THE FLOW OF GOOD WORK

Today I launch facilitation of a year-long leadership and network development process for young climate leaders (between 25 and 40 years of age). The process will be anchored by three intensive retreats between now and March 2017. The work aims to build leadership capacity and support the development of trust and authentic collaborative relationships among leaders of this most important of movements.

This sort of year-long development process, with multiple touch points taking place over time, is my preferred method for leadership and network development. I find it to be truly transformational work, it changes lives and has lasting impact. It was during the fall of 2007 that I first participated in a year-long process. Rockwood’s Leading from the Inside Out Fellowship, facilitated by Robert Gass, who would become a most important mentor. I knew right away that this was the work I was here to do.

What is special about the arch of this work is that today’s retreat, the first in this year-long that I’m facilitating, is taking place at the Essex Retreat and Conference Center, which is exactly where that Robert Gass year-long began.

Last week I facilitated the annual retreat of the Green Group, a gathering of 30 CEO’s of the nation’s environmental movement. Two of the leaders present had been participants in the last cohort of the young climate leaders two years ago, which I was also privileged to facilitate. They both moved into their senior positions after completing our year-long. I could see the way they wielded their skills and relationship. Another one of the CEO’s present was a participant in that first year-long I was a part of almost ten years ago, our relationship is still strong.

Good work flows over time.

I find myself in the middle of a powerful developmental arch. Today I get to launch a profound process with a special group of people. Next week I get to be a participant in the Strozzi Institute’s School of Embodied Leadership. The men’s workshop is billed as warrior training, we are on from 7AM to 9PM everyday, and I hear it is one of the best leadership programs out there. I get to grow and I get to learn practices that I will certainly bring back into my work.

Good work flows over time. We learn, we give. We give, we learn.

I will immediately follow the intensive training with two nights of ritual and ceremony with my shaman. I am bringing a group of people to this work. We will connect to Self, to earth, and to each other in a truly visionary journey. We are following in the footsteps of our ancestors.

To do good work you must tend to your inner Self.

As Bill O’Brien once said to Otto Scharmer “the success of an intervention is directly proportional to the interior condition of the intervener.”

I will return from ceremony to spend time with my family, integrate and ground the lessons learned and prepare to hold the 2nd ever Evolutionary Leadership Workshop after a 10 day break. This workshop is my heart project. It is the only work that I don’t do for a client and so it is the place to which I bring my full creative freedom. We are doubling the number of participants this year and I trust it will be just as amazing as last year’s launch.

From the intimacy of the Evolutionary Leadership Workshop I will shift my energy to facilitate 100 participants in Hollyhock’s beautiful Social Change Institute, another outpouring of energy in service of justice and the world that we must build.

Good work flows over time. There are arches to following your purpose. Tune in. Give. Receive. Trust. Give it your all. Experience Grace.