Cobb Hill Cohousing, Hartland, Vermont
The fourth Cohort of Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows completed their final weeklong workshop together in February, embarking into the world with enhanced leadership skills and a dynamic, supportive network. The 20 Fellows hailed from Thailand, India, Pakistan, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada, and the USA, representing the civil society, media, government, philanthropy, and business sectors. By design, 75% of the group is women.
The culmination of a yearlong series of four workshops, the gathering took place at Cobb Hill, the eco-village in rural Vermont co-located with the Institute. Fellows were housed by community members and enjoyed ethically sourced, organic meals, including products from Cedar Mountain Farm, also co-located with the Institute. Experiencing the land at different times of the year was a deliberate aspect of the program’s design. Fellows, for example, witnessed natural cycles directly by engaging in wood stacking efforts in the summer and fall, and reaping the warm benefits in the winter.
The Fellows Program provides a suite of tools that help social change leaders be more effective, insightful, and resilient. The systems thinking training helps Fellows analyze problems in a comprehensive way, while reflective conversation and other interpersonal skills helps them be more effective.
- Jen Mayer, San Francisco, California, Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Innovative Program Delivery
Fellows Huma Beg (Pakistan), Rachel Bagby (USA), Lorie Loeb (USA), and Newey Kraiwatnutsorn (Thailand)
Workshop participants deepened their systems thinking skills by examining some of the archetypes described in Donella Meadows’ book Thinking in Systems: Success to the Successful, Limits to Growth, Shifting the Burden to the Intervener, and Escalation.
Some of these archetypes appeared during short talks given by Institute staff and Fellows who had participated in the Copenhagen climate change negotiations. Dr. Beth Sawin shared about the Institute’s successes at Copenhagen. A Fellow talked about his facilitation role in the UNICEF and Dutch government-organized Children’s Climate Forum. Another Fellow analyzed the physical layout of the Bella Center, where the negotiations were held, noticing who had access to various venues, who had platforms to make their voices heard, and who was (or was not) listening. Others talked about the involvement of indigenous people in the event and about the civil society movement leading up to the conference.
An animated discussion on privilege emphasized that entrenched privilege in systems usually resists change. The group agreed that systems starved of information cannot respond to reality and that an attitude of learning will serve those seeking to engage with and change patterns in established systems.
Evelyn Arce (USA)
A program like I’ve never attended before. Thoroughly helps you unlearn and then facilitates you in picking up the pieces to help you ‘awake’ as a responsible person. It helps you sense and appreciate different cultures, see through various perspectives, and instills in you the skill sets to follow your vision.
- Amba Jamir, Guwahati, Assam, India, The Missing Link
The final coaching group meetings provided Fellows opportunities to celebrate successes together, and listen and ask questions about the challenges brought forward by their peers. At the end of the workshop, Fellows were paired to engage in peer coaching for the coming months.
Coaching helped me develop a vision, aspiration for the future, understand my role as CEO of a start-up and sustainability leader, tap into my strengths, and learn from others. In many ways it was in coaching that the learnings of the Fellowship were put into practice or modeled.
- Lorie Loeb, Hartland, Vermont, TellEmotion, Inc. and Dartmouth College
Participants also opened visioning letters that they had written to themselves the previous year and, after a guided visioning exercise, wrote forward-looking letters that the Institute will send to them in early 2011. These letters surely include the collaborations that many Fellows presented and are carrying out with one another, partnering across national boundaries on a diversity of projects, from performance art to publication, and corporate sustainability indicators to social networking.
Finally, a deeply moving component of the workshop was using creative expression to further action on climate change and sustainability challenges. In a 3-hour tour of force, Fellows performed on musical instruments, presented impactful images and videos, read poems, and shared collage, clay, and painted works of art.
Andrea Athanas (Switzerland)
I’m amazed at the wholeness that I am coming away with… I had anticipated the intellectual expansion with systems thinking, but not the aspect of tapping into creative expression and bringing my entire self into my work…
- Andrea Athanas, Gland, Switzerland, International Union for Conservation of Nature
Moving and inspiring, these expressions led into an innovative lights and spoken word performance and the collaborative creation of a sculpture made of various pieces of nature brought from Fellows’ own communities.
That evening, Fellows and staff celebrated the ending of their Fellowship and the beginning of new opportunities with food, humorous slide shows, games, music, and dancing. Fellows offered their heart-felt gratitude for the experience to their hosts at Cobb Hill and to their Institute stewards, facilitators, and coaches: Nancy Gabriel, Edie Farwell, Beth Sawin, Kaylynn Sullivan Two Trees, Mike Dupee, Jay Mead, and Phil Rice.
Alex Bauermeister (USA), Lorie Loeb, Rachel Bagby, Sudha Soni (India), Jed Davis (USA)
The Fellowship has shown me the value of diving into the learning loop with others. None of us have seen the far side of the sustainability revolution, so we – in diverse teams and partnerships – have to learn our way through it. When I recognize learning and relationship as central, I feel ready for anything.
- Dominic Stucker, Vancouver, Canada, Sustainability Institute