The Relational Turn

Leadership Summit Series

Who Should Attend

This summit series is designed to provide opportunities for dialogue and for sharing best practices toward building empathic communities that are diverse, interdependent and sustainable. We are particularly interested in innovations…in both thought and action…in fields like psychotherapy, community organizing and community development, social work, organizational development, public dialogue, health care, and education. We also invite practitioners and consultants from allied disciplines, such as communications, economics, political science, neuropsychology, anthropology, and urban planning.

The Challenge

We face a global crisis that is social, economic and environmental in its reach. It grows worse every day as the planet’s resources are consumed beyond what can be sustained. Many struggle to keep peace or transcend longstanding conflicts over land and natural resources. Yet our understanding of the crisis diminishes when we fail to appreciate the complex nature of the problem. And our solutions fail to meet people’s diverse needs. Our change efforts must be effective on every level, including the social arena where we encounter a tricky interplay of solidarity and diversity.

The Solution

Sustainability is not only about recycling, rain forests and rising sea levels.  It’s also about people, families and communities—and the ways we are connected.  Our survivability links to many factors, some of them environmental, some of them economic, but many of them social.  And new laws, policies and programs will only be effective when supported by our new attitudes, habits and values.  Sustainability is as much about culture as it is about money and the planet.  It requires of all of us a significant relational turn.

How It Works

Every two years (on average), the Leadership Institute convenes this international summit of change leaders for a 5 days. Proponents of different change strategies have the opportunity to bond and strategize with others working from similar angles on the big challenges. Simultaneously, leaders who engage in different approaches have a chance to be bridged to one another and develop alliances across differences that are usually never crossed. All summit activities are designed to support participants in a “change ecology” model, encouraging further conversations, coordination of action and collaboration between communities of practice.