Worldwork High Impact Leadership Seminar

How could I resist a weekend seminar that promised:
- Concepts and tools to understand and work with unpredictable, non-linear behaviors of teams and organizations.
- Inner work to re-discover vision and spark, independent of outer situation and support.
- Concepts and exercises to relate to team members, independent of their willingness to collaborate.
- Methods to collaborate with networks to unfold the impact that they can have on your leadership.

I had heard about the work of Max Schupbach from a former colleague so I was prepared to have an intense experience, and I did.

The content of the session was compelling, starting with the idea of a “second globalization,” in social relations and personal psychology, as a successor to the globalization of commerce. The seminar aimed to expand leaders’ self-awareness and effectiveness in working on a worldwide basis, and to equip them with tools to enable others to do likewise.

Max’s techniques fuse organization/leadership development with art and Jungian psychology. For example, to access a deeper sense of personal vision, one exercise required us to identify an historic, mythic or fairytale figure we could associate with our vision. We then had to make a hand gesture and a facial expression to express the essence of the figure. The next step was to scribble a picture to help us remember the creative, artistic expression. We then talked about how to develop the vision. What daring acts would help it grow? What aspects of our habitial behavior and self-identity would we need to drop or change in order to follow this vision? What dropping ritual could provide support in making personal change?

This work was done in pairs. The paired work allowed each person to get a significant amount of "air time" in practicing the techniques as a facilitator and experiencing them in an applied way. The level of personal discovery was quite high, exceeding my expectations for the seminar.

Max facilitates processes like this with corporate clients, public agencies, and grassroots community-based organizations. Is my organization ready for this kind of approach?