The social web is a brand new way of doing very old things with still emerging implications. The nature of change has always been connected and collective but our recent history and the infrastructure of the nonprofit sector and our social change organizations has been much less so. We as a people, and our communication tools, are on a path to bring the individual and the collective back into balance and planning for this is both impossible and necessary. A document in progress examining this shift is available here.

Join the Bay Area LLC on May 16th, 2008 (save the date!) to discuss this topic live and in person at the next Bay Area circle gathering.

Quite truthfully, we are struggling with an important tension. We have learned a lot in our 7 years of experience looking deeply into a number of programs and looking broadly across the leadership development field. What we have not yet done is synthesize the learning into a more definitive analysis of where we think the leadership development field needs to be heading and the implications for leadership development. We frequently get calls from folks asking for more direction, e.g. “What are the most important innovations we see?”

The tension for us is one of how to put out a point of view based on what we are learning in a way the continues to invite learning and contributions from individuals and programs that have a different idea. We have very intentionally attempted to cultivate an environment in which there was a comfortable, safe and free marketplace of ideas. We still value a rigorous exchange that encourages all ideas and provides stronger leadership to the field. The costs of operating from old paradigms demand a shift in our thinking at a field level and we feel called to help. This is the juncture between learning and leadership and the “so what” of our learning. We want to provide leadership to the leadership field in a way that generates even deeper learning. We hope to engage you in the synthesis project and look forward to your input and involvement.  read more »