Learning Lab: Virtual Leadership in Uncertain Times with David Sibbet & Gisela Wendling

Overview

To address the growing need of leadership in a virtual setting, The Grove is offering a lab-type online course for organizational leaders, process leaders, and facilitators who want to be more impactful in virtual environments during times of uncertainty and rapid change. This workshop addresses critical aspects of dealing with uncertainty and offers practices that help turn crisis moments into transformational opportunities. This includes how to create virtual environments that reduce stress, strengthen relationships, support resourcefulness, and enable innovative response. The laboratory environment also provides opportunities for participants to consider shifts they need to make to be more adaptable during a time in which uncertainty is the dominant context.

This workshop is being led by Gisela Wendling, Ph.D., and David Sibbet, who bring more than seven decades of combined experience working with leaders to support organizational, social and environmental change. During the past six years, they have been incorporating virtual approaches to complement their project work. Also, as part of their work together, David and Gisela have been developing practices to support the self-efficacy of process leaders in times of transformative change.

The workshop is offered in three parts:

1. Session 1 focuses on activating engagement and how moving through crises can be supported as rites of passages, in which truly new insights and innovation can emerge.
2. Session 2 explores the art of virtual leading and how guiding metaphors and stories can provide real direction for learning and discovery when the path forward is unclear.
3. Session 3 focuses on moving from uncertainty to vision and action within and across organizations and communities.

The learning curve everyone is on right now is extraordinarily high. The need to support this increased learning among leaders is equally high as new territories of unprecedented crisis are being charted and leaders need to step up to lead in virtual environments and in new ways. The lab format will allow us to share best practices that The Grove has developed in its organization and community-change work and will provide ample opportunities to tap into the intelligence of participants. We will use robust and visually accessible online tools for a direct experience in learning and leading successfully in the virtual space.

This workshop is not intended to provide technical training. We are only assuming basic understanding of video conferencing.

 

Learning Outcomes:

Thriving in Uncertainty:

• Embrace the transformational opportunities at the heart of severe disruption.
• Learn a framework that helps you quickly understand the arc of change, assess where you are located on that arc and how to anticipate what is needed next.
• Tune into the predictable inner dynamics of being in a “liminal” in-between space.
• Catalyze collaboration during times of crisis applying the neuropsychology of collaboration.
• Connect to your north-star vision to identify and guide plans while the current context remains uncertain.
• Avoid “copy and pasting” the past, and shift into a true learning mode.
• Learn practices for listening, transparency, honesty, and other affirming qualities.
• Practice skills for self-grounding, “framing” opportunities, asking for help, and normalizing uncertainty.
• Learn practices for tapping collective intelligence in emergent spaces.

Practices for Leading Online:

• Use your voice and presence to project confidence in virtual environments.
• Use powerful visual and verbal metaphors to frame topics and guide activities.
• Guide generative conversations that support insight and alignment.
• Support big-picture, systemic ways of thinking.
• Initiate virtual visual visioning and planning activities.
• Understand the role of communication as a stabilizing force.
• Use basic online tools, such as Zoom web conferencing, Google Docs, and PowerPoint or Google Slides, to support a rich visual and interactive online environment.