Dear Friends,
Welcome to my new blog “Collaborative Intelligence”.
It’s purpose is twofold:
- To let you know about the latest episodes of The Peacebuilding Podcast: Bridging the Divide in which I interview amazing people about the creative processes they are using to build collaborative cultures in small and large systems alike; and
- To periodically showcase some cool ideas that I use, or come across, about building collaborative intelligence -- of which gender intelligence is a critical subset -- inside organizations.
Why talk about building peace, collaborative and gender intelligence all in the same breath? It’s my belief that “getting gender right” inside our organizations and families -- the two building blocks of our human world -- is the single most important initiative we can undertake to create a more peaceful and therefore more sustainable world.
If you are interested in the family and relationship aspect of getting gender right in the 21st century, please check out the amazing work of Terry Real.
If you are interested in the organizational aspect, go no further.
In this current episode of The Peacebuilding Podcast, I will explore with Professor Peter Hawkins the relationship between gender, organizational culture and building a more peaceful world.
Professor Peter Hawkins, based in the UK, has been working with companies for decades on leadership culture and change initiatives. He is a leading expert in what he calls Systemic Team Coaching -- kind of the infrastructure for building collaboration in systems. I was the lucky recipient of some of his excellent training which is similar in theory and practice to the extensive training I received from the Gestalt Organizations and Systems Designs Program.
When I first met Peter what really stood out to me is the way he has integrated professional excellence with emotional sanity and high integrity. This is a guy who has done his work – both the inner stuff and the outer. A “global parent” if you will. We need a lot of these right now.
I especially love how Peter gets executive leadership teams of some of the most powerful global companies to consider all stakeholders of their decisions including our collective grandchildren and our more than human world. He gets his clients to think “forward back and outside in”, very much like the Native American concept of thinking 7 Generations out.
Peter is brilliant and deep, and I think you will find it well worth your time to listen to him. Here are some highlights of the episode.
- He will address with great sophistication my question about whether there is a relationship between getting gender and diversity right inside organizations and creating a more harmonious world;
- He will address the idea that the era of heroic leadership is dead and gone, and that we face an urgent need to develop collective leadership and collaborative intelligence;
- He will talk about what men and women can do together as leaders in our places of work that we couldn't do apart, and why this kind of leadership is so critically important for our organizations today;
- He will speak directly to men in organizations, whether they are leadership or rank and file, and provide valuable guidance about how to think and proceed in the #MeToo era.
- He will address the need for companies to rethink their career design models, which he says are designed for twentieth century white men, not twenty-first century human beings;
- He will address a question that has always nagged at me, about how companies can “get gender right” and still stay competitive -- in other words, not feel like they're doing the right thing, only to fall behind in a hyper-competitive world;
- And lastly, he will talk poignantly about the impact of absentee fathers, either because of wars or work and offer some profound words of wisdom to guide us as we go forward into this complex and exciting future together.
I know you will enjoy this deeply intelligent and thoughtful man talk about issues that are so critical for our time.
Listen here.
My warm regards,
Susan