The Art of Creative Leadership
This past weekend, Peggy Jarrett and I, along with William Holt and Warren Kahn (all Senior Trainers for the More To Life Program) completed 3 months of an intensive course designed by Sophie Sabbage – the Art of Creative Leadership. It's been designed as an intervention for the More To Life Program, using Action Learning Projects as interventions in the program, as well as interventions in the lives of the participants as they journey through the experience of being on Action Learning Project teams.
Awesome! For everyone! As Sophie stated – it was a rocky and rich experience for all concerned. As a member of the US Board of Directors, it was my purview to "make it happen" here in the US. London was having their experience, pre-dating ours by a week. So we got the benefit of their experience. And I got to lead Phase 2 three times – once in Houston with our Saturday face-to-face, and again on Sunday with the virtual experience of those attending the 3 one-days from their far-away homes. Then again while I was in Spain, I worked with the Spanish team that did their first weekend in London.
Not only was this course a huge benefit to the More To Life Program in general, as well as very specifically, we also experimented with virtual attendance. As a US Board member, I really wanted the US leadership to be a part of and on board with this new slant on leadership – done the MTL way – leading our own lives in a way that honors the best in us, leading others in a way that honors the best in them, and leading within the context that surrounds us all.
Leslie Pierkowski and I thought it would be a good idea to explore virtual training – which meant that she, as the techie, would figure it out, which she did. I was amazed at the amount of equipment she brought together to make it happen. So there were the 3 of us – Leslie handling all the technology, Diana Makens (my support partner) handling the posting of documents, and a screen that looked like the Brady Bunch in front of me. While it's obviously much better to work with people face-to-face, virtual training is certainly worth exploring. And I loved being part of something new – the whole course was illuminating, and the virtual experiment was an adventure into the unknown. I feel grateful to be surrounded by so many gifted people.
PS The pic shows a bit of the set up in my living room – Leslie's in the back of the monitor facing me (except I was taking the pic).
