Plenary Sessions

Deep Democracy Immersion
Tuesday, June 24
7:30 – 9:00 p.m.

A powerful method for aligning groups and resolving blockages to forward movement, Deep Democracy has been tested and refined in post-Apartheid South Africa and is now being practiced in corporate, community, and cross-sector contexts around the world. Myrna Lewis and associates will lead the entire program community in a Deep Democracy exercise, while explaining the principles at work.

Myrna Lewis is a South African consultant and social entrepreneur. She holds a masters in clinical psychology, has practiced as a social worker, and has been recognized as a teacher for her work with autistic children. She developed Deep Democracy together with her late husband Greg to assist businesses in South Africa in building a new paradigm of shared leadership and racial equity as apartheid was dissolving. Over the last 15 years, Myrna has trained hundreds of people in using the Deep Democracy method. It is practiced widely in business, community and public sector organizations; in the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, Israel, Russia and South Africa. Myrna works extensively consulting to businesses in South Africa and the UK and has been awarded an Ashoka Fellowship for her work bringing these skills to children in South African schools, and to HIV Counselors in the townships near Cape Town.

Engaging the Invisible Forces of Systemic Change: An Artistic Inquiry
Wednesday, June 25
1:30 – 3:00 p.m.

Drawing on the performing arts, Shambhala principles, and Social Presencing Theatre, a team of Shambhala Institute artists will use gesture, word, and sound to pay homage to the "deep world" of connection and magic that empowers our work as leaders. Barbara Bash, Steve Clorfeine, Jerry Granelli, Lanny Harrison, Arawana Hayashi, Tim Merry, and Wendy Morris are among the performing artists who will lead this improvisational performance and inquiry. Please see Creative Process for more information on these presenters.

Strategy at the Edge
Thursday, June 26
4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

What is the most effective way to influence complex systems? How do we bring together strategic intention with the flux of emergence? Each year the Institute features new ways of thinking and new, more powerful tools for collaborative, strategic action in conditions of complexity. In this plenary, Margaret Wheatley (author, Leadership and the New Science), Zaid Hassan (founding partner of Reos Partners and regular contributor to worldchanging.com), and Jim Gimian (co-author, The Rules of Victory: Strategies from The Art of War) report from the field with stories and reflections, as a catalyst for our own conversations.

For over twenty-five years Jim Gimian has taught seminars, corporate retreats, and leadership programs on how to apply effectively the strategies and principles of The Art of War in a wide range of contexts. Jim studied strategy with the Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa, who introduced the Shambhala teachings to the West. He is currently the publisher of the Shambhala Sun magazine and the co-director of the Denma Translation Group, which produced a critically acclaimed and best-selling translation of The Art of War. Jim is the co-author of The Rules of Victory: How to Transform Chaos and Conflict–Strategies from the Art of War (2008).

Zaid Hassan is a founding partner in Reos Partners LLP, a consultancy based in London, England. Previously, Zaid spent four years at Generon Consulting, where he worked on long-term projects that bring together business, civil society, government and communities to innovate within complex and difficult social situations. He has worked on projects involving sustainable food supply chains in North America and Europe, child malnutrition in India, and aboriginal relations in Canada. Prior to Generon, Zaid worked for Pioneers of Change, an international learning community of young people, aged 25-35, who have committed to systemic change.

Zaid has written on social change, democracy, politics, education, the global food system, and many other topics. He is a contributing author to the ground-breaking Worldchanging website and writes for Shikshantar: The People's Institute for Rethinking Development and Education in India.

Margaret Wheatley writes, teaches, and speaks about radically new practices and ideas for organizing in chaotic times. She is President emerita of The Berkana Institute, a charitable global foundation serving life-affirming leaders around the world. Her newest book, Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time, is a collection of her practice-focused writings, where she describes both the organizational and personal behaviors that bring her theories to life. Her classic book Leadership and the New Science has just been published in a revised and updated third edition, and now appears in 20 languages. Her other books are Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, and A Simpler Way (with Myron Kellner-Rogers). Her articles appear frequently in a wide variety of magazines and professional publications. See her website for her most recent articles and listing of seminars.