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Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program 2003-2004

Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program 2003-2004. Sustainability Institute Hartland Four Corners, Vermont. SI is a think-do tank dedicated to: sustainable resource use, sustainable economics and sustainable community. Our Mission:

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Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program 2003-2004

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  1. Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program2003-2004 Sustainability Institute Hartland Four Corners, Vermont

  2. SI is a think-do tank dedicated to: sustainable resource use, sustainable economics and sustainable community. Our Mission: To use the tools of systems thinking, system dynamics and organizational learning to further a global transition to sustainability.

  3. Sustainability Institute works in a variety of ways to help integrate environmental and social goals into global systems. Action-Research • Sustainable Agriculture • Renewable Energy • Natural Resource Commodities • Consulting • • Systems Thinking Facilitation • • System Dynamics Modeling • • Collaborative Learning Projects Publications • Research Reports • Articles • Opinion Columns • Donella Meadows Archives Leadership Training • Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program • Sustainable Agriculture Leadership Lab

  4. Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows ProgramSystems Thinking for Sustainability To empower the next generation of environmental leaders with the tools of systems thinking… ....Honoring analytic clarity and attention to spirit, values, and meaning.

  5. Donella (Dana) H. Meadows(1941-2001) • Founder of Sustainability Institute, 1996 • Systems Analyst, Teacher, Writer, Journalist, Farmer • PhD (Biophysics), Harvard University • Professor, Dartmouth College • MacArthur Fellow • Pew Scholar • Leading Voice for Sustainability "A sustainability revolution requires each person to act as a learning leader at some level, from family to community to nation to the world.”

  6. Three qualities that Danacombined: • dedication to scientific rigor and analysis • deeply grounded vision of a sustainable world • the ability to communicate well in writing System tools enabled her to see clearly the root causes of seemingly intractable problems — poverty, war, environmental degradation. Her deep affection for people and the earth gave her a unique power to reach others.

  7. Dana’s guiding message was simple: “We humans are smart enough to have created complex systems and amazing productivity; surely we are also smart enough to make sure that everyone shares our bounty, and surely we are smart enough to sustainably steward the natural world upon which we all depend. “

  8. Goal of the Fellows Program To learn from Donella Meadows’ life example and increase the effectiveness of leaders applying systems thinking to social and environmental challenges by: (1) Building Fellows’ skills in systems thinking, organizational learning, mental models, and visioning (2) Building Fellows’ understanding of systems principles (3) Applying new skills to projects within Fellows’ work environment (4) Building a Fellows’ community

  9. Selection Process and Criteria 130 Applicants —> Narrowed it down to 26 Non-profit, government, business, philanthropy, university Interviewed 26 —> Choose 17 —> 16 accepted Criteria: • Scientific rigor in their analysis of an issue • Ability to work with multi-stakeholders on an issue • Working on an issue that SI has expertise in • Placement within an organization or network so they can influence others • Personal growth and mastery

  10. Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program 16 Fellows 2-year cycles 4 four-day workshops Apply learnings to a current work project Coaching , homework, and community building

  11. SI Staff and Fellows 16 Accomplished Environmental Leaders 13 women, 3 men 14 US States & 1 International (Brazil) Representing major cities, rural communities, tribal lands, university towns

  12. ISSUES Urban Environment Climate Change and Energy Sustainable Community Development Biodiversity and Land Conservation Agriculture and Food Systems Pollution Prevention Areas of Fellows’ Impact STAKEHOLDERS • Activists • Legislators • Government Officials • Consumers • Farmers • Industry Executives • Citizen Boards SECTORS • University • Philanthropy • Non-profit • Government • Business • Tribal

  13. Outcomes of the Fellows Program • Process Design andFacilitation Skills • Systems Thinking Skills • Powerful Relationships Among Fellows and SI Staff • Increased Personal Mastery • Effectiveness of Fellows’ Organizations

  14. The Fellowship Program Provides Both Practice And Application Workshop 2 Process Design Workshop 3 Project Clinics Workshop 4 Fellows Support Workshop 1 Foundational Skills Skill Building & Systems Principles Learning Projects Fellows Teambuilding & Co-learning Practice with disciplines Project Work Project Work

  15. Core Capabilities of Learning in Complex Systems: reflective conversation strategic thinking aspiration capacity to reflect on assumptions and patterns of behavior capacity to understand and change complex systems capacity of individuals and teams to orient towards what they truly care about

  16. Strategic thinking Systems thinking Causal loop diagramming Action to outcome mapping Reflective Conversation Collaborative learning Inquiry based intervention Organizational learning Aspiration Visioning Networking and community building Skills Fellows Learn Include:

  17. What Are Systems Tools for? • To move focus away from events and symptoms and toward system structure. • To elicit and articulate mental models, then expand them • by accounting for feedback, time delays, non-linearity, and other components of complex systems. • To test and improve mental models via simulation. • To develop shared mental models within teams and communities. • To understand where leverage points are and are not. • Better mental models lead to better decisions about how to lead the transition to sustainability.

  18. Increasing Leverage The Iceberg – A Metaphor for the Level at Which We Address a System Events Patterns of Behavior Systemic Structure Mind-sets

  19. Objectives for the First Workshop, June 23-27, 2003 • Build Fellows’ skills in systems thinking, mental models, and vision. • Build Fellows’ understanding of systems principles. • Prepare for applied projects within Fellows’ work environment. • Build a Fellows’ community.

  20. Uniting Strategic Thinking, Reflective Conversation and Aspiration for Effective Change Strategic Thinking Reflective Conversation Reflective Conversation understand current reality -- what’s happening and the underlying drivers take action based on a strategic understanding of the system Aspiration develop a shared vision of the future we are trying to create Adapted from the “U” Leadership Model

  21. “The first Fellowship workshop was extremely valuable because it taught us a means of describing complex problems in such a way that reveals the underlying drivers.  When we are aware of what is causing a problem we can focus more of our productive energy on finding solutions and acting upon them, rather than addressing symptoms of the problem.” —John Fisk Food and Policy Consultant to the Kellogg Foundation

  22. “Systems thinking will be an extraordinary tool for me to analyze the issues and projects on which I work.  Connecting the daily living of the Cobb Hill community to the workshop was an ideal way to ground the experience and gave us such inspiration and optimism.” —Angela Park Environmental Leadership Program

  23. Objectives for Workshop 2 Introduce and practice next level of systems concepts and tools. Reflect on the goals and meaning of leadership for sustainability. Design projects for Fellows to apply the workshop learnings and disciplines within their home work environment.

  24. Individual Projects can be one of the following: • 1) New Work Initiative – a new multi-stakeholder forum to achieve an outcome in the system. • New Process Initiative – a new framework to engage colleagues in making an existing work effort more effective. • Specific Opportunity – a specific challenge where the learning tools could be tapped to improve a project. • Personal Mastery Aspiration – an effort by a Fellow to address “who they are in their work”.

  25. Fellows in Action Mark Spalding is opening a neutral third-party hosted dialogue among corporate and environmental stakeholders to address solutions to the management failures of the Marine Stewardship Council. Lynn Stoddardis preparing comments on cultural change to submit to an agency reorganization group. Angela Parkplans to create a training on systems thinking as part of her leadership program’s curriculum, integrating the “ladder of inference” and reflective listening.

  26. Suggestions for Capstone Program • Clarify vision of what the program hopes to accomplish • Develop curriculum, framework, models, tools • Foster teambuilding among the participants • Use systems thinking to: – integrate the interdisciplinary goals of the program – analyze the roots causes of issues – see the interconnections between issues 1) Post preparation materials on the WWW 2) Gather together in a workshop 3) Follow-up and expand on the WWW

  27. “A sustainability revolution requires each person to act as a learning leader at some level, from family to community to nation to the world. And it requires each of us to support leaders at all levels in their learning by creating an environment that permits them to admit uncertainty, conduct experiments, and acknowledge mistakes.” Donella Meadows, 1992

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