The Shambhala Institute recently changed its name to the ALIA Institute (Authentic Leadership In Action), and asked us to share some info about their upcoming trainings with you. Their Leading Profound Innovation training with Otto Scharmer, a 3-day exploration of the U Process, will take place April 5-8 in Kingbridge, Ontario. Their long-running Authentic Leadership in Action program will be held in June in Halifax, Nova Scotia for the Shambhala Summer Institute, and the ALIA West will be held in May in Victoria.

Leading Profound Innovation

Dr. C. Otto Scharmer, Senior Lecturer at MIT, and the founding chair of the Presencing Institute, will lead this three-day exploration of the U process, a theoretical framework and hands-on map for engaging teams or whole organizations in a process that shifts both personal and collective perception and therefore action. The program will take place April 5-8, 2009, in Kingbridge, Ontario. The three stages of sensing, presencing, and realizing include practices for suspending assumptions, gaining fresh insights into root dynamics, and discovering key leverage points for positive change. The U process leads to “profound innovation” because it provides a systematic way of accessing the deeper journey of your own leadership as well as the emerging potential of your organization or community. Dr. Scharmer introduced the theoretical framework and practice called “presencing” in his book Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges (2007), and in Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society (2005), co-authored with Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers.

Authentic Leadership in Action

ALIA offers a uniquely integrative model of leadership development for organizations and communities seeking more inspired and dynamic pathways to a bright and sustainable future. Here you will meet true pioneers of organizational renewal and social innovation — some internationally known and others everyday leaders who dare to try a different way. Here you will also meet more of yourself, as you deepen and refresh your own personal and professional leadership journey:

The Shambhala Summer Institute, held June 21-27 in Halifax, is a five-day program featuring 15-hour modules led by internationally recognized and respected leaders working at the edge of emerging new fields. Choose one of ten modules that best addresses your current leadership challenge and focus. Module presenters include Margaret Wheatley, Bill Torbert, Glenda Eoyang, and James Flaherty. Each morning begins with a 45-minute session of mindfulness meditation, which clears the way for fresh insight and authentic communication. Creative process workshops engage the intelligence of the body and the senses, while freeing up creativity. The arts are also woven throughout the five-day schedule. Plenary dialogues and keynotes inject big-picture thinking and tap into the collective experience and intelligence of the program community.

ALIA West, held May 19-22 on the beautiful campus of Royal Roads University in Victoria, is a three-day program following the same design as the acclaimed Shambhala Summer Institute. At the centre of this intensive are five 12-hour parallel modules. Keynote and module presenters include Peter Block, Wendy Palmer, Bill Torbert, Tom Hurley, and Sarita Chawla.