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September 2008 Newsletter

Greeting

Whether your summer is turning to fall or your winter to spring, this eFlash brings you the latest news from PLSeminars. We hope you find within it ideas and information of interest, and opportunities that enrich your lives and the work you do in the world.

In this feature:

Cheers,

Personal Leadership Arrives at the World Bank
in Washington DC!

“PL engages ambiguity at the World Bank”

The Family Associations of the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter American Development Bank hosted a Symposium on Career Growth on May 6, 2008. PLSeminars Founder Sheila Ramsey presented the opening keynote entitled “Turning the Pages One by One: Engaging the Ambiguity of Each Chapter in Your Life of Transition.”

This topic is of course intrinsic to the life of a World Bank spouse, where ambiguity is a constant because of his or her partner’s career. Their recurring questions illustrate wide-ranging concerns, all of which are full of ambiguity:

Sheila offered a case study intended to resonate with the audience, illustrating the Personal Leadership practices and emphasizing the power of naming and claiming not-knowing as an intentional experience. “We can all choose our relationship to ambiguity, an experience that is inherent in any creative life.
We may avoid, deny, tolerate OR engage. With the choice to engage arises possibility, option and opportunity for learning.”

After the presentation, feedback was offered through three quite different unsolicited interactions. In one, the invitation for PLSeminars to offer a session at the upcoming Work Bank Learning Week was confirmed (read more about this below). In a second, an impromptu PL coaching session with a participant who had attended the keynote session ended with a shift from tears to smiling eyes and a sense of new direction. Lastly, a participant asked Sheila a quick question: “So, were you talking about being present?” Once again, it is gratifying to notice how PL speaks to so many in different and yet just the right ways.

“PL introduces new leadership ideas at the World Bank”

The World Bank held its annual “Employee Learning Week” in Washington DC from June 9-13, 2008. Thanks to an initial contact made by Nina Merrens, a PL Seminars Facilitator-in-Training who has consulted in the past for the World Bank, PLSeminars was invited to participate. We asked Senior Facilitator Rita Wuebbeler to design and present a two-hour workshop on the 11th for thirty World Bank OD (organizational development) and training specialists from 20 different cultures. The purpose was to introduce them to the principles and practices of Personal Leadership.

Rita began by explaining the foundations of Personal Leadership and illustrating the two principles and six practices. As you see in the photos, a graphic facilitator, Karen Nash James from Nashville TN, made fabulous visual representations of Rita’s key points.

When presenting Personal Leadership in such a short timeframe, there is always a question of where to place the emphasis, where to go deeper after an overall introduction; for this event, Rita decided to focus on the process of creating a Personal Leadership ‘being’ vision: what is our commitment for how we want to be in the world, as World Bank employees and as professionals leading in turbulent times.

Rita thus invited participants to turn their attention towards invoking their ‘highest and best,’ and led them through a simple but highly effective process for articulating a vision statement. As they started writing their statements, the energy in the room became increasingly vibrant. Personal Leadership magic began to happen! One participant, who had originally been reluctant to participate in the activity, shared that he had ‘chicken skin’, i.e., goose bumps, when he wrote his vision. The energy in the training room became electric as more and more of the participants decided to read their visions out loud, sharing them with the others in the room.

The response Personal Leadership evoked in many of the participants was astounding: people stayed long after the program ended to share their experiences with one another. They approached Rita with questions and great feedback. One participant shared that this was the best she had heard in terms of ‘new leadership thought’ in a long time. Let’s hope that Personal Leadership gets to come back for another visit at the World Bank!


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Feature Interview: Jan O’Brien

Jan O’Brien has been practicing Personal Leadership since 2002. From the very beginning, she saw the potential in Personal Leadership’s principles and practices not only for herself but for her clients. Indeed, it is thanks to Jan that PLSeminars first developed a Training of Facilitators protocol and training seminar – she asked us what the next step would be should she want to take Personal Leadership to her clients, and so we came up with an answer. There are now twenty-one Senior Facilitators or Facilitators-in-Training working with Personal Leadership around the world! Jan’s current leading-edge with Personal Leadership is taking her to Bali, Indonesia in 2009.

Personal Leadership Seminars (PLS): Please tell us about your journey into practicing Personal Leadership – how did you get started?
Jan O’Brien (JO’B): I attended a session on Personal Leadership facilitated by Barbara (Schaetti) and Gordon (Watanabe) at the SIETAR USA (Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research USA) conference in Portland in November 2002.

PLS: What first caught your attention about Personal Leadership?
JO’B: Meeting Barbara and Gordon and exploring the principles and practices left me totally awestruck and inspired. The whole idea of a practice for translating the commitments of my field into action was enormously profound. I still remember the session room and exactly where I was sitting, even after more than six years!

PLS: What is it about practicing Personal Leadership that keeps you practicing?
JO’B: The practice of Personal Leadership has become a way of life for me; a means to “check in” with my deepest wisdom by using the principles and practices and the Critical Moment Dialogue. In addition, my Personal Leadership vision serves to anchor me and inspire me – it’s as if I have a “best friend” with me wherever I go.

PLS: When did you decide to become recognized as a PLSeminars facilitator, and why?
JO’B: I attended my first Foundation seminar “Personal Leadership: Making a World of Difference” in Crestone, Colorado in 2003. My enthusiasm for Personal Leadership increased and my commitment to my own practice deepened even further; it was influencing my life, both personally and professionally, in a profoundly positive way.

I asked Sheila (Ramsey), Barbara and Gordon if they had ever considered offering a training of facilitators program. When it was developed and announced, I knew immediately and intuitively that facilitating Personal Leadership was part of my professional path. I feel inspired to share this practice with others.

PLS: In what ways and for whom have you facilitated Personal Leadership programs?
JO’B: My first ever seminar was co-facilitating with Sheila and Rita (Wuebbeler) in Atlanta Georgia for about 10 of Rita’s close friends and colleagues; it was a great first experience! People from that seminar still meet periodically with Rita in what they call a Personal Leadership “Circle” – a community of practice.

Since then I’ve facilitated seminars with Personal Leadership as the core program on topics like “Navigating Difference” and “Building an Effective Team” for corporate management groups, for university departments, and as part of an executive coaching certification. I also facilitate Personal Leadership in the context of the individual coaching that I offer, and often weave the principles and practices into the expatriate pre-departure trainings that I conduct.

PLS: What do you most enjoy about introducing the practice of Personal Leadership to others?
JO’B: I like the transformation that takes place in the moment, and the longer-term skill building that I see. When people learn to check-in with their emotions, their physical reactions to a situation, their judgments, they develop a new relationship to their experience: more spacious and free. I worked with a woman once who was in great distress. She was grief stricken about a very difficult life experience that she was dealing with. She was completely stuck, going around in circles of humiliation and self-blame. In this case the transformation in the moment came through a stillness exercise using the breath as the main focus; after a period of breathing into and out of her heart center, she began to feel much better, lighter and happier and more peaceful. With that quality of experience in her body, we were then able to come up with some important action steps that she needs to take in order to empower herself during this very challenging time and to achieve the specific resolutions she is looking for.

PLS: Where in the world are you next taking
Personal Leadership?
JO’B: For some time now, I have been wanting to facilitate Personal Leadership in a beautiful location in order that the participants can “retreat” from their everyday lives and give themselves the precious gift of experiencing the principles and practices in a tranquil and inspirational environment. I had the opportunity earlier this year to facilitate a short Personal Leadership event for a group of young professionals who are members of the Ubud Rotoract in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. I found it very inspiring, and the location too. So I am going back to Bali next year! I will be teaching a five day Personal Leadership seminar in Ubud in April, 2009 through the Bali Institute for Global Renewal. This opportunity is a dream come true.

I would also like to find more opportunities to facilitate seminars in which a percentage of the participants’ fees could be used to sponsor additional complimentary seminars for those who would not otherwise be able to afford to attend. That was one of the things I enjoyed about the work with the young Indonesian Rotoract members earlier this year, that we found a way to bring Personal Leadership as a professional competency building methodology to people who might not typically have access.

PLS: What resource would you most recommend to others, and why; what makes it relevant to Personal Leadership practitioners?
JO’B: I would recommend a book called Leadership Sutras: A pilgrimage towards self-mastery by Debashis Chatterjee, (forward by Peter M. Senge). This book jumped off the shelves at me when I was in Chennai attending the SIETAR India conference. Chattejee’s focus is on the intersection of leadership and consciousness. The chapters include discussions on leadership and personal mastery, human values, and love, and “The Sacred Path of Leadership.” There are also wonderful quotes included by famous and spiritual leaders. Whenever I dip into this book I discover something new or profound, as if each page speaks a message that I need to hear at that given moment.

Author Note: To take your Personal Leadership understanding to the next level, read about our next ToF Seminar at Crestone, CO, USA in March 2009.

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Personal Leadership in GREAT Company

In May 2009, PLSeminars will offer a public Foundation seminar at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Founded in 1962, "Esalen represented a radically new approach to human development:...to develop awareness to one’s present flow of experience, to express this fully and accurately, and to listen to the feedback. The experiential workshops that grew out of these experiments became the nexus for the counter-culture movement of the 1960s as well as for the human potential movement in the US" that continues to this day.

Early leaders at Esalen included Carl Rogers, B.F Skinner, Virginia Satir, Buckminster Fuller, Ansel Adams, Gregory Bateson, Abraham Maslow, and Alan Watts.

Esalen now offers over 500 seminars a year; PLSeminars is overjoyed to be one of those seminars in 2009! It is an honor to have the opportunity to contribute to a place and a history that is so intergrated into the very core of Personal Leadership itself. We are especially appreciative of Nina Merrens, a PLSeminars Facilitator-in-Training, for introducing us to Esalen and paving the way. She will join Sheila and Gordon in co-facilitating the seminar. Nina will also participate with PLSeminars in the Visiting Scholars program at Esalen in November, when some combination of Sheila, Barbara and/or Gordon will work with Esalen staff in a week-long skill-building Personal Leadeship seminar.

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Personal Leadership Returns to the Solvay Group of Companies

In June 2007, Senior Facilitator Megumi Sugihara was invited by Senior Facilitator Rita Wuebbeler to present Personal Leadership to the leadership team of one of Rita’s corporate clients, Solvay Advance Polymers KK (Japan). The three day event, partially co-facilitated with leading interculturalist Muneo Yoshikawa, was a great success. Megumi returned to the company in October 2007 to train the rest of the employees.

Now PLSeminars-Japan, again in the person of Megumi and this time with interculturalist Kikue Yamamoto, is returning to the Solvay Group. They will introduce Personal Leadership to selected employees of Solvay Solexis KK and Solvay Seiyaku KK in October. It is the intention of Solvay President Shimozaki to make Personal Leadership a common language and practice among the Solvay associated companies in Japan. We wish Megumi, Kikue, and the participants a great event, rich with new learning and strengthened professional competence!

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Hindu Philosophy and Personal Leadership?

The methodology of Personal Leadership connects for people to many different spiritual traditions and professional disciplines. Kendra Carpenter and Vivek Saxena have written an article on the relationship between traditional Hindu philosophy and cross-cultural competency. You’ll see the strong connection in what they write to the principles and practices of Personal Leadership!

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Book Reviews

PLSeminars is proud to announce a stellar review of Making a world of difference. Personal Leadership: A methodology of two principles and six practices. Please see the review by Kate Berardo as it appeared in Dialogin, an online knowledge and learning community for intercultural business and management communication.

Order your own copy of the book, or consider buying one for a colleague or client!

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Personal Leadership Enters the World of Online Learning

People who would like to participate in a Foundations seminar on Personal Leadership are sometimes constrained by geography, timing, or life circumstance from joining a seminar in-person. If that is your situation too, we have something new for you: a ten-week Foundations Tele-Class! Using audio and desktop connections during each of the ten sessions, and an online discussion forum for connections in-between, you’ll co-create a rich and powerful experience to help you develop your Personal Leadership practice. The Foundations Tele-Class will be inaugurated as soon as we have a list of potential participants; please contact us to express your interest and to join the list.

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