Cultivating Collaborative Leadership for Resilient Communities

Changing Landscapes

Rapidly changing landscapes are the new normal - in our communities, our work, our climate, our politics, our society, the technology we interact with - everything is shifting at a pace unknown in previous decades creating new challenges for leadership.

Deep Local

All change is local, no matter where we are in the world. Our inner landscape changes as we wake up to the call to serve something larger than ourselves. Organizational landscapes shift as complex challenges incite us to find new ways forward. Our community landscapes evolve as environmental, social and political pressures implore us to become wiser together. The natural landscapes that sustain us can only become sustainable by local action. All change is local.

Living Systems Leadership

Leading through change calls for a ‘living systems’ approach to leadership that recognizes and works in harmony with the natural cycles of all life. This is necessarily collaborative, inclusive, equitable and deeply participatory leadership. Co-Nexio Institute teaches and practices living systems leadership, in resonance with these deep local landscapes that are calling for change, to co-create resilience for thriving communities.

Four Areas/(scope) of Programs & Service

Levels of Service (self-purpose-others-planet)

Inner Landscapes

• Reconnecting with self

• Retreats, coaching, mentoring, meditation, Flow Game, personal / professional development

Organizational Landscapes

• Reconnecting with purpose

• Organizational development, strategic engagements, navigating change in support of purpose-driven organizations moving towards a more resilient future

Community Landscapes

• Reconnecting with others

• Cross-sector dialogue, community-based leadership training, community collaborations 

Natural Landscapes

• Reconnecting with natural systems stewardship

• Systemic change processes creating active engagement in support of improving water quality, soil health, and sustainable land use practices

Learning is at the center of all of these

The leadership institute concept is at the center, accessible (and not optional) to all regardless of which door they came in (inner, org, comm, natural). 

At the Core of the Concept

“Deep Local”

• All change is local

• Landscapes only change by local action

• Inner transformation precedes outer change - changing inner & outer landscapes

• Relationship / connection is central to change / transformation - with self, neighbor, others who care about the same need / same land / same water / same community

• Indigenous wisdom (at the core, flowing through all, guiding)

• Image - prairie diversity creates a resilient community, all plants with different roles to play, all needed to support the ecosystem of life

What’s at the core? 

• Reconnecting with self, others, planet, spirit. 

To What End?

• Healing, Resilience, Equity, Interconnectivity and thriving beautiful lives :)

In Service to Whom?

• Emerging leaders (formal, informal) <stories like Sandy Scherder, John Scherder, Beth Baranski, ISA staff - 1 experience turned everything around / you should listen to quiet little voices... None self-identified as leaders but emerged because there were no barriers to stepping up / in>

• Adults (multigenerational)

• With a readiness to change (self first, then actions, community, organization, systems), to be courageous, to step in/up/out

With a Focus on What?

• Environment - water - land - balance - harmony - stewardship - regenerative action - respectful co-existence

• Changing Landscapes - Inner / Outer

Our prototype / pilot leadership program will likely focus on natural landscape leaders via WLN. 

The leadership training model has 3 levels of engagement:

The Cohort

• 10-month cohort meeting one weekend per month

• The cohort begins with a 5-day intensive residential retreat

• Monthly retreats follow this pattern:

  • Thursday night begins with a check in session & social time

  • Friday is a working / learning session for the cohort

  • Saturday is a workshop, open to the public to register and join us

  • Sunday is action planning and check out by lunch

• In between sessions, participants are expected to put what they’ve learned into practice and come prepared to share their stories, what they’ve learned in practicing

• Each person receives 1-on-1 coaching one time per month from staff

• Peer groups of 3 have a check in call each month (like a mastermind group)

The Workshop Series

• A package of 4-6 workshops can be purchased by anyone, at any point along the 10-month timeline. Returning to learn with the cohort participants builds relationships and gives an outsider’s view of the progress happening due to the longer term commitment of cohort members. Ideally, this becomes the feeder-stream for next year’s cohort as they begin to see how much transformation takes place

The Single Workshop

• Anyone can register for a single workshop, as long as there is space available. This allows people to explore specific interests without a long-term commitment.

Custom-designed leadership training programs, tasters and opportunistic offerings will also be available when possible and needed.

Core Values

• Spirit is at the center of everything - who we are, how we show up, what binds the team together around this work, where we sense in to discern wise action

• Service - leadership is service, supporting people to make the changes they dream of, to create a thriving, resilient future

• Integrity - the stories we share are TRUE, nothing you see in our communications is more or less than reality

• Joy - our rubric for how we know what is ours to do

• Relationship / connection - interconnectivity of all life

• Learning - it’s not optional - whether we’re facilitating a strategic engagement, having a team meeting, or teaching a long-term cohort on leadership, learning the underlying patterns and mental models for working in complex times and reflecting on what we’re noticing to keep our learning tuned in to emergence is always at the center of our work.

Our Focus: 

Cultivating Deep Local Consciousness

Emergence - Learning - Connection - Practice - Resilience

Tags

The language metaphor is Landscape, words connected to that (e.g. cultivating, seeding, growing, regenerative, harvesting, navigating, wayfinding, direction, path, etc.)

Keywords / taglines / concepts include:

• Deep local

• Changing Landscapes

• Leading through Change

• Collaborating on Purpose

• Connecting for Resilience

• Cultivating Deep Local Consciousness

• Emergence - Learning - Connection - Resilience

Cultivating Collaborative Leadership Capacity for Resilient Communities

Applied Practice Fellows

We imagine creating a partnership with BTH / MSLS for alumni to spend a year on the Co-Nexio Institute staff. They would participate in all aspects, developing their capacity through applied practice with client engagements, teaching leadership programs, offering community dialogues, and contributing to the Institutional partner’s programs (university / community).