Discover how we are helping people and organizations become more connected, adaptive, and able to thrive in any environment.
What is Beyond Listening?
Beyond Listening is a robust and accessible online program with live sessions that assist leaders and organizations in building their adaptive capacity, facilitative leadership and the ability to navigate steady, rapid, and fundamental shifts in their internal and external environments.
All content delivery and live facilitation sessions are housed on this one stop shop learning management system. All you need to is log on and follow along.
What we’ve observed
We have been experiencing unprecedented shifts in our world. Listening to dozens of business, non-profit, and religious leadership across industries, We are Open Circle has documented these foundational shifts, and the struggles and opportunities these changes have presented. While the responses have been diverse, the themes are overwhelmingly shared. A sampling of these themes included concerns about:
Safety, especially for organizations who are still operating in-person businesses. Coupled with unclear governmental policies or mixed messages, this has become the primary concern for many organizations.
Preserving company culture: “Who are we if we aren’t together?”
Navigating issues of race and gender equity, diversity, and inclusion
Hiring in an online environment
Loss of informal communication and social interactions
Zoom/tech fatigue
Work-Life balance
Where do we go from here?
Overall, there is a strong sense that we will not go back to the way things were, and no one is certain where we are headed.
These conversations, interviews, and listening circles build upon We are Open Circle’s 5+ years of researching and piloting approaches that assist leaders and organizations in building their adaptive capacity; or ability to navigate steady, rapid, and fundamental shifts in their internal and external environments.
Over the last few months we have accelerated our work to launch Beyond Listening: a robust and accessible online program that teaches the skills and capacities needed to lead adaptive change in any industry.
Adaptive organizations require new sorts of leadership whose capacities and skills can be developed, and which are needed now more than ever.
In the past, leaders were chosen and cultivated for their:
Technical skill and expertise
Personal charisma and social/cultural power
And their ability to influence others
These skills and capacities rely on fixed systems. These systems are changing rapidly.
Skill Development
In this changing environment, leaders need to facilitate change and build collective systems able to adapt to complex and rapid change.
Their skillset needs to include:
The ability to cultivate and practice listening, awareness, and understanding across divisions, roles, and even industries.
Creative thinking
Building cohesion and alignment in decision making
Guiding collectives (teams, groups, organizations) through birth and death cycles
Group and situational (ecosystem) awareness
Self and group awareness around biases, limiting agendas, and power uses and abuses
Cultural awareness and cultural leadership
Please join us to learn more about the changing landscape of leadership and organization development across a spectrum of industries.