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
Shadow Dancing
A monthly tango with darkness
Kickoff: April 5, 2022 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 shining light on the darkness, and harnessing its energy, we might transform it into flow. In this 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 the common good. We’ll explore taboos with courage, vulnerability, and humor. We’ll witness one another and shine light on conditioned patterns, unconscious assumptions, and unhealed wounds so these might be transmuted into new insights, behaviors, and contributions to family, community, and career. And we’ll have fun along the way. What you’ll need for each session: curiosity, compassion, creativity, and a healthy dose of humor.
FREE FOR GLEN MEMBERS
Mapping the Mystery: Philosophies of Change
A monthly conversation series about mental models that can help us orient to the unknown.
Upcoming Dates: April 12, Mar 17
Time: 10-12 PST/1-3 EST/ 7-9 CET
Throughout time people have used theoretical frameworks to navigate uncertainty and make sense of the mystery. In this monthly series David Sibbet, founder of Grove Consultants International and co-founder of The GLEN, will talk to inspiring colleagues about mental models they rely on to orient to the unknown. These interactive sessions will be graphically facilitated. In addition to leaving the session with better understanding for their own journey, participants will also receive a map of the model that was discussed
FREE FOR GLEN MEMBERS
We and White Supremacy
Dates: Mar 1, Mar 15, Mar 29, Apr 12, Apr 26
Time: 10-12 PST/1-3 EST/ 7-9 CET
Change agents need to understand how white supremacy impacts our work. In this workshop we’ll engage in a deep examination of white racial conditioning. Over five sessions, we’ll complete Layla Saad’s workbook Me and White Supremacy, which began as a 28-day Instagram challenge and became a free pdf workbook downloaded by more than 100,000 people. This workshop is for white people who are committed to becoming better allies by exploring our blind spots with compassionate colleagues. We’ll focus on white supremacy at an individual level and explore how to decolonize private and public spaces and change systems from the inside out: one person, one family, one community or organization at a time. This conversation will be jointly facilitated by Berlin-based social innovator Karolina Iwa and GLEN program director Krista Bremer.
OPEN/ NO FEE
The GLEN Roundtable
Next Session: TBD
OPEN TO GLEN MEMBERS ONLY
Recent Exchanges
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.