Join our Complexity Inside & Out program

Our latest iteration of Working with Complexity Inside & Out” is open for registration. The program will run online from April 13 – June 15, 2023 on Thursday afternoons, North America Pacific time.

For the past couple of decades, my partner Caitlin Frost and I have been helping individuals, organizations and communities become more responsive to the complexity that they face as times and contexts change around them. We do this through a variety of tools and supports including

• personal and group coaching so individuals can become more resourceful in uncertainty and ambiguity;
• Participatory dialogue to create the conditions for groups to make sense of their situations and develop creative and emergent responses to the challenges they face;
• Longer-term strategic capacity building that helps them work with influence so that these organizations can dance with the complex environments in which they are working.

In the course of this work we have been on a learning journey through bodies of work that include:

• Complexity-informed practice through the work of Dave Snowden, Glenda Eoyang, Cynthia Kurtz, Dee Hock and others who have pioneered the field of complexity in human systems.
• Approaches to participatory dialogue and leadership as developed by the Art of Hosting community and the communities of practice associated with complexity-informed facilitation methods such as Open Space, World Cafe, LIberating Structures and many more, where the emphasis is on creating a dialogic container and working with self-organization and emergence.
• Approaches to leadership capacity development rooted in neuroscience, mindfulness, and practical awareness tools such as The Work of Byron Katie that help us to look at and work with our minds as complex systems in their own right, requiring complexity-based tools to work with the stories and patterns that prevent us from actively and creatively engaging with complexity.

And over the past few decades Caitlin and I have developed an approach to our work which uses and builds on the work of these folks and also has developed some original tools to complement these approaches. All of this is offered in a nine week, cohort-based learning program called Working Complexity Inside & Out and registration for our 2023 spring dates, April 13-June 15, is open now.

The origin story of this program comes from Caitlin and I tracking eight key characteristics of complexity pictured above that show up in every context in which we work, from our individual lives to that large systems of our cultures and societies. In the program we introduce you to ten foundational practices to addressing and working with complexity, no matter at which scale you are working and we introduce you to theory, tools, and practices that are intended to spur on your journey in working well with complex challenges at every level.

We really love this program. It has been a fantastic way to combine our life’s work together, and no matter your level of experience, you will learn new tools, find some new rabbit holes to go down and be able to bring grounded challenges and problems you are working on into a supportive learning environment.

Much more information is available on the registration page. Please be in touch with any questions. We look forward to welcoming you into the cohort.