Keynotes

 

Co-Creating New Social Realities: The Language of Power and the Language of Love
Adam Kahane

How can we work together to create better futures by addressing our most complex “problematic situations”? It’s easy to do this violently—to use our power, authority, or money to make things the way we want them to be. And it’s easy to be peaceful and leave things just the way they are. But both of these options guarantee failure. How can we create real change in our social systems in a way that lifts people up? By becoming fluent in both the language of power—the drive to act—and the language of love—the drive to connect. In this session, Adam will draw on lessons from his experience working with leaders around the world to offer guidelines for becoming “bilingual” and for developing the capacity to create new futures together.

Adam Kahane is the author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities. As a partner in Generon Reos LLC, he is a designer and facilitator of processes through which business, government, and civil society leaders from around the world can come together to solve their toughest problems. During the early 1990s, Adam was head of social, political, economic, and technological scenarios for Royal Dutch/Shell
in London.

Purpose Beyond Profit: Redefining Corporate Performance for the New
Millennium
Peter Senge, joined by other corporate thought leaders

Corporations are arguably the most powerful institutions in society today. As such, they must play a key role in working with other players to address the urgent global imperatives of our times. But their purpose, their structures, and the ground rules by which they operate are dangerously outmoded. While the corporate responsibility and governance movements have achieved some progress in making businesses more accountable for their activities, a systemic, integrated transformation is needed—one that brings meaning and a sense of mission beyond mere accumulation of profit and maximization of shareholder return. Join Peter Senge and other thought leaders as they grapple with the question of how to reinvent the corporation and redefine business success to give equal weight to social and environmental, as well as economic well-being.

Peter Senge is an acclaimed author and founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning. His landmark book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, has sold more than a million copies have been sold, and in 1997, Harvard Business Review identified it as one of the seminal management books of the past 75 years. Peter is also the co-author of Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations,
and Society.

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Respect as an Active Force: Creating Symmetry in Our Relationships
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

What is the role of respect in our work and lives? In many cases, it is given because of deference to status and hierarchy or out of a desire to avoid punishment, shame, or embarrassment. Is there another, more dynamic model that can better support achievement and productivity? During this presentation, Sara will challenge traditional conceptions of respect and explore a new view that creates symmetry, empathy, and connection in all types of relationships, even those commonly seen as unequal such as manager and staff, or teacher and student. Through poignant and powerful lessons useful to leaders from any sector, she will motivate you to think deeply and act courageously in pursuing a balance of excellence and equity.

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist, is a professor of education at Harvard University. She is an award-winning researcher and author of several books, including Balm of Gilead: Journey of a Healer; Respect; and The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn from Each Other. In 1984, Sara was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 1998, she received the Emily Hargroves Fisher endowed chair at Harvard which, upon her retirement, will become the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot endowed chair.

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Better: Lessons from Medicine on Performance Under Conditions of Extreme Complexity
Atul Gawande

The struggle to perform well is universal: Each of us seeks to succeed in the face of limited resources, imperfect abilities, and forces beyond our control. But nowhere is this drive more important than in medicine, where lives may be on the line with any decision. Drawing on examples from the high-stakes challenges of the medical field, Atul will offer his seasoned view of what it takes to be better in any profession. Through gripping stories from around the world of diligence, ingenuity, and what it means to do right, he offers unique insights into how learning can occur under the most daunting circumstances and how we can take our performance to the next level, both individually and collectively.

Dr. Atul Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard’s Medical School and School of Public Health. He is also director of the World Health Organization’s campaign to reduce deaths in surgery. A staff writer for The New Yorker, Atul is the author of Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science and Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance.

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Connecting with Meaning to Fuel Our Highest Performance
Betty Sue Flowers

Storytelling is a powerful tool for helping us connect with the meaning that fuels our highest performance. As a lifelong student of story and myth, Betty Sue has had an eclectic career that has brought her to the center of the creative process in systems as vast as Royal Dutch Shell and as intimate as her own poet’s heart. As she observed in Presence, “When you see what you’re here for, the world begins to mirror your purpose in a magical way. It’s almost as if you suddenly find yourself on a stage in a play that was written expressly for you.” Drawing on her experience with improving performance at every scale, she will help us synthesize and integrate our conference learnings by mapping the intersection between the personal and the collective.

Peter Senge will join Betty Sue toward the end of her time to add his thoughts on taking this work back to the workplace and world.

Betty Sue Flowers, PhD, is director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. She is also an educator, business consultant, and author. Betty Sue edited Synchronicity by Joseph Jaworski and is co-author of Presence. Her other publications range from books of poetry to four television tie-in books in collaboration with Bill Moyers, among them, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. She also hosted “Conversations with Betty Sue Flowers” on public television in Austin, Texas.

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