Personal Development: Reflections on Emerge Workshop

Seattle / Bainbridge ferry ride to Emerge

Last December, I had the distinct pleasure of participating in the inaugural Emerge workshop, the brainchild of Kathleen O’Brien, founder of O’Brien & Co, a 20-year-old, Seattle-based sustainability-consulting firm. In the Pacific Northwest, Kathleen is a legend, particularly in green building circles. Many of us have only recently discovered “green” thinking, but Kathleen, among her many successes, developed the Sustainable Building Advisor (SBA) program in 2005 with over 1,250 SBAs certified to-date across North America.

Kathleen launched a two-day workshop titled Emerge: Leadership for a More Sustainable Society to share her knowledge, the experience of other innovators and early adopters in the field, and to catalyze a community of new leaders to catapult the greener building movement toward real transformation.

The setting at IslandWood was a key character in the experience – from the ferry ride across the beautiful Puget Sound, to driving through rolling hills and then to experience the unique mojo that this “unconference” center offers.  The 255-acre center with its LEED Gold buildings, healthy delicious foods, nature walks, tree loving docents, animal sounds – centers on education. For those early birds, the workshop also included yoga in the main lodge.

Emerge Group In Action

The workshop delivered in a variety of ways:

Wisdom: Borrowing from Change and Systems Theory and Servant Leadership concepts, key readings, lectures, and case studies, the faculty of presenters probably had a century’s worth of combined experience in sustainability and in running their own companies.

• Kathleen challenged us all to rethink “command and control” management styles to a more collaborative and holistic decision-making model and to behave like leaders in service to each other, humanity and the planet regardless of our title or position within our organizations.

• Fiona Douglas-Hamilton, a commercial and residential construction expert, led a passionate presentation on new capitalism, the thinking and language of emergent leaders towards real happiness versus emotionally impoverished consumption based economies.

• David Eisenberg, who leads the non-profit Development Center for Appropriate Technology (DCAT), shared his journey in turning conservative building inspector adversaries into green champions one open heart at a time.

• John Cunningham is a large-sized man and commanding presence who liked to “whisper” in delivering his presentation which meant no one was talking and everyone was really listening as he communicated the various strategies he learned through his many years in labor negotiations.

Because of the limited size of our group, everyone had an opportunity to interact with the speakers during their sessions and to share our individual personal journeys during breaks and meal times.

Community: Spending 48 hours together, including communal meals and double-occupancy rooms, melted away inhibitions and barriers even among a few direct building-arena business competitors.  The community experience continues within social media platforms with an alumni-only LinkedIn group.  This has been a terrific way to stay informed of upcoming talks, etc. that can help further the conversation and to share resources.

Resources: The comprehensive workbook that we each received at the beginning of the workshop is chock full of information – from hard copies of presentation materials to a rich list of books to read and reference materials from the speakers.

Accountability: By participating in this workshop and connecting with other participants, I recently found myself in a client meeting wondering how my Emerge peers might respond to a new initiative being presented – ah, the value of peer pressure.  The workshop includes some time to start a Personal Development Plan and prepares you to ask yourself tough questions as a person, a leader and a temporary resident and fiduciary of planet Earth.  Kathleen has also allocated time for individuals to follow up with her directly for one individual consulting session to help with personal and professional goals.

The workshop is intensive, which means you are going non-stop and working late into the night in groups charged with choosing from variety of real world scenarios.  The goal is not just to solve a problem, but to put into practice the leadership principles provided that day within your groups.

Working in teams offered a solid way to exercise our imagination, creativity, and problem-solving, team building in a fun way – no PowerPoint – basically just paper, crayons, pipe cleaners and stickers!  The teams presented their scenarios and outlined action plans for tackling some tough sustainability issues.

This workshop requires an investment in time and money, two resources that always feel scarce. However, for me, it was invaluable to take time out of my fast-paced life to slow down without daily distractions, to focus on some big issues in sustainability with brilliant, caring, solutions-oriented business and community leaders who gave me a much needed positivity boost. Developing an action plan that serves as a measurement tool in my personal progress is a powerful plus and having a team of alumni I can turn to for additional support is truly enriching and adds to my happiness meter.

More information including registration for the March 2012 Puget Sound Emerge workshop can be found at http://www.kathleenobrienleadership.com/blog1/

In service and community,

–alex

Kathleen enjoying "J" sharing a personal anecdote

One of the Emerge Case Study Teams

4 Comments February 2, 2012