The Peer Learning session went well, with questions from participants getting me to think more deeply about the material and how to present it. We added in a new section on Action Learning and looked at the cycle of doing, reflecting, theorising, and planning, and the opportunity each stage offers for deeper learning. We had a guest observer from ICA Associates, facilitators extraordinaire, and I look forward to hearing his feedback.

Tomorrow I head to the four day Authentic Leadership in Action intensive hosted by the Shambhala Institute. The plenary sessions include talks by Peter Senge (of Fifth Discipline fame, a professor at MIT, and a founder of the Society for Organizational Learning) and Otto Scharmer (also at MIT, author of Theory U, and founder of Emerging Leaders Innovate Across Sectors).

Each participant also signs up for a particular module to participate in over the course of the retreat, and I’m signed up for The Future of Leadership: Scenario Planning and the Changing Nature of Organizations and Communities. Since first reading about scenario planning, I’ve been interested in how to design a learning event using scenarios to plan for future possibilities. In this module, I think we’ll actually participate in a scenario session, envisioning future possibilities that leadership could take over the next decade based on different combinations of organizational changes and challenges.

Upon return I’ll post some of the learning and reflecting from the intensive.