Leading Change in Uncertain Times

Program Overview

The Leading Change in Uncertain Times Program runs from Fall 2023 through Fall 2024 and has been designed to build a strong peer-learning environment for mutually supportive organizational leaders, facilitators and consultants. It includes four residential retreats, online video sessions, triads and coaching on participants’ change projects. Following is a high-level description of what you can expect to learn in this program. The program moves through the Seven Challenges of Change, shown below. Participants will connect experientially with field tested and emerging practices and methods, and integrate them into practice through real change projects. Because these projects will span a variety of organization-development needs, such as organizational rightsizing, cross-departmental collaboration, and work process design, participants will experience and learn many organizational approaches. The thematic focus for each season and high-level takeaways are shown in the drop downs for each season below.

   Who Should Attend? 

• Leaders guiding their organizations through transformational change.

• Organizational consultants growing their capability to support systemic change.

• Facilitators who are moving into process consulting.

• Managers looking for ways of working with inner and outer aspects of change in teams and organizations.

• Leadership coaches wanting to learn about organization change.

 

   Key Program Elements

• Four five-day, in-person cohort retreat sessions at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos, CA.

• One three-day online retreat.

• Twelve virtual half-day sessions in between retreats.

• An exclusive online platform for cohort networking and mutual support.

• Learning and practice through participant change projects.

• Access to The Grove library of books, materials, and frameworks for self-paced learning.

• Coaching on projects and personal development from Gisela and David.

• Certificate of completion.

    Key Benefits

• Learn to design, lead, facilitate and support transformational processes across all phases of systemic change. 

• Explore and practice the latest dialogic, visual and collaborative methods.

• Gain skills in facilitation, teaming, strategic consulting and leading change in larger systems, in online, hybrid and in-person settings. 

• Form deep cohort relationships and understanding of key material in retreat sessions.

• Explore virtual practice and other methods through triad work and self-paced learning.

• Projects grounded in real application settings.

Both Gisela and David are experienced practitioners of learning in communities of practice that work together over longer periods of time. They are also both experienced in applying their methods and tools in virtual and face-to-face settings. Appreciate that your experience will also be shaped by the project you undertake, and your own commitment to find your own voice and capability in the midst of rich exposure to the best methods they have gleaned from a combined 70 years of consulting experience.

Why Now?

When Gisela and David began working together 10 years ago by combining visual and dialogic practice, they broke new ground. They also integrated the disciplines of change work and use of self. This is why this program will balance specific methods and techniques in change leadership and facilitation with development of your personhood as a practitioner and leader of change. Both Gisela and David are committed to helping support an inclusive, reciprocal, and holistic approach to organizational work. 

Why should you participate? Gisela and David are aware that change leadership is no longer happening in a “business as usual” context. Increasingly complex waves of social, technical, environmental, economic, and political change are upon us. If you share in the awareness of the critical nature of our present times, the need for conscious action, and the importance of developing yourself as a next-generation change leader, then the Leading Change Program may be for you.

Program Resources

The Grove has developed an integrated set of process leadership tools that build on each other. These capabilities are supported by carefully designed conceptual models, leader guides and visual templates. In addition to the key resources below, participants will have full access to Grove best practices in facilitation, teaming, strategy and change.

Leading Change Faculty 

Gisela Wendling

Vice-President of Global Learning at The Grove and The GLEN

Gisela Wendling, Ph.D., is The Grove's vice-president of global learning, a senior consultant and co-author (with David Sibbet) of Visual Consulting: Designing & Leading Change. Her expertise is based on 30 years of working and consulting with a wide range of private and public organizations. Pairing a systems perspective with process-oriented and dialogic approaches, Gisela creates unique opportunities for interactive, content-rich and transformative change for organizations. As a coach, Gisela works with senior executives wishing to develop their competence as transformational leaders. She received a doctorate from the School of Human and Organization Development at Fielding Graduate University and for several years directed the masters program in OD at Sonoma State University. For more information, see giselawendling.com.

David Sibbet

Founder and CEO of The Grove

David Sibbet has been an organizational consultant and information designer since 1977. He is the author of John Wiley & Sons’ four-volume Visual Facilitation Series as well as many of The Grove’s leading-edge group-process tools and models for facilitation, team leadership and organizational transformation. David is a master facilitator of large-scale group processes, strategic visioning and creative, future-oriented symposia. He frequently lends his coaching and design expertise to Grove project teams. His practice is informed by eight years of public-affairs leadership development with the Coro Northern California Center for Civic Leadership. He holds a master's degree from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a B.A. in literature from Occidental College. For more information, see davidsibbet.com.

Venue

The retreats will be at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos, CA. Participants will be able to choose individual or shared rooms. The sessions will be held in a large rotunda with a 180-degree view of the San Francisco Bay. A nearby dining room serves both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, buffet style. The grounds are spacious and quiet, supporting a contemplative atmosphere. There is access to wifi throughout the campus.