GLEN Exchanges

These dialogues hosted by  members are for sharing insights, tapping into collective wisdom, and leaning into inquiry as we learn together. 

Exchanges are the heart of our peer-learning community. 

Featured Exchanges

The GLEN Café

Date: Every Friday Morning; Time 9:00 am Pacific

Join us Friday mornings for conversations and community. Changing systems is hard work. You don’t have to do it alone. Connect with a creative cohort of allies for inspiration and support.

If you are new and interested in learning about our community this is a great place to get started. ALL ARE WELCOME!

OPEN / NO FEE

FOR INFO & THE LINK

The Secrets of Visual Storytelling 

Date: July 5
Time: 10 - 2 pm PST/ 1-5 pm EST
In this half-day workshop with Joran Oppelt, founder and CEO of Illustrious Consulting, you’ll learn to enhance your impact through visual storytelling. Effective storytelling changes people, organizations, and communities. When we make a point, pitch an idea, or persuade a skeptic, we tell stories. When we make sense of and share memories of the past, or look ahead and share visions for the future, we tell stories. And visual storytelling is a powerful tool to convey complexity, communicate purpose, and guide others through confusion to coherence. After studying the fundamentals, you'll practice telling stories visually, and give and receive feedback to refine new skills. This is a highly interactive, facilitated session with limited enrollment.

 

Fee: $250  (20% discount for GLEN members)

Register

Mapping the Mystery: Gisela Wendling on Liminal Pathways

A conversation with the vice-president of global learning at The Grove Consultants International, about her framework for navigating change

Date: June 14 Time: 9-10:30 am PST/ 12-1:30 pm EST/ 6-7:30 pm CET

Gisela Wendling, Vice President of Global Learning at Grove Consultants International, developed the Liminal Pathways Change Framework to help clients and organizations design change, orient to its three basic phases, and activate the dynamic interplay between inner process and outer support that unlocks the potential of uncertain times. In this conversation with David Sibbet, she’ll explain how this framework applies to individuals, organizations, and even larger social systems.

FREE FOR GLEN MEMBERS

Register

Love and Work

A conversation about deeper levels of transformation of self

Date: June 21
Time: 10 - 12 pm PST/ 1-3 pm EST/ 7-9 pm CET

When some people hear the word love they think of emotion, or romance or sentimentality. Or they associate love with
their personal, not professional lives. But what if love awakens our greatest gifts and calls us to what we have come here to be and do? What if love is the great disruptor – burning through our veils of denial, shaking us awake from sleepwalking routines, unifying us in a polarizing time? What if love is the inexhaustible creative fuel that we need to support real change in the world? This invitation to place love at the center of our lives and work will be facilitated by Michael Regan, a speaker, consultant, and guide who explores where leadership and innovation meet the deepest potential of love.  (For more information about Michael, visit www. michaelregan.org.)

FREE FOR GLEN members

Register

Soul Collage

A guided self-discovery process for individuals and organizations facilitated by Laurie Durnell, principal consultant at Grove Consultants International. 

Date June 29  Time 10-12 pm PST/ 1-3 pm EST/ 7-9 pm CET


Join Laurie Durnell, principal consultant at The Grove Consultants International and Soul Collage facilitator, and discover how to use Soul Collage to gain self-knowledge and empower groups. Soul Collage connects us to inner wisdom through imagination, intuition, and imagery. You and I are made up of many aspects — some of which we are consciously aware and others which remain unknown to us. By bringing us into dialogue with all aspects of ourselves, Soul Collage enhances our self-awareness and allows us to access untapped wisdom. Working with imagery unlocks new ways of knowing; what you discover may surprise you. Using images with personal resonance, we’ll create cards to guide us on the journey to our future self — a process you can replicate with your clients and teams.

FREE FOR GLEN MEMBERS 

Register

Mapping the Mystery: The Medicine Wheel

A conversation with Firehawk Hulin, co-founder of the Center of Timeless Earth Wisdom, about embodying Earth's wisdom in our daily lives through the system and design of the Medicine Wheels.

Date: July 12 Time: 9-10:30 am PST/ 12-1:30 pm EST/ 6-7:30 pm CET

After working for more than two decades in creative media production for organizations, Firehawk completed an eight-year formal apprenticeship with WindEagle and RainbowHawk, métis keepers of The Origin Teachings of the Delicate Lodge. This is one of the ancient wisdom bundles of Medicine Wheel Teachings handed down orally by travelling teachers for thousands of years. Center for Timeless Earth Wisdom is currently developing a three to four-year intensive training in embodying and applying Earth's Wisdom in daily life — a subject he'll explore in conversation with David Sibbet, founder of Grove Consulting International.

FREE FOR GLEN MEMBERS

Register

Shadow Play

A monthly game of turning darkness into light with executive coach David Papa

Next Session: June 14, 2023 Time: 10 -11:30 PST/ 1-2:30 EST/ 7-8:30 CET

Our biggest obstacle to change is our shadow: all we resist, deny, or cannot see or feel. By learning to work and play with this energy, we might transform dark into light and shadow into flow.In this new monthly series with David Papa — executive coach, improv performer, ego spanker — we’ll examine the shadow aspects of individual and collective life for the sake of our freedom, evolution, and capability to create positive change. We’ll play with conditioned patterns and unconscious stuckness so these might be transmuted into new insights, behaviors, and contributions to family, community, and career. And we'll laugh along the way.  What you'll need for each session:  curiosity,  compassion, creativity, and to not take yourself, or any of this, too seriously. 

FREE FOR GLEN MEMBERS

Register

COMING SOON:

Flow Lab:   A three-month learning laboratory

FREE SAMPLE SESSION April 25, 10-11:30 am PST/1-2:30 pm EST/7-8:30 pm CET 

In a rapidly changing world, it’s easy to doubt our impact or lose our sense of purpose. We all know what it's like to feel stuck, separate, cynical, or lost in the ruminating mind. We also know what it’s like to be in flow: connected and creative, present and attuned to emergent possibilities. In this learning laboratory we will explore how to live and work from this flow state.  The full workshop will include seven sessions over three months, as well as triad work to practice and integrate learning.

Register

Recent Exchanges

Mapping the Mystery: Integral Theory

A conversation with Joran Oppelt about using Integral Theory as a personal and business operating model.

Completed May 17, 2023

 In addition to being CEO of Illustrious Consulting, Joran is an international speaker, author and consultant with certifications in coaching, storytelling, design thinking and virtual facilitation. He has been a serious student of Ken Wilbur's Integral Theory, which works in the background of his thinking.  He leads game-changing meetings for clients and has trained other facilitators to drive transformation and alignment, delivering “great reckonings in small rooms.”

He is the co-author of Facilitation: A Human-Centered Guide to the Art of Collaboration; The Visual Meetings Field Guide: How to Facilitate Great Meetings with Amazing Teams; Visionary Leadership: How to Live Your Strategy, Create New Habits, and Inspire Your Team; and contributing author of The Creativity Workbook for Coaches and Creatives.

 
Mapping the Mystery Overview

Mapping the Mystery: Of Developmental Models

A Conversation  with Heiko Veit about Stages International & Spiral Dynamics

Completed April 12

With trained intuition and conceptual clarity, Heiko Veit designs developmental spaces for asking better questions and finding more effective answers. Whether he is working with organizations or individuals, his aim is to address underlying causes instead of working on symptoms so he can accompany development and initiate transformation. He is currently working on a translation of the Stages Model into German and is very conversant about developmental models in general.

Mapping the Mystery Overview

Organization Development for Visionaries: An Inquiry Into Sustainable Design

Completed:  Sept 26 and Oct 4; Time: 9:00-11:30am PT ; 1800pm CET

Since 1995, David Sibbet has applied the Sustainable Organizations Model (SOM) to the challenge of designing enduring organizations. This approach, which he developed with his French colleague Meryem LeSaget, underlies his large systems work at The Grove Consultants International.

In this two-session interactive workshop, he will introduce the tools he uses in his consulting work to envision sustainable organizations of the future. Participants will explore the adaptability of these concepts to our current context and share real-life examples of evolutionary thinking and sustainable organizational design. To tap into the collective wisdom of the group, the second session will be tailored to participant interests and input.

GLEN MEMBERS FREE

FOR INFORMATION

Leading as Sacred Practice Retreat 2022 at the Beuerhof Seminar Center, Vulcan Eifel, Germany

Completed: Sept 11-15, 2022. 

These challenging times call for leaders with a deeper connection to self, spirit, and community.  Our fourth annual retreat is an opportunity to evolve your leadership, revive your spirits, and transform volatility into possibility. Tapping into the collective wisdom of our global community, we will cultivate courage and resilience and explore what it means to lead with sacred intent.  

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC / FEE / GLEN CONTRIBUTING MEMBER DISCOUNT

RETREAT OVERVIEW

What First Nations Can Teach Us About Transforming Power and Privilege

Single Session: Aug 18, 2022  Time: 9-11:00am PT

As facilitators and hosts, we work within an invisible field of interconnectedness, where power and privilege shape relationships and possibilities. What can First Nations teach us about navigating power dynamics - in ourselves, with each other, and in the world? In this exchange, we will explore indigenous understandings of power and privilege through storytelling and dialogue. Listening deeply to the innate wisdom of the natural world – of which we are a part — we will each discover new ways to see and work with power and privilege.

 OPEN / NO FEE

FOR REGISTRATION

From Patriarchy to Partnership: Learning With Colleagues in South Africa

Completed: Thursday July 21, Time: 9 -11 am PST,  12-2 pm EST, 6-8 pm SA

How did business leaders, facilitators, and OD practitioners in South Africa trade a negative story about their country for a more hopeful one of partnership and possibility? In this exchange, you’ll engage with facilitators from South Africa who participated in an innovative leadership development program where leaders work together across sectors and other traditional boundaries. They’ll share what they’ve learned about mutual learning, resource redistribution, reconciliation and facilitating social cohesion – and together we will explore how we might apply their success to communities in the rest of the world. 

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC/ NO FEE

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The Awakening Program: An Inmate Collaboration to Transform Self, Community, & the System of Mass Incarceration

Completed: April 22, 2022 

Steven and his incarcerated colleagues in Maine State Prison have created a mentorship program to support individual transformation and systemic change in prisons. This exchange is a unique dialogue among those affected by mass incarceration: system employees, nonprofit agencies, and incarcerated citizens themselves. We'll learn about the program, hear from those whose lives it changed, and explore questions like what does it mean to become free? What role does service play in awakening? How can personal evolution ignite systemic change and transform our understanding of mass incarceration?  

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC/ NO FEE

MORE INFORMATION (Programs TBD)

Cohado:Cycles of Regenerative Development

Completed: Jan 21, 2022 Time: 9:00-11:00 am PT; 18:00-20:0 CET

Paulo Gregory, a GLEN Member, has helped launch the Black Butterfly Network and Conservatory, seeding a cohort of Black businesses in Baltimore to embody the principles embodied in the collaborative game— Cohado. Its purpose is to evolve a sustainable ecosystem with the capacity to transform the economics of Baltimore. We have invited him to share an interactive exchange around the principles and practices behind the new regenerative development model guiding this work.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC/ NO FEE

Unfolding Wisdom Retreat

Retreat. Completed. Nov 4-7, 2021 
This retreat was previously postponed to 2021 due to COVID and is again being rescheduled. Hosts Alan Briskin and Kathia Laszlo intend to explore the realms of paradox, harmonic contradictions, and the felt sense of belonging to a community of seekers, change makers, and consciousness pioneers. The retreat is designed for individuals who work with groups in their capacity as leaders, consultants, facilitators, and change agents. 

OPEN TO PUBLIC / FEE / MEMBER DISCOUNT

Leading As Sacred Practice EXCHANGE SERIES Bonus Session 

Completed Oct 1, 2021: 

At the end of each Exchange in the LASP On-line Series, we held an informal "kitchen" session.October is an extended version of this. 

OPEN TO REGISTRANTS IN THE LASP ONLINE SERIES

Resilience: What Hopeful Change is Emerging from the Pandemic?

Initial Session Completed: Aug 17, 2021

The GLEN's Community Resilience Collaboration is offering an initial Exchange to invite members and our larger networks to share about hopeful developments that are emerging from the pandemic. In the midst of all the challenges, we know that life is continuing and the crucible of this time is seeding new ideas that The GLEN would like to support. What are they? Multiple visual practitioners will be visualizing the ideas that are shared.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC & GLEN MEMBERS

Leading As Sacred Practice EXCHANGE SERIES 

Series: Completed on April 23 to July 2, 2021 

This was a six-session series leading up to the LASP face-to-face conference in September of 2022 This series will explore six "Ways" for bringing Leading as Sacred Practice to life. They are linked to foundation principles we've been developing over three years of conferences on this subject. The series has a new LASP eBook describing these six "Ways."

Gisela Wendling, David Sibbet, Holger Scholz and Alan Briskin will co-host this exploration as an ensemble.

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC / FEE / MEMBER DISCOUNT

Leaders They Do Not See: The Tender, Powerful & Troublesome

Series: Completed March 4, April 1, and May 6, 2021. 

Is invisible leadership real leadership? Karen Wilhelm Buckley and Karolina Iwa believe that the less visible sides of leadership are essential to the success to all of our endeavors. They invite you to sense into and map the invisible dimensions of leadership. Invisible can mean “hidden” or “unable to be seen” and at times may even be treated as “not worthy”. We know that recognition and affirmation depend on personal perception and the culture of the system.

Exploring Systemic Racism Through the Film "The Eichmann Show"

Single Session: March 12, 2021. Time: 9:00–11:00am PT

In the light of the January 6th events at the U.S. Capitol and the growing concern about the rise of white-supremacy movements in this country and beyond, Gisela Wendling, Alan Briskin, and David Matthew Prior would like to invite you to explore the roots of white supremacy through a dialogue about the BBC Film The Eichmann Show (2015). The film tells the story of the 1962 globally televised trial in which Eichman is prosecuted in Israel for his role in the Jewish Holocaust during World War II. This Netflix film, which we ask members to watch before the exchange, is an essential lens through which we can examine systemic racism wherever it is present.

GLEN Community Solstice Call: Celebrating Our Voices Together

Single Session: Dec 21, 2020

We gather this solstice at the regular GLEN Bloggers time to celebrate our community, and share poems and insights about our relationships with the light and the dark.
Women of the GLEN: Caring for Self & Each Other

Series: Dec 3, 2020 

In the last months of 2020, we’re coming together to practice care for self and for each other. This will be a gently held space open to Women of The GLEN, facilitated by Ronita Johnson and Nancy Davis. Click the Register Now button for more detail and to register.   

GLEN Community Call: What is Our Complicity With Racism?
Single Session June 28, 2020
Four crises are facing our world right now: COVID–19, climate change, economic free fall and racial injustice. The first three are rapidly exacerbating and laying bare the last: racial injustice. This Exchange was a call for members to collectively and thoughtfully consider how recent events related to racial injustice are affecting us and what each of us wants to do about it. Ronita Johnson, Gisela Wendling, and Mary Gelinas hosted the Exchange.

World Crises Response: Creating the Future We Want
Series July 16, 30 and Aug 13, 2020

We held two GLEN community conversations in March to check in on how each of us was doing in the midst of our dramatically changing world. This Exchange series was intended to continue our connection and deepen our conversations with one another. Together we leaned into what new understanding were arising and what wisdom wanted to be expressed through our collective dialogue—not only for ourselves but also to support our ability to help others. Our exploration combined guided reflection practices with personal sharing and group dialogues. 

Address:

The GLEN
c/o The Grove Consultants International 
 275 Bel Marin Keys, Suite B
Novato, CA 94949

Contact:

[email protected]