The Power Lab

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Upcoming Power Lab Seminars

March 21-26, 2010 England

A Laboratory for System Leadership

Who Is The Power Lab For?

• Leaders who want to be more effective influencing the future direction of their companies

• Leaders who are taking on increasing responsibilities and want to be successful

• Leaders seeking to work across boundaries more productively and break down barriers

• High potentials and fast-trackers who want to accelerate learning about their personal power, their personal barriers, and their system power potential

• Leaders looking for the skills and courage to take their organizations to the next level

• Leaders who are adventurous learners

• Executive coaches seeking to develop system leaders

The Centerpiece: The Total Immersion Experience

The Power Lab features a total immersion experience  involving a three-class community with distinct differences in wealth and power. Participants are "born" into one of the three classes. In this setting all the critical issues of power and leadership emerge clearly, and participants are confronted with these head on. Here participants get to take a good look at their usual ways of handling these issues, explore new approaches, and test their limits. It is this total immersion experience that plays a key role in creating the lasting learning of The Power Lab.

How The Power Lab Works

The Power Lab produces results through the combination of the intense total immersion experience described above, expert in-the-action coaching, personal and system reflection, and system frameworks.

Staff of the 2009 session pictured below are Lorna Rickard, David Green, Teressa Griffin, Mary Lou Michael, Dick Phillips, Cathy Daughenbaugh. In addition, Marsha Clark, Phil Novick, Nick Smith.

Coaching. All Power Lab participants have their own personal coaches. Coaches work with participants before, during, and after the lab. Coaches help participants stay alert to their choices, explore strategies, test new behaviors, and remain focused on their learning goals.

They provide feedback that is both insightful and challenging.

 

Reflection. Personal reflection is encouraged throughout. In addition there is an extensive systemic reflection period in which the immersion experience is thoroughly reviewed and mined for system learning. Here participants have the rare opportunity to see into and understand the different experiences of those who were in other parts of the system.

This experience of seeing the total system has lasting impact on participants' understanding of system life and ability to drive change . (Anthropology staff for 2008 session pictured are Amber Mayes, Lorna Rickard, David Green, Dick Phillips. Also, Frank Binnendyk.)

Strategic systemic frameworks. Woven throughout the program are strategic frameworks that provide participants ways of understanding system phenomena. These become the bases for taking action. Topics cover such issues as powerful systems, the challenges of creating teamwork at all levels, system power moves, limit situations, and working with the different worlds of Tops, Middles, and Bottoms.

System Leadership Requires

Unique System Competencies

System leadership is more than a matter of personal attributes. The complexities of system life necessitate their own set of system competencies, among them: how politically savvy one is, how comfortable in dealing with authority — one's own and others', how adept at working across boundaries, how willing to take risks, and more. The interactions in The Power Lab provide participants real-life opportunities to test and develop themselves against these competencies.

Download the SELF-IN-SYSTEM SENSITIZERS PDF. It’s free! The Sensitizers highlight dimensions that are central to system leadership. Use it to examine your usual patterns of behavior. And use it as a warm-up tool for your Power Lab experience. It will help you identify issues you need to work on. Note: If you register for The Power Lab, your Sensitizer results will be a focus of a pre-program conversation with your coach.

The Power Lab Produces Lasting Results

Additional data from the 2007 survey of Power Lab graduates from 1983 to 2007:

• 92% of Power Lab graduates reported making a significant impact on their organization as a result of attending

• 97% said The Power Lab was a good or excellent use of their time and money

• 100% reported significant learning

Some of their comments on the survey include

• "It was a life altering experience for me. The lab helped me to realize that I have tremendous leadership potential and what I could do to reach that potential. It has been ten years since I attended and I still use the lessons from the Lab professionally and personally."

• "The immersion experiences that comes with The Power Lab makes this a singularly powerful experience."

• "The Power Lab helped me to see differently and once my eyes were opened they could not close again."

• "The Power Lab is a living experience in that the learning never ends. It is a growth experience that keeps giving. A year and half later, I am still able to reflect on my experience and gain additional insights."

• "...the benefit of The Power Lab is being in a 'real-life' setting and thrust into a role where you are almost required to make decisions and take actions. The power is being able to see how these decisions and actions as well as those of other participants play out."

To apply to the Cape Cod Power Lab:

Power Lab Online Application

For details on the European Power Lab,

download the brochure.

FAQs

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Background on The Power Lab

• The Power Lab is the subject of the award-winning documentary, "The Power Lab: Living in New Hope".

• It is based on the pioneering work of Barry Oshry as described in LEADING SYSTEMS: LESSONS FROM THE POWER LAB (Berrett Koehler, 1999) and SEEING SYSTEMS: UNLOCKING THE MYSTERIES OF ORGANIZATION LIFE (Berrett Koehler, 2007).

• It is also described in GROUPS IN CONFLICT: PRISONS IN DISGUISE by Kenwyn Smith (Kendall Hunt), ADVANCES IN SOCIAL PROCESSES, C. Cooper and C. Alderfer eds. (John Wiley & Sons), and CONTEMPORARY ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT, W.W. Burke ed. (NTL Institute)

To apply to the Cape Cod, Massachusetts Power Lab: Power Lab Online Application

To apply to the European Power Lab visit the Living Leadership web site.