Catalyzing Systemic Transformation
An immersive masters level learning experience with Gisela Wendling, Ph.D. and David Sibbet
Spring 2023 - Summer 2024
Gisela Wendling, Ph.D. and David Sibbet are seeking a committed cohort of serious change leaders and consultants to learn comprehensively about designing & leading change. The program will bring together many of the Grove’s methodologies and tools through four week-long, in-person retreats, regular web conferences, consultation on participant change projects and the use of our on-line platform to support asynchronous learning and collaboration among the participants.
Gisela and David will co-lead all sessions, with involvement of successful practitioners with relevant expertise. Participants will learn to design, lead, facilitate, and support transformational processes across all phases of systemic change. We will introduce and practice the latest dialogic, and visual collaborative methods, grounded in Gisela's extensive research in liminal change processes and organizational development practice and David's applications of the Theory of Process and his extensive work as a visual consultant in all manner of organizations.
Why Are We Offering This Program?
Our world needs as many capable change leaders as possible in these challenging times. We believe these skills are developed most effectively when a cohort of committed learning work together over a longer period of time. After years of conducting 3-day workshops on Leading Change, and having past successes with long-term, cohort-based programs, we felt it was time to move in that direction.
The following Seven Challenges of Change framework provides a high level overview of kinds of challenges this program will prepare participants for. In addition participants will have full access to other GLEN and Grove models and resources during the program.
Gisela Wendling and David Sibbet are dedicating 2023-24 to working with program and sharing their considerable experience and support with participants in working on projects aimed at having real impact and importance.
They are both experienced designers and leaders of student centered, experience-based action learning programs. Gisela led a Masters Program in Organizational Development at Sonoma State. David led the Coro Center's Fellowship in Public Affairs for many years, and helped design leadership programs at several large organizations. They have co-led many shorter workshops on leading change and recently co-led a very impactful, year-long Leading Change program for a cohort of 20 middle managers at an environmental agency in Minnesota.
Their calling is to bring this work forward in a context where deep learning can occur. You are invited to be one of the lucky participants.
Program Leaders
Gisela Wendling, Ph. D. is VP of Global Learning at The Grove Consultants International and Co-Director of the Global Learning & Exchange Network. Her extensive consulting career has supported change in high tech, health care, universities, retail, and design industries. She has studied Rites of Passages and ceremony in indigenous contexts Peru, Africa , Australia and Canada. It and her cross cultural work Wendling Liminal Pathways Framework for ChangeTM. She is co-author of Visual Consulting: Designing & Leading Change with David Sibbet and currently writing a book on change and liminal process. Her training in dialogic practice, psychology, human systems dynamics, and collective trauma has led to her being described by colleagues as a "visionary theorist," and a deep water "practitioner scholar."
David Sibbet is founder of the Grove Consultants International and an acknowledged thought leader in the field of visual facilitation and process leadership. He is author of the Wiley Facilitation Series including Visual meetings, Visual Teams, Visual Leaders, and Visual Consulting, co-authored with Gisela. His decades-long work translating Arthur M. Young's Theory of Process into application tools and practices has resulted in The Grove's Group Graphic Keyboard and Facilitation Model, Team Performance System, Strategic Visioning proces, and Seven Challenge of Change model, co-developed with Gisela. He has led countless experiential workshops and facilitated systemic change projects in the high tech, design, environmental, and higher education fields.
Gisela and David are both adept at in-person and online processes. They are deeply committed to helping midwife a more inclusive, reciprocal, and holistic worldview and practice, with full awareness of the fundamentally critical nature of our present times.
The Curriculum
Spring of 2023
“Separating from The Old”
The special magic of the Leading Change experience will be working in depth with Gisela and David within a supportive cohort of co-learners. Our spring session will...
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Create a strong container through several video calls and an opening four-day retreat.
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Set personal and group learning goals and agree on how we will work together.
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Share about the projects you will work with.
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Form triads for ongoing peer support.
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Identify mini-workshop topics.
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Learn key process models like the Wendling Liminal Pathways Change Framework and Seven Challenges of Change.
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Explore barriers to change and what needs to be left behind to become a serious change consultant
Summer of 2023
“Engaging Leaders of Change”
Systemic change requires catalyzing interest within expanding groups of colleagues, sponsors, and stakeholders. Summer session will focus on group process and the inner and outer work needed to drive change. Steps will include...
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Learning practices and facilitating video calls and collaboration backbone exchanges.
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Working in teams on relevant mini-workshops
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Engaging project sponsors and process design teams for your project.
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Learning about the neuropsychology of change.
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Learning the essence of process design.
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Studying the Theory of Process
Winter of 2023
“Creating Crucibles for Change”
Visioning, design thinking sessions, and innovative problem solving are all critical to supporting emergence in change. Some become real turning points. Winter session will focus on ...
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A second four-day retreat practicing visioning, solution finding, and design thinking.
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Sharing relevant mini-workshops Design and facilitating creative sessions.
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Learning to deal with conflict and trauma.
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Learn metaphors of transformation.
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Practices for communicating and sustaining momentum in large scale change.
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Interim zoom sessions and consultations.
Spring of 2024
“Stepping into New Visions”
Projects will have formalized to a point where real commitments to change can be made. Participants will also be experiencing personal changes that are important to celebrate. Spring session will focus on...
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A fourth retreat to take a deep look at what it really means to step into change, on projects and personally.
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Continuation of relevant mini-workshops.
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Interim zoom calls and consultation
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Learning and practicing the art of commemorating commitments visually.
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Share and learn mindfulness practice.
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Involving new people, adapting processes.
Summer of 2024
“Living the Change”
Change leaders know how to stand in and accept the present and still see potential and possibilities. We will be experiencing this by the summer of 2024. The final summer session will focus on..
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A final retreat to share results and learning
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Personal development plans for going forward.
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Review of key practices and frameworks.
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A creative ceremony of completion and new beginnings.
A detailed syllabus including retreat details will be available on registration and acceptance of your application. Total instructional days in workshops led by Gisela and David will number about 22 days per person. There will be a variable amount of personal involvement depending on the projects. Certificates of completion will we provided by The Grove Consultants International. Twelve units of academic credit are available through Meridian University, co-sponsors of the program, for a small fee.
Leading Change
Catalyzing Systemic Transformation
Gisela Wendling, Ph.D.