Recharged at Co-Active Summit

CTI‘s co-active leadership program can take credit for inspiring and empowering my redesign.  It all started with my CTI trained coach Marj Plumb who coached me while I was Executive Director of Housing California. When I was hungry for more she suggested I take the coach training courses with CTI.  I took the Fundamentals course and committed to taking all of the courses and thought about becoming a certified coach. Then one of the instructors encouraged me to do the leadership program. I checked it out and decided it was the better fit for me.  In 2009 I was immersed in the Co-Active Leadership program and became part of the Panther Tribe.

The Panther Tribe and the learning we did together transformed my life. My co-workers saw it; my kids saw it. Whereas other leadership programs work on the outside–public speaking skills,, organization skills, etc. Co-active leadership gave me the skills to manage myself, to change the internal dialogue and gave me a hunger for living the bigger story.

#Epic; my team/prickle for debrief and treasure hunt

At Level 1 the Summit was a stage for CTI to role out new concepts and products, and to showcase their faculty. They did this artfully from the 360 degree stage echoing their 360 evaluation product. They did it playfully by creating a fable with Mewe the Hedgehog and friends. We were randomly assigned to a “prickle” and given a treasure hunt challenge as a common purpose for practicing our leadership and bonding as a team. My prickle #Epic are a delightful group of people from around the globe.

At Level 2 the Summit offered amazing learning. All of the presenters came with their A game and it resulted in some very profound learning, including the new CTI Dimensional Leadership Model. Nothing at CTI is like typical classroom learning–there is always a physical activity and an element of fun. (More on this in future post.)

At Level 3 the Summit provided the backdrop for connecting with Panthers and others and to be part of the larger CTI community. Instead of banning the smartphone they embraced it. We used it to tweet, snap photos, in the treasure hunt and so on. It means we are more likely to stay connected with the people we met and in our prickle through email and facebook. And because the people in the CTI community are all so fantastic, I had some amazing conversations with people and it locked in my learning.

At Level 4 the Summit called forth this global community and enrolled them in bringing co-activity to the world. We all believe at some level that these tools are important if we are going to survive as a species. Seeing people from all over the world who have embraced this leadership ethos and hearing the amazing keynotes reminding us what is at stake, and reconnected us all to our commitment to be leaders in the world.

I will write more about this conference. Need a little more time to let it sink into my bones.