New Emergence

Leadership for New Emergence is an innovative leadership retreat series offering support to organizations that work to find solutions to the world’s most urgent problems through new paradigms of equality, sustainability, and accountability. The retreat series was created to prepare organizations, governments, and businesses for the new and complex challenges of a rapidly changing world. - CLICK FOR MORE INFO

In order to transition to a green economy, to implement the sustainable development goals, and to build resilient communities, we need to consolidate knowledge across disciplines, harness the energy of social movements, and create measurable results. We need to practice a new kind of leadership. Past groups have moved through an innovative and transformative program at the MIT Media Lab and the United Nations headquarters. These groups focused on transformational leadership for building sustainable breakthrough initiatives that achieve results. The program has evolved to focus on transformational leadership for large-scale systems shifts among people who are working in sustainability, human rights, gender equality, peace and conflict resolution, climate change mitigation, education, and youth-related issues. We’re calling this LEADERSHIP FOR NEW EMERGENCE. We believe that each person can unleash his or her leadership potential by drawing on his or her values, creativity, and power for strategic action. We can all learn to utilize our existing capacities to maximize our potential for equitable change through innovative methodologies.   We are looking to work with those who engage to make a measurable difference; those who view the persistence of poverty, ecological degradation, and the lack of opportunity to live and thrive for so many as a measure of our response to date; those who believe that our future depends on our ability to generate a new reality. The program introduces transformational leadership skills that enable reflective practitioners to lead sustainable change, strategically shift current systems, and deliver tangible and measurable results in human dignity, integrity, equality, and justice.   The program consists of a series of two leadership workshops, spaced three to four weeks apart. New capacities are introduced in workshops and in interim sessions. We put those capacities into action through our individual breakthrough initiatives. Breakthrough Initiatives are laboratories for applying learning from the workshops and offer an opportunity for us to produce near-term results with long-term impact. We work alongside others from a variety of disciplines to build common language and practices so that we can work in synergy.

What we do

Work with individuals, organizations and companies to identify knowledge gaps and dynamics that prevent them from achieving their goals

Equip leaders with tools, frameworks and resources to achieve long-term change

Build and facilitate transformative leadership programs to create systemic and sustainable change

Develop operational strategies to mobilize networks and stakeholders so they can scale up impact

How we do it

Learning occurs through action and deliberate practice. In order to maximize human potential, we use multiple models to approach complex problems. Our goal is to build customized programs that consist of contextual intelligence, practical wisdom, and proven frameworks from social science and cross-cultural knowledge. We translate complexity into simplicity and use multiframe approaches to navigate the social, economic, and political complexity of our time.

This approach includes experiential learning methods, conscious self-reflection, and interactive program modules. These approaches have been developed using the latest research in the areas of social psychology, communications, systems thinking, chaos and complexity theory, dynamical systems theory, and action implementation research. All of our tools and frameworks are continually tested, adapted, and evaluated.

We work with those who engage to make a measurable difference. Each person, when given the appropriate tools, can unleash his or her leadership potential by drawing on his or her values, creativity, and power for strategic action through innovative methodologies.

Why we do it

We live in a time of accelerating change. We recognize the urgency of the situation and the need to take immediate action. But we lack collaborative processes, strong leadership, and skill sets required to achieve large-scale impact.

Finding solutions to the world’s most urgent problems–– inclusive economic growth, sustainability, and building resilience–– depends on our capacity to design and implement programs that will transform institutions and social structures by addressing immediate and underlying causes.

All of us, whether working on the individual, community or global level, can generate transformative results.

Leadership for New Emergence guides individuals and organizations to develop the tools and practices necessary for creating sustainable and large-scale change in a rapidly changing world.