Using systems thinking and organizational learning tools to help people put the principles of sustainability into practice.
Workshops & Courses
We offer short (half-day to three-day) engagements for groups working on issues of sustainability, as well as a set of workshops specifically useful to philanthropic organizations and foundations.
Training Workshops are designed to help a group of people improve their effectiveness with systems and indicators tools. More capacity-building in systems tools; less application.
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Facilitated Strategy Sessions
Facilitated Strategy Sessions are designed primarily to help a team improve their strategy on a set of issues or help a cross-stakeholder group work together in a shared issue area. The focus is less on capacity-building in systems tools and more on application.
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Coaching & Consulting
We use tools of systems thinking and organizational learning to help groups navigate issues that are both complex to understand (with many interrelated factors) and politically complex (with many interrelated stakeholders). This tool set is particularly helpful when it is difficult to understand impacts over time, when important assumptions are unstated or unclear, and when success requires collaborative teams.
Many consulting engagements begin with a half- to one-day Facilitated Strategy Session.
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Change Labs
SI leads Change Labs in collaboration with colleagues at other organizations. SI’s Sustainable Food Lab is the first, and brings together food system leaders to create living examples of sustainability in mainstream food systems. A new Meadowlark Lab is convening in the Northern Great Plains of North America to create examples of system change that would enable young people to have greater opportunities in the region. Two essential features of Change Labs are:
- a uniquely diverse group of stakeholders from all parts of a system,
- the use of the U-Process to uncover emerging futures, access deep sources of inspiration, and rapidly test practical innovations.
Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program
This 2-year program offers mid-career social and environmental leaders four workshops and on-going homework and personal coaching. Skill development includes training and coaching in systems thinking, organizational learning and personal mastery. Fellows address environmental and social issues at two levels:
- learning within complex economic, social, and environmental systems
- action in multi-stakeholder arenas