two theoretical streams that form the basis of these research projects - the discussion of learning styles / or attitudes towards learning and studying (with a focus on the Deep vs. Surface learning dichotomy originally developed by Marten and Saljö) and the extant comparative research on cross-national differences in culture (e. g. the works of Hofstede, Trompenaars or others). It then reports on the results from our (largely quantitative and some qualitative) studies which have been undertaken in such diverse countries as Argentina, Austria, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Peru, and the United States. Finally, the paper outlines some expected implications for the world beyond higher education, i. e. the world of multinational corporations.

Teaching Organizational Learning - What Can We Learn?
Christoph Mandl
Description
Even though Organizational Learning has been around for some time one cannot find but a few cases where it has entered a graduate program at some university. Maybe I'm wrong and all the students studying Organizational Learning are hidden somewhere but that's how I perceive the situation. There seems to be a gap between the relevance of Organizational Learning in Leadership Development and in Capacity Building and the irrelevance of Organizational Learning in graduate programs at universities. From my own experience of teaching Organizational Learning at the University of Vienna I suspect that one cause of this situation might be the tacit nature of the Organizational Learning body of knowledge. Universities are primarily places to learn explicit knowledge. Even though that is not totally true because students in the natural sciences also learn how to design and perform experiments - a typical tacit knowledge - the counterpart of such activities in the social sciences, Action Research, does not have much of a place at universities. So, I invite teachers, lecturers and professors from universities to participate in this workshop to explore the following questions, share insights, and perhaps even learn from each other through conversations:

What Syllabus for teaching Organizational Learning at universities exist?
Which Syllabus seem to work and why, which Syllabus do not seem to work and why not?
How do teachers teach the basic works of Chris Argyris, David Bohm, Jay Forrester, Robert Fritz, Donella Meadows, Edgar Schein, and Peter Senge?
What cultural barriers are there, e.g. do similar Syllabus of Organizational Learning work similarly in different cultures?
How do different teachers teach the tacit knowledge of Organizational Learning?
In what ways might existing Syllabus be improved?

Building the Village That Will Raise Our Children
Charles Elbot,
Description
As the world is losing its villages and its sense of connectedness among neighbors, it is losing some of its capacity to raise its children through a village culture of shared values, beliefs, and behaviors. At the same time more schools are being built throughout the world. These schools, however, are primarily designed to teach specific knowledge and skills. Why not design these schools to also be places where teachers, students, leaders, and parents work and live out of shared values and ideals? Why not build an intentional school culture that will not only educate young people in the academic disciplines, but also ensure that they honor the values of their heritage and are prepared to flourish in the global culture? This workshop is based on my book, "Building an Intentional School Culture: Excellence in Academics and Character", Corwin Press, 2008. The work explores four basic tools for creating an effective school culture which transforms principals, staff, students and parents to interdependent thinking and behavior.

Bringing Business, Education and Civil Society Together Through Actualizing the Global Knowledge Creating Web (GKCW)
Edward A. Jones and Kyoko T. Jones
Description
Our theme is bringing business, education and civil society together through actualizing the Global Knowledge Creating Web (GKCW). Our session forms a dynamic knowledge creating space including multimedia, conversation, graphics and inquiry learning. We have conducted it at the National Museum of Science in Tokyo, the U.S. National Science Teachers Association, other museums, universities and schools in both countries. It introduces our Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund (JFMF) programs that combine organizational learning, knowledge creation and sustainability. The JFMF is organized around the five disciplines. It provides teacher training and exchange activities to increase understanding of cultural diversity, sustainability, organizational learning and knowledge creation. The JFMF has carried out action research with over 6,000 U.S. teachers in 3 week exchange visits and with 200 pairs of schools in the United States and Japan in year-long collaborative learning activities. The MTP combines short-term exchanges and online partnerships. It addresses environmental themes by engaging teachers and students in collaborative inquiries via face-to-face, online video-conferencing and asynchronous communications that engage them as teams of learners. These participants also develop community fractals to obtain social contributions to support their activities. The MTP integrates their fractals into a cascade hierarchy that includes government agencies, companies, universities and museums. It pools knowledge and other social contributions into a Global Knowledge Creating Web (GKCW) that employs the five disciplines and principles knowledge creation to form dynamic knowledge creating spaces. It has been tested in three cascade cycles in Japan and is to expand into other countries in the 2008-2009 cycle. Its fractal system has been adopted as the model for the Regional Centres of Expertise used by the United Nations University and UNESCO in the UN's Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. We are presenting our session to increase interest and involved in the GKCW concept and to have the opportunity interact with others who are interested it and in the idea of forming a system to leverage social contributions to further Education for Sustainable Development on a global basis.

Leadership

Vulnerability and the Leadership Values Shift
Greg Jemsek
Description
Context: This paper emerged from my work as a Leadership Consultant to Australia's first leadership development program for people with a disability Approach: I would give a brief summary presentation of the paper, followed by a series of questions for those attending to consider from their own experience: 1) How does vulnerability serve to decontextualize people you work with? 2) What experience do you have where the states of consciousness emerging from vulnerability have served to "disturb" a system? 3) How would you define the values difference between values underpinning vulnerability and those underpinning achievement? How are we as a society going to resolve this difference? Objectives: 1). Stimulate active discussion about the impact of vulnerability on social systems. 2). Explore the values differences that exist between mainstream, achievement-oriented groups and de-contextualized, vulnerable groups. 3). Begin to discuss how institutional power impacts on these values differences. Abstract - This paper argues that the leadership needed to address the complex problems confronting all sectors of society - business, community, and government - requires a fuller understanding of vulnerability in determining the actions taken in relation to these problems. Because confronting personal vulnerability is a daily reality for people living with a disability, many people within this sector are generating ideas that have the potential to transform the way leadership in the broader society is exercised. These ideas emphasize the relationship between the activity of leadership and those impacted by it, incorporating an understanding of vulnerability in ways which highlights rather than diminishes the overall context of the situation being addressed. In so doing, leadership activity can move from models based more on "heroic" style individual initiative to more relationally-based, inclusive and collaborative inquiries and action that strive to avoid "de-contextualization". Doing so requires placing more emphasis on initiating conversations that challenge the dominant values currently governing much of societal discourse. It is argued here that the lived experience of disability provides a unique and valuable perspective on such conversations provided it is done in concert with a willingness to transform one's self, a fully functioning human conscience, an ongoing awareness of human interdependence and, in particular, an understanding of the constructive role vulnerability plays in relation to leadership activity. These attributes are available to all members of society regardless of how able-bodied they are. However, in much the way that certain historical periods put forward individuals whose personal attributes, societal position (or lack of one), and external circumstances combine to produce uniquely courageous leadership for the human community, it is argued here that key ingredients of the leadership orientation our society currently needs are emerging from voices within the disability community.

Learning and the Whole: Experiencing an alternative view of Leadership
Kriben Pillay
Description
The Wisdom of the Undivided System: Experiencing an alternative view of the Leader This workshop will examine the emerging insights of group intelligence - from the pioneering work being done in organisational learning to the pointers of nondual philosophy to the conclusions of science - to construct a radical thesis about a new form of leadership that breaks away from the archetype of the Hero, even though this archetype still exerts force in popular culture and is embedded in our organisational structures. The workshop will allow participants to experientially perceive that the concept of a wise, benevolent leader (even in cases where such exists) is part of an old evolutionary paradigm that sets up, by its very existence, the notion of separation in a system where such separation will be shown to be illusory. This core illusory separation will be deconstructed to show that even in contexts where we revere leaders for their actions, such leaders are in fact constructs of the system. This view, then, calls for new ways of co-operation where leadership has been democratised by the perception that every individual (the root word meaning `indivisible' ) is an agent of change, and where, paradoxically, diversity matters and not sameness. Drawing on a diverse range of transformation processes, the workshop will endeavour to give participants a felt understanding of the field of potential that is increasingly being pointed to in such pioneering studies as Theory U and Ken Wilber's Integral Theory. The workshop directly addresses the Forum question: How can we promote inclusiveness and exchange in bridging growing cultural and social divides?

Wisdom & Leadership: Linking the Past, Present & Future
Bruce Lloyd
Description
The paper will discuss the key questions: * What is Wisdom? * Why is it important for both Leadership & Organisational Effectiveness? * How is it Learned? * How can it be learned more effectively? -- in order to improve the quality of our Leadership and hence the quality of the decisions we take every day about the way the world will be tomorrow? Traditionally we have seen Wisdom as the highest form of knowledge, within the Data/Information/ Knowledge /Wisdom pyramid. But the paper will explain why that pyramid doesn't really work. Wisdom is certainly more than data, and it is more than just information, and not the same as knowledge. In essence, the paper will argue that Wisdom is the way we incorporate our values into our decision making process and that it is critical to the way we think about, and promote, inclusiveness. So what makes Wisdom different? Wisdom is useful information about values and relationships 'that have stood the test of time'; it is a reflection of our collective intelligence. It is the key to questions of sustainability, although rarely mentioned in sustainability literature. These issues will be explored in four ways:

By exploring the definition of Wisdom
Through historic statements about the nature of Wisdom.
Through statements that we might accept as statements of Wisdom.
Through a review of the way we think about the Data/ Information/ Knowledge /Wisdom pyramid.

The paper will also explore the difference between Wisdom & being Wise. Finally there is a discussion of why we need to take the whole issue of the link between Wisdom and Leadership much more seriously, as well as how we might help improve key relevant learning processes.

TAKING IT PERSONAL - VALLADOLID
Jim Clarke
Description
My session will focus upon the taking of personal responsibility, the development of emotional discipline and mental organization as the bases for collective learning and collaborative achievement within a context of centuries of paternal political rule and religious subjugation in provincial Mexico. I will first prepare the ground for my session by outlining the boundaries that have been and are being bridged by me personally in my work as a Professional Certified Coach in Valladolid, Yucatan Mexico. The next portion of the session will describe and elaborate upon the context of my work. Geographical description. Historical antecedents of separation and isolation. A weak, ignorant and stagnant community where the only thing that changes are the faces. Current exposure to globalization and its consequent generation of greater fear and incapacity to collaborate. The session will then move into my societal approach. Here I will share my knowledge of what it has taken for me to be first accepted, then trusted and then allowed to lead in this foreign context. I intend to actively engage the other participants in an open "Give & Take" of experience, technique and outcome on this topic. I will discuss my approach and the practice of non-judgement as the single most effective coaching methodology. We'll discuss the energetic differences between promoting and attracting and how the sciences of information and magnetism create resonances, or not. I will include the nuts and bolts of of the last 18 months of my work with a very small group of business, social and civic leaders. I will discuss my Proceso Colaboración Coach which is highly Topicalizado, i.e. culture and local society specific. Presenting results I will cover at least three new collaborative endeavors specifically focused upon strengthening community in order to develop local solutions to problems of globalization. Finally I would like to address the Mexican saying: "Mexico is too far from God and too close to the United States." Or, how to spur initiative, growth and collaboration by considerations other than consumerism.

Turtle Camp Leadership Experience - Building Sustainability at an individual, community and global level
Gayle Hardie, Malcolm Lazenby and Karen Delvin
Description
Purpose: To offer an alternative approach to leadership development that builds sustainability at an individual, community and global level Context: We invited a number of senior business leaders and consultants to participate in a unique and profound leadership experience which provided the opportunity to: - explore contemporary leadership challenges - rethink the way in which they relate to others, the organisations and communities in which they operate - engage in work that makes a difference to the world around them. We partnered in this process with the very remote Aboriginal community of Mapoon in Far North Queensland, Australia - an exceptional group of people who have developed their own innovative and local contribution to maintaining an ecologically sustainable world i.e. Cape York Turtle Rescue (an eco-tourism project) Participants identified that the transition from the corporate environment to an extremely remote and isolated community had a profound impact on them - physically, emotionally and in many cases, spiritually. They spoke of feeling more "present" and connected to the environment around them, having a "quiet mind" and being more able to understand their own styles and the impact this had - both in the group, in their organisations and wider communities. The initial frustration about the "ghost nets" (abandoned fishing nets) and their destruction of the turtle population and the desire of many of them to try and "fix" this and the problems they encountered at the camp e.g. lack of equipment and resources, shifted to dialogue about systems and sustainability - environmental, social, political and cultural. The leader as "steward", leading by example, the ability to look for "local solutions" to global problems and using influence and relationships to make this happen were identified as critical steps to take and are being actioned back in the business world as a result. Approach: Visual images of the Turtle Camp Leadership Experience will create the space for us to explore the impact of this environment on leadership development - in particular the connection to Emotional Health levels and the development of "presence". We will share our "open space" approach to dialogue and self-awareness in this environment and the impact of the environment and the culture on this. We will also link the concept of leader as "steward" and leader as "follower" in bridging cultural and social divides and share the individual and group responses to the opportunities and challenges faced by an indigenous community in building a sustainable "local" solution. Those who attend will be also be engaged in exploring what they are experiencing as the information is shared and the dialogue continues. Our desire is to encourage all who come to consider how they are leading for sustainability and bridging social and cultural divides.

Understanding Complexities (vicious nature of problems): Nurturing our hearts by seeing the generative (virtuous) capacities of nature within us
Sheila Damodaran, Coach O Kereteletswe and Madhavi Kapur
Description
Context: For the past several years, I had been working on the idea that the face of complexity has an order. An order that suggests very little of our externalized orientations to the world is able to understand and therefore challenging issues constantly dodges our ability to "conquer" and turn them around. Some of us may call it the inner work. I call it the "Onion". I have found it as a useful metaphor to organize system archetypes in a way to delayer complexities simply (like peeling the onion). We then use these as guides to move from the outer world to the core within us that really needs conquering; our world-views of reality; our mental models. Approach:

Share the concept of the onion (http://www.lopn.net/The_Onion.html)
Share examples of its use in public and/or private sector contexts
Share the work of a school attempting to think curriculums systemically that promises to ban the lines we have drawn to control knowledge and instead unleash learning in its wake.

Objectives:

See the act of integrating the five disciplines in making sense of complexities we face around us that often cause social divides or in building sustainable solutions
Share examples of their use in real-life situations

Putting it into Practice

Building local capability in Petroleum Development Oman through Workplace Learning
Barry Pieters and Lester Desmond
Description
The workshop is intended to share knowledge in order to build on the work that Shell International and Petroleum Development Oman [PDO], (an Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Company with Shell and Oman government as major shareholders), have been doing over the last 2 years to develop the capabilities of Omani staff. The workshop objectives are for participants to

understand the whole system approach that has been taken through the implementation of Workplace Learning, including coaching, knowledge management and knowledge sharing
recognise how they can use the learnings from the project for their own work
explore, using their experiences elsewhere, how we can continue the journey of local staff capability development and continue to use skills transfer and learning to bridge cultural and social differences
identify areas for further work and possible collaboration, either within PDO or the application of similar principles elsewhere

The background is the historical use of expatriate expertise to explore, develop and produce oil and gas fields in Oman. This was not seen as a sustainable solution and efforts have therefore been made for a number of years to develop local capability. This has been successful in many areas but less successful in the more highly technical areas of the company. In addition those Omani staff that have been developed now face the challenge of transferring their skills to a new generation of Omani recruits. The workshop approach is for people involved in the work to tell their personal stories and engage members of the SoL community in interactive discussions and exercises in order to share their knowledge of organisational learning across cultures.

DIALOGUE - A TOOL FOR BUILDING EMPATHY
SANJAY KHANDAGLE, Surya Rao and Arun Garg
Description
DIALOGUE - A TOOL FOR BUILDING EMPATHY The heart of Leadership is to build trusting relationships for bringing the best in ones self and others. Therefore, Leaders need to have empathy as one of the core competencies to relate with people and bring out the best in them. It is in accepting, understanding and realizing that inter relations and inter dependencies are essential for collaboration for making a better work place. Together the team could make the inter relationships and the inter dependencies work for the envisaged future by collective thinking. In HPCL, "Dialogue" was used as a tool to bring in the realization in leaders to relate with each other for a larger purpose. Teams at all levels in the organization went thru an intense process of dialogue bringing in cohesiveness and collaboration within the teams and outside with other stake holders. As the teams sat down for having the dialogue, it took time, energy and patience for the leaders to come down to a level of understanding others. At the subtle level a realization emerged that we are all connected with our thoughts, feeling and behavior. The first step of listening itself was so difficult and it took time to realize and understand oneself as to how one thinks, feels and acts. It was difficult for the leaders to let go of their thoughts in order to create space in their brains to accept other's thoughts. As the process went deeper, the relationships with the team members deepened to an extent that a stage came when the leader and the team member were able to hang their thoughts, ideas and assumptions as if it was not theirs. That was the starting point of reaching to the first stage of empathy i.e. listening with the intention of getting influenced. The second stage - the leader and the team members went thru a process of feeling the feelings of others. Exploring these deeper connections brought in the emotional bonding and deeper meaning that `you are me and I am you'. The third stage that we could easily see the meaning emerging in their lives by coherence of thoughts and ideas that brought in a meaningful purpose for which they were there together. The energy then was overwhelming in order to create their own future. The leader and the team members were in it together as a single body moving ahead to achieve a purpose which they thought was meaningful in their lives.

From Hatred and Violence to Dialogue and Cooperation: Activists in Binational Peace Organizations Facing Inner and External Complexities
Yosef Goldman
Description
This paper deals with crucial issues and difficulties that stem from the attempt of collaboration between Palestinians and Israelis in binational peace movements. Two examples of such organizations are "Combatants for Peace", in which combatants of both sides changed the armed and violent strategy for dialogue and cooperation, and "The Forum of Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian Families", whose members and activists decided to cooperate in educational and explanatory activities after and in spite of losing beloved relatives in violent events. In this work, an attempt is made to combine a psychoanalytic approach, complexity theory concepts, conflict transformation ideas and action research method in order to get a better understanding of psychological, cultural, political and ideological obstacles often found in this type of organizations, as well as to improve our professional practice with them. The primary task of this kind of movements is to promote dialogue, mutual understanding and rapprochement, but the interactions between the partners are very often characterized by hard and bitter disputations. While an accepted explanation is that this phenomenon takes place due to cultural and situational differences, a deeper glance may reveal other covert reasons, that are more difficult to deal with. According to the psychoanalytic approach, irrational fears and anxieties are present when a group of people join together in order to achieve common goals. The rational aspects of the organizational activities are affected by these anxieties, which act as threatening unseen ghosts. In our examples, a rational and noble ideal is formulated, but at the same time, seating around the same table with those who also represent the reasons of our loss, pain and suffering may activate unconscious feelings such as anger, hatred and wishes of revenge. Those feelings, if not properly worked through, may remain as an invisible enemy that may endanger the very existence of the organization. In parallel, this kind of feelings do not seem to be "legitimate" in such organizations, and then, remain untouched. Those inner phenomena are reinforced by the complex reality, that provides more "objective disturbances", which turn even more complicated the organizational live and work. A great amount of effort, maturity, readiness to learn together from experience, wish for open dialogue, patience, tolerance and acceptance of complexity are required to overcome the above obstacles. In this lecture, the counseling work provided by Shatil will be described, combining theory and practice in order to enrich the understanding of complex phenomena in conflict situations. Shatil (seedling in Hebrew) has been at the forefront of the struggle for social change in Israel for more than 25 years, by providing critical capacity building to a broad range of social organizations of different ethnic roots and empowering underprivileged with tools to improve their lives and communities.

Workshop on Transitioning to a Knowledge Economy in the Gulf Region
Hans Herren, Weishuang Qu, Matteo Pedericini and Andrea Bassi
Description
Millennium Institute (MI) has developed a system dynamics-based scenario-playing tool used to manage and understand complex systems, with particular application to issues of sustainable development. The tool, the Threshold 21 (T21) model, is an integrated analytical framework that encompasses the economy, society, and environment. It is being used in both developing and developed countries to examine current global challenges from global warming and climate change, to economic growth and poverty reduction. The model has been customized for over 20 countries in all regions of the world to address the issues that are most pressing to them. Building capacity to use the model is one of MI's strategies for promoting systems thinking as a central element in the way institutions address sustainability challenges. MI uses a dynamic and interactive training methodology (including discussions, gaming sessions and computer simulations) with a clear focus on the practical applicability of the knowledge transferred. MI proposes to organize a workshop on transitioning to a knowledge economy in the Gulf region, with particular focus on the effect of education on the region's economy. The workshop will use the following activities to facilitate understanding of the system: i. Interactive PowerPoint Presentations ii. Group Conceptualization Exercise iii. Role Play Exercise The Interactive PowerPoint Presentations will cover the fundamental principles of Systems Thinking, and provide a framework for understanding complex systems. Participants will be actively involved and will contribute by providing examples based on their personal experience. The Group Conceptualization Exercise is a fundamental activity for creating a collective understanding of the issue at stake, which is essential for collaborative learning and intervention. A causal loop diagram of the education sector would be developed during the session, based on the participants' inputs. The Role Play Exercise will lead the participants through a first-hand experience of managing the complexities of such a system and the opportunities that exist for transitioning to a knowledge economy in the Gulf region.

Speeding up Team Learning through Building Trust
Arun Garg, Alla Surya Rao and Sanjay Khandagle
Description
ShareIT is a national dialogue series that communicates results from the Knowledge Foundation's research programme LearnIT, which deals with learning and IT. It has been difficult to reach target groups with the research programme. These target groups are: teachers, school principals and directors of education, and decision-makers. However, when the Knowledge Foundation created a common forum called ShareIT, it resulted in rewarding meetings. ShareIT shows how to simply create forums for researchers and practitioners, where research results can be presented and put to use. Experience from ShareIT also shows that there is a role for research financers to play in reducing the gap between the academic community and society at large. At the dialogue meetings, LearnIT contributes with research competence and the Knowledge Foundation with process management, practical arrangements and marketing.

63 Achieving Continuous Excellence through Emotionally Engaged Teams in Hindustan Petroleum
Moola Parameshwar
Description
We the Leaders at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation faced challenges: Our efforts to turn our company into a learning organization were successful but the challenge was to make them sustainable. We finally realized that, to reinvigorate the effort, create lasting organization wide change, and boost business results, we had to engage employees on an emotional level. In 2003, HPCL embarked on Project ACE (Achieving Continuous Excellence), with the goal of creating emotionally intelligent teams and performance improvement. In this interactive concurrent session, we will share with the session participants how HPCL has used mindfulness practices and emotional management techniques to build "Team EQ" and continually develop new skills to create a desired future. Participants will experience a series of simple yet powerful activities for generating positive, contagious emotions. We will help the participants learn how to make the link between emotionally engaged individuals and emotionally engaged customers. We will also share the trials and tribulations of practicing the learning organization disciplines such as Personal Mastery and Shared Vision. HPCL in its relentless pursuit of building learning organization has successfully worked on infusing the importance of Emotional Intelligence for achieving outstanding performance and experienced that the EI is creating a great impact on its employees and the teams in its continuous quest for achieving excellence. We are keen that this proposal be selected for presentation at 3rd Global Forum of SoL because the proposal focuses on the strategy being successfully experimented and being implemented in HPCL to create emotionally engaged teams and the team leaders so essential for keeping the flame of building the learning organization continuously burning. The session Objectives are to enable participants:

Understand and learn "Mindfulness" practices for enhancing Emotional Intelligence which is important for achieving outstanding performance critical for any organization especially a learning organization.
Learn about the importance of Team EQ and its potency in amplifying the impact among all the stakeholders using the power of relationship for achieving continuous excellence.
Discover through the sharing of experiences of Hindustan Petroleum, the work and insights on EI in building personal/team mastery- the spiritual foundation of Learning Organization.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC - CASE STUDY
Jitka Kloudova and Macit Koc
Description
Case studies are stories with an educational message. They have been used as parables and cautionary tales for centuries. Stories are their natural allies in the transmittal of the wisdom of the tribe from one generation to the next. The case study is one of several ways of teaching. The case study can help students with a systematic way of looking at events, collecting data, analyzing information, and reporting the results. A good case focuses on an interest-arousing issue. Malcolm McNair has written, "For the case to be a real living thing and for the student to forget that it's artificial, there must be drama, there must be suspense.....a case must have an issue." Case studies have been used in varied investigations, particularly in sociological studies, but increasingly, in instruction. The following case study about ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC shows the students how political orientation can change economic develop in country. Case study can help student comprehend different economic cultural in another country.

73 Organizational Culture as Tacit Knowledge in Action - based on a Case Study at Austrian Bioenergy Centre
Hanna Mandl, Anita Frank and Rosemarie Pippan
Description
What kind of tacit knowledge do we gain when we try to understand the culture of an organization? In what ways is organizational culture to be viewed as tacit knowledge that determines and shapes strategies, actions, and successes of a company? How can shared tacit knowledge shape the ways a company learns and brings forth its own future? These questions are at the core of this workshop. In this workshop we will share how we planned and conducted our investigation into the culture of the high-tech start-up company ABC - Austrian Bioenergy Centre. We will present the theoretical premises we used as guidelines for our investigation. Furthermore, we will discuss the intention of our investigation and what the area manager of ABC hoped to gain from our investigation. We will describe our visit to ABC, how we prepared our interviews with employees, how we gathered and reflected information, what we learned, and how we conveyed our observations back to the company. We will report on the feedback of the manager of ABC, what insights he gained, and what impact this process had on the further development of ABC. In the latter part of the workshop we will invite participants to share their own thoughts and experiences, and generate questions and a dialogue about organizational culture and the use of tacit knowledge.

The Body and Conversation Café
Pierre Goirand and Stephen Meng
Description
The Body and Conversation Café, in connection with the BoCo project (Research on Body and Collective Intelligence) is an experimental World Café using body (movement, voice and rhythm) along with conversation. Inspired by the question: "How can we involve the body to enrich the way we connect with each other and explore the questions that matter to us?" This workshop is based on the perceptions that: Lawsof the body run across cultures and connect us to our common humanity. Socially and creatively integrating the body in the way we meet and work, can promote inclusiveness, enhance exchange, and bridge divides where and when people gather. Engaging the body in our reflection and our conversation can add to the way the SoL community engages collective intelligence to address today's challenging social issues. This café will offer participants an opportunity to: experience simple ways to involve the body in work and conversational settings meet and connect with other participants in a direct, rich and enjoyable way share feelings, questions and insights that will be most present for them at the time of the conference meet and collaborate with researchers and practitioners and contribute to the BoCo project This workshop is designed and facilitated by a multicultural trio coming from cultures having different traditions in relation to the Body.

Saudi Aramco's Global HR Initiatives
Patrick Carmichael
Description
Saudi Aramco's strategic move into Asia has opened vast new energy markets set to grow faster than Europe and the Americas over the next two decades, if not longer. It has also exposed us to new ways of doing business, new takes on corporate governance, and cross-cultural realities that impact communications, business meetings and negotiations. In response to these challenges, Aramco's Refining, Marketing, & International business line is sponsoring a number of new programs aimed to equip our employees with the skills to be successful domestically and internationally. This presentation will review the Expatriate Assignment Appraisal process designed to assess global readiness; the new Working Globally program developed to provide participants a jump start on working internationally; the online GlobeSmart tool that provides users with valuable economic, political and cultural information on 50 countries worldwide; cross-cultural team-building and coaching interventions being provided to Saudi Arab and Japanese managers at PetroRabigh; and the new Asia Business & Culture Program designed to create shared knowledge of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures and history, self-awareness of personal cultural preferences and how they differ from general profiles for Asia, and an understanding of how culture shapes local business practices. For the Asia Business & Culture Program, workshop participants will be called upon to assist in the development of reflection exercises or activities as part of the new design for the 2008 session. In the pilot session of this program it was found that our employees had difficulty "switching gears" from one country and culture to another in such a concentrated program. We, as a group, will work in teams to develop new components to deal with this issue.

Sustainable Profitability - a new business model for change
Tara Kimbrell Cole
Description
As the countdown to the catastrophic consequences of industrialized and industrializing countries' abuse of natural resources accelerates, the urgency to widen the circle of engagement exponentially intensifies. The journey of /through the U will be led by the few. Donah Zohar proposes in "Spiritual Capitalism" that 2-5 % "Knights" (paradigm shifting servant leaders) combined with 10% "Masters" could deliver a leadership profile able to change the motivational level to one with a sufficient degree of spiritual capital to shift the culture. Motivated by mastery, Masters, receptive to paradigm shifts fostered by Knights, deliver the infrastructures, systems and relationships that could deliver a sustainable capitalism. Since many business leaders and consultants continue to view sustainability as a corporate social responsibility issue, there is a clear need to deepen the understanding of the business opportunity in this strategic area to sustain-ably capitalize on the unprecedented value migration underway. As we are mired in a culture, which ever more increasingly is driven by financial delivery systems and events to the exclusion of all other forms of value, can shifting the emphasis to Sustainable Profitability present an entry point through which a wider community may be attracted to deepen their understanding of the new business model and opportunity? The process of fully grasping The Hart Milstein "Sustainable Value Framework" and "Sustainable Value Portfolio" demands a deepening of understanding of the revolutionary challenges which must be addressed. Can this process attract the Masters needed to accelerate the transformation required? What is the relationship and interplay between the "Theory U" and the "Sustainable Value Portfolio"? How can this relationship be utilized to accelerate the process of understanding and engagement? The "Sustainable Value Portfolio" appears to be the business model that follows or emerges from the "Theory U". Could the process of understanding "Sustainable Value Portfolio" catalyze a "U" journey? Does the "Sustainable Value Portfolio" provide a framework for the dialogue between the knights and the Masters? How can this dialogue be facilitated? The session would be structured as a facilitated exploratory dialogue based on a hybrid process of consultation and coaching. Depending on the level of familiarity/expertise with the "Theory U" and the "Sustainable Value Portfolio" the session would be adapted (feedback needed). For example, if the majority of attendees have organizational development backgrounds/experience with and knowledge of the theory U, then the presentation would include a PowerPoint on the business modeling of the "Sustainable Value Portfolio", making the business case. This could be followed by facilitated dialogue exploring the relationship with the "Theory U". A further objective is to facilitate the `digesting' and synthesizing of information, concepts and models between the OD channel and the business channel.

Ghana Responsible Mining Alliance: A Corporate Citizen Model for Sustainable Community Development and Responsible Industry
Elizabeth Randolph, Rebecca Gadell and Chris Anderson
Description
CONTEXT The Ghana Responsible Mining Alliance concurrent session introduces a new model for building cooperation between global industries and the "host" communities of developing countries where they are doing business. The Alliance forges a partnership between the mining companies, new corporate citizens, and local government, traditional leaders, community based organizations and citizens to ensure that Asutifi and Wassa West communities of Ghana are stronger, not weaker, because they are homes to gold mining and major mining companies and to promote responsible mining practices. The Ghana Responsible Mining Alliance model provides a workable alternative to the conventional dynamic. It is common for global corporations entering communities in the developing world to be pressured to create, essentially, parallel governance structures and systems that can compete with local governance systems. We need to think beyond this and work closely and at length with communities to see what their priorities are and who can contribute what. What are the various roles and responsibilities for all in a setting where you have fledgling local governments, rural poor and a large, well-off industrial operation that springs up seemingly out of nowhere with apparently unlimited resources? - Dr. Chris Anderson, Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd., Director of Corporate and External Relations Collective thinking about alternatives to the status quo have led to the development of this "corporate citizen model," but there is a lot to be learned about the viability of this model across diverse governments, cultures, and sectors. The principal aim of this session is to explore the model within the context of this diversity through the experiences of session participants. OBJECTIVES AND APPROACH of this session are:

Briefly, introduce the Ghana Responsible Mining Alliance and share what we have learned to date
Draw on the experience of the audience to learn more about the dynamics of new industry and sustainable community development... in rich as well as resource poor communities; in different countries, different cultures; and across sectors.
Collectively, develop illustrative adaptations of the model that apply to the diverse experiences of the audience; something to "take home" from the session.

Research

HUMAN AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH VALUES
Concepción Yaniz
Description
Achieving the actual influence and realization of important social values, such as equity, dialogue, interdependence and diversity-based collaboration, on people, organizations and societies means a transit from the basics to the most noble referents, through intermediate values. The Institute of Education Sciences (ICE) of Deusto University has been participating in some research and projects to promote values development as a part of university learning and a comprehensive education. The approach that we present here allows an intentional and practical intervention on values, trying not to consider them only as some great ideals not much related to daily behaviour. This model and work methodology consider values development following phases and stages, linked to with different world views. Every world view reflects one different way of understanding reality and to position in life. It makes it possible to identify the skills and learning necessary to help to achieve desirable values. (Hall, 1994) . In the same way it gives guidelines about leadership and organizational change. When people (students and faculty for example) and organizations (like universities) are explicitly aware of their values, the knowledge creation enhances and it changes from data and information to understanding and wisdom. The ICE has designed a procedure and resources to · Get to know the values underlying the behaviours of people, teams and organizations. · Interpret the results comparing them with desirable values profile. · Establish some actions to improve. · Support and mentor the process to achieve their own purposes and goals. We will explain our experience with students and faculties. We researched longitudinally about 500 students' values profiles to see their evolution and progress throughout their university period. The results of this research and the application of the suggested methodology involve important implications to human and organizational development. In the course of the session we will discuss and reflect together on applications of this model for SoL community members.

Weaving the magic carpet: leveraging network intelligence for profound innovation
Petra Wagner and Doris Wilhelmer
Description
Profound innovations may be invaluable assets for the future well-being of society in a globalizing world. They are also vital for organizations embedded in multi-national as well as multi-cultural environments are increasingly facing the challenge of leveraging the diversity of its members. They can be successful if they learn how to tap the collective intelligence of networks. Do they need a magic flying carpet? We will start "weaving" the magic carpet by taking insights from network theory and social systems theory to show why "true" networks may be `governed' by self-organization, not `managed' by control and command. Yet, the carpet will "learn to fly" by linking theory with action. Systemic constellations as a social simulation will be presented as a powerful process to make the invisible potential to help the network see itself and thus leverage its intelligence for profound innovation. Comment: This paper is linked to the proposed workshop where we will focus on the method by "Flying the Magic Carpet" which will be weaved here.

Learning from Large Scale Interventions: A research lab
Tonnie van der Zouwen
Description
Learning from Large Scale Interventions Improving the engagement of stakeholders for learning across boundaries (Short description) Large Scale Interventions (or Whole Systems Change or Whole Systems Work) form an approach in which stakeholders are engaged in a collective process of change and learning, to address challenging issues. A large diversity of methods (e.g. Future Search, Search Conference, Open Space, Real Time Strategic Change, World Café) is used to work with "the whole system in the room". Those methods form the Large Group Interventions family. This system approach shows high potential in realizing learning across organizations, sectors and cultures. But success for the longer term is not guaranteed. This lab is part of the preliminary phase of a research project of the Department of Organization Studies of Tilburg University in the Netherlands. The research has the form of an iterative field study and aims at gaining more insight in the sustainable effects, conditions and working elements of participative change with Large Scale Interventions (LSI). All professionals who have experience with methods that engage the whole system for change or development are invited to join this lab. Questions we will explore are:

What are your experiences with sustainable effects of LSI?
What do we have to look for? What do you consider valid measures/observables for sustainable effects, e.g. collective learning? What questions should we ask in our interviews and case studies?
How can we improve the use of LSI in "Bridging the Gulf"?

The lab is highly interactive. After sharing our knowledge and insights the lab will result in a large creative treasury map for further journeys in this challenging field. Participants will receive the report of the lab as soon as possible. If you are interested in the next steps of the field study, or want to participate (in whatever way), you can sign in for further actions on the spot, or contact me after the session. Hope to meet you in this lab, Tonnie van der Zouwen info@tonnievanderzouwen.nl

Applying System Dynamics-based Tools to Promoting Cross-sector Dialogue and Mainstream Sustainability Issues
Hans Herren, Weishuang Qu, Matteo Pedericini and Andrea Bassi
Description
Millennium Institute (MI) has developed a system dynamics-based scenario-playing tool used to manage and understand complex systems, with particular application to issues of sustainable development. The tool, the Threshold 21 (T21) model, is an integrated analytical framework that encompasses the economy, society, and environment. It is being used in both developing and developed countries to examine current global challenges from global warming and climate change, to economic growth and poverty reduction. The model has been customized for over 20 countries in all regions of the world to address the issues that are most pressing to them. One of the model's key features is its capability to harness the collective knowledge of diverse stakeholders to promote dialogue and learning among and between them and reveal the long term impact of decisions, thereby helping them to collectively make better, more informed decisions that will ultimately promote sustainability. The presentation will share MI's experience in the following key areas:

Developing and applying system dynamics-based models in countries and organizations;
Bridging the divide among stakeholders across multiple sectors of society to dialogue and find common solutions to national and organizational challenges using a systems approach;
Facilitating learning and institutionalizing systems thinking as a central element in the way institutions address sustainability challenges.

Developing Generative Change Leaders across Sectors: an Exploration of Integral Approaches
Alain Gauthier
Description
The central focus of the workshop is to engage participants in a collective inquiry on the optimal conditions for developing the capability of change leaders to address - across sectors - some of the most fundamental and intractable issues our society faces today (e.g. poverty, malnutrition, social inequity, environmental degradation). The approach would be to first share the key results of a nine-month field research project I am now conducting within the Generative Change Community and the Global Leadership Network. This project's purpose is to identify and connect in a learning community the directors of leading-edge programs in the world which effectively integrate practices of personal, interpersonal and societal transformation - in order to develop the capability of change leaders to work jointly across sectors, in both developing and industrialized countries. The participants would then be invited to share their own experience of capability building in this domain and to reflect together on how to best meet both local and global collective leadership development needs in the future. As a result of this workshop, participants would:

Deepen their understanding of the conditions in which leaders can best develop their ability to effectively collaborate across sectors, and how change practitioners (i.e. educators, facilitators, consultants, coaches) can help them develop these capabilities
Identify some characteristics and learning practices that are shared by some of the most generative co-leadership development programs around the world
Become more aware of the degree of personal maturity and of the competencies required to design and lead such capability-building programs
Connect with other change practitioners and program developers who share similar interests and might want to learn from each other and collaborate in the future.

The workshop would be particularly recommended for change practitioners and leaders who have a strong interest in developing capability for societal learning and change - through a deep integration of inner work practices, multi-stakeholder dialogues, and society-wide systems approaches. As discussed in the chapter I wrote for the collective book "Leadership is Global" - based on my experience in several countries - developing co-leadership across sectors offers an exceptional opportunity to accelerate individual leaders' development by addressing collectively some of the most challenging issues of our time.

OpenFutures: Creating environments where Innovation Can Emerge
Hank Kune, Edwin Kuil and Ton Van der Wiel
Description
How can we create workplace environments conducive to collaboration, creativity and communication - effective environments where diverse groups of users can engage in open innovation, learn from the past and the future, and return to the present to prototype innovative solutions to issues that matter to them? Future centers are places where this happens. They are facilitated user-centred collaborative working environments that help organisations prepare for the future in a proactive and systematic way. They are used by government organisations to develop and test citizen-centred, future-proof policy options with broad acceptance by stakeholders. They help businesses to increase customer-driven, user-centred innovation. They have proven effective at bridging divides across sectors, countries and cultures. The Future Centre approach to open innovation has been experienced for up to a decade in various countries. A variety of implementation models have emerged, each with the special flavour of the culture in which it operates. This workshop addresses recent research about creating these empowering innovation environments. Participants will be given an overview of lessons learned, and invited to engage in a discussion of what empowers people in working environments. Participants will be encouraged to provide their own answers to questions about how to create environments where innovation can emerge, and to test these in the mirror of international best practice. OpenFutures, a European Commission project, has explored Future Centers and other future-oriented collaborative working environments in eight different countries, looking at best practice from four perspectives: Organisational, Methodological, Physical and Technological. Results from this project are being packaged in an accessible open source "operating system", a practical guide and resource for working with FC concepts, intended for people working in existing centres, and for people who want to introduce a more systematic user-centred future orientation to their organisations through these concepts. OpenFutures results form the basis from which workshop participants will become aware of emerging opportunities in this field, identify areas for practical collaboration, and gain practical insights about how to make their own innovation workspaces more effective in using collective intelligence to build sustainable solutions to both local and global challenges.

Sustainability - the consultants role in stimulating radical innovation and facilitating profound change
Lars Wang
Description
The point of departure for the presentation is the pressing need for change toward sustainability and the need for an all time high innovation effort for sustainability. This means a need to address the fundamentals mechanism driving economic development. An indicator of this fundamental dynamics is that by most analytics expected a sharp rise in global energy consumption and accompanying increase in the emission of climate gases. This is in sharp contrast to the frenetic efforts to reach international agreements for reducing the emissions. There will therefore be focus on the need for going beyond the traditional approaches to problem solving. Popular, but traditional and probably insufficient concept in this respect is eco-efficiency, trading schemes based on cost/benefit approaches and developing CSR strategies. The need for reframing the sustainability challenged will be addressed based on 12 years of experience with working with sustainability, organizational and urban development as a professional consultant. The roots of modernity will be discussed in order to seek points of leverage for more radical learning and change. Some classic contributions will also be used such as Faust II by Goethe. The discussion will then move on to how professional consultants within the SoL community can develop innovation approaches and networking which can stimulate more profound and innovate change processes. This is also seen from a learning perspective and the need for all of us to grasp our own prejudices and conceptions of what is a good life. The session will finally have a very operational approach and discussing practical way participants can form network, exchange ideas, develop collaboration for fundamental strategies for sustainability. The session will finally be aimed at forging some agreement among participant who wants to be part of the solution and those of us who want also be consultants for the common good.

Theory ∞: Co-transform between excellence and innovation into sustainability
Kingkong Lin
Description
Theory ∞ Co-transform between excellence and innovation into sustainability There are two kinds of power in the universal. One pulls us to the perfect future state and leads us to get excellence; the other pushes us from the imperfect current state and leads us to innovation. The competition between those two powers is quite huge. They fight for the resource and struggle with their core value. The world finally divided into two separated worldview. One focuses the perfect future, the other focus the imperfect present. Each power has its virtue and viciousness. How to bridge the chasm between them is a big question for all people in the world. How to rotate around excellence and innovation to sustainability is another big question to all wisdom people. This paper will introduce theory ∞. And then, First example, use this model to explain the development of HON HAI Technology Group in economic area. Second example, use this model to find a new possibility in Taiwan party politics nowadays. Third example, use this model to create a reciprocal and sustainable society in future.

How to Change the World? The Role of Individual in a Systemic World?
Ville Keranen and Tatu Tuohimetsa
Description
Through our own stories and with help of a very interactive approach we want to bring the discussion and dialogue to a more concrete level when it comes to changing the world. "We have to be the change we want to see in the world. It demands from us courage and stubbornness." That is Gandhi's advice to us but we tend to talk on a very abstract level. Some one has said "One stupid guy who walks will get further than five intellectuals who only talk." Our approach will be very interactive and pro-dialogue among participants. Our objective is to get together and find ways how we, as individuals part of the SoL Community can make a difference in our own lives and in our organizations.

Self-organizing Lessons from "Hastily Formed Networks"
Jeff Clanon
Description
Hastily Formed Networks (HFNs) are a form of organization that is suited to responding to urgent needs in crisis situations. The characteristics of successful HFNs--extraordinary performance in accomplishing difficult tasks and developing capabilities for rapidly learning together--are desirable in many organizational settings. This workshop will engage participants in thinking about and learning from experiences where self-organizing leads to swift and effective action. Many of these situations occur in response to man-made or natural disasters, which create conditions where people cannot depend upon an existing organization nor rely on existing or traditional roles and responsibilities for coordinating collective action. HFN examples illustrate how self-organizing, collective abilities rapidly bridge cultural and social divides, a theme of the SoL Global Forum. What enable HFNs are rapidly developed relationships, shifting forms of leadership, and a basic communication infrastructure that mobilizes action across boundaries without central authority. The HFN enabling factors call into question many people's expectations for individual corporations, and instead focus on individuals working across sets of organizations. As such, the HFN experiences provide insights for building global community from networks of people across corporations. This session is designed to benefit leaders, managers, and coaches interested in new organizational forms, methods and processes for learning and performing. If you are working in an organization with experience in learning, improvement and change, and will be active in guiding future improvement and change initiatives, this workshop is an ideal learning opportunity. This discussion will also benefit individuals working in environments that require a high-degree of adaptive flexibility, where the context within which they work is constantly changing and/or adapting to new circumstances / membership.

THE NEW PATH OF ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH PAPER: OD WITHIN MICRO, SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZED ENTERPRISES
Emilia LENGHEL
Description
How can be managed now the organizations as complex evolving systems part of the increasingly complex world, in order to enable them to co-evolve within the present social ecosystem? How can be encouraged the exploration, development and exploitation of their real potential? How can be enhanced their ability to adapt and self-renew? Which are the external and internal organizational factors which can generate both systems change and innovation? In order to manage complexity it is necessary for the organizations to be able to come to a decision in real time, considering the dynamic of both the system and the functions composing it. These aspects impose more than ever the implementation to a larger scale of a market research within the European Union MSMEs, in order to define how the learning and organizational development processes are taking place. The market research implemented already in Romania and under development in France and other EU countries is trying to answer to all the previous questions and has a long term aim to identify the scientific models and methodology adapted to the contemporary need for OD, so necessary to enable the MSMEs to manage the increasing economic complexity and improve their effectiveness within the context of the new economy.