Art of Participatory Leadership - Bringing your community together to solve complex problems

Our cities and our city governments are wrestling with complex issues and facing tough decisions like never before.  When faced with challenges like homelessness and climate change, there is much that cities can and are doing; however, making meaningful and lasting progress increasingly requires leadership and engagement among all segments of a community: city and county government, non-profit service providers and other civic organizations, businesses, and community members.  

JOIN US FOR THREE DAYS OF LEARNING, INNOVATION, AND CAPACITY BUILDING.  

YOU WILL LEARN: 

• Powerful tools to increase your ability to think and work systemically and to collaborate with others
• How to design and host meetings and gatherings that are strategic and impactful  
• How to facilitate and build leadership capacity in teams that are working with complex and challenging issues
• How to approach a complex or wicked problem with a stronger understanding of the role and impact of race and equity  
   

WHAT WILL YOU TAKE AWAY? 

Bring your real work and challenges to the training.  We will use those to help us learn and provide opportunities for you to network with peers facing similar challenges. 

You’ll have the opportunity to:

• Lead and participate in various methodologies such as World Café, Circle, Open Space, and other liberating structures
• Receive coaching support for your current projects and efforts
• Develop self-leadership and self-regulation practices to feel more confident stepping into a leadership role
• Apply what you’re learning to projects and initiatives underway in your communities
• Learn how to gather input and graphically record what you are hearing and learning

FEATURED CASE STORY: 

The City of Olympia’s new Office of Performance and Innovation has been using Participative Leadership practices to set a long-term direction for their community’s housing and prevention response.  City Council and staff recognize that the issues are complex and will not be solved using traditional engagement approaches!    Integrated into this training will be opportunities to learn how they have been using these methodologies to build a shared understanding of the problem, engage a diversity of community voices, build leadership capacity in the community, and co-create new and innovative solutions.