Scenarios for the Next Generation of Resource Leadership

With Art Kleiner & Mary Stacey

What capabilities will you need, as a leader, to stand amidst uncertainty, tell a compelling story about the emerging future, and be better positioned to influence change?

What kind of leadership will be necessary to solve the emerging dilemma of how we use, manage, and steward resources for an evolving planet?

This track is for any leader, in business, government or society, who plays a role in designing and implementing strategic change. It is also a call to action for anyone who is committed to stewarding our global natural resources: forests, soil for food, energy and fossil fuels, minerals, and water. Because of demographic factors – especially the rise of the global middle class – the discourse around the use, management, and leadership of resources is about to dramatically change. This provides an immense opportunity for business, government, and community leaders (and the consultants who work with them) to step out in front. By example and oversight, the owners and governors of the world’s resources have a chance to take a stand on behalf of stewardship: on behalf of the responsible management and use of the things that people consume. Resource businesses that carve out a stewardship role may well end up with an immense distinctive advantage, as the purveyors not just of commodities but of knowledge and long-term sustainability.

To take on this kind of leadership, people need a shared understanding of the issues at hand – and the capabilities needed to convert that understanding into action. That is the purpose of this module. Its design combines scenario practice, capacity building, and action planning as a powerful way for a diverse group of stakeholders to think together about possible futures and become individual and collective co-creators and influencers. Scenarios are imaginative stories of the future that help people see the critical forces and underlying dynamics of the present more clearly. Scenario exercises were originally used in the oil industry at Royal Dutch/Shell, and have been widely employed in business and politics. They have rarely been used as we will use them in this workshop, as a catalyst for collective leadership around an emerging global issue, and as a way to define an emerging global discussion.

During our 15 hours together we will:

• Engage in scenario practice to see and understand the complex systems related to resources more clearly
• Design several stories about the future that can help articulate the choices facing civilization around natural resources
• Gain the skills and background to take these stories back to our communities and organization as a guide for strategic action

We will come out of the program with prototypes that can be useful in moving each of us forward in the next round of conversations about resources, and with the ability to more confidently meet a future that everyone sees, but few have consciously acknowledged.

The Context for our Scenario Practice

By 2050 human population will likely reach 9 billion. Millions of people in China, India, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere are entering the global middle class for the first time. Their energy use, food demand, and consumption will increase exponentially. Serious doubts already exist about the earth’s carrying capacity and the wise stewardship of our existing natural resources: forests, soil for food, fossil fuels, minerals, and water chief among them. Much of the intellectual, social and commercial momentum towards better use of resources has stalled because of political and economic crises.

In this situation, there is enormous leadership potential among the resource-producing nations — Canada, the U.S., Australia, Brazil, among many others – to help change the discourse about how humanity uses, manages, and stewards its resources. Those who work in the many related fields have an opportunity to set out practices and guidance to help redesign the global economic-ecological system from the bottom up. In particular, those who can stand amidst the uncertainty of multiple unfolding realities and tell a compelling story about the emerging future are positioned to influence and guide change.  This track will help you build your capacity to do just that.

Optional: Assess Your Capacity to Lead in Complex Systems

As part of this track, you have the option to complete and debrief the Leadership Development Profile (LDP/SCTi) prior to the program.

Research at the intersection of adult development and leadership development demonstrate that if today’s leaders want to effectively embrace greater degrees of complexity, they must attend not only to its outer manifestation, but also to the way you give meaning to that experience.

The Leadership Development Profile (LDP/SCTi) is an individual assessment that will help you understand your “action-logics,” as Bill Torbert calls them – the connections in your mind that shape your responses to current reality. More complex meaning-making has been correlated with increased leadership effectiveness (Torbert, 2004). Your action-logic has a profound impact on your leadership because it affects where you place your attention, your underlying assumptions, what inferences you draw, and crucially, what actions you take.  The LDP/SCTi identifies your primary action-logic—the action logic that most informs your thinking and action on a day-to-day basis.

The pre-program debrief with an authorized coach will support your ability to engage in scenario practice and will offer development guidance on key capacities needed for leading in complex systems, including:

• multi-dimensional and scenario-based thinking
• designing conditions for emergence
• engaging collaboratively
• managing ambiguity
• using power
• taking timely and wise action

The assessment is completed on-line. The cost of the assessment and debrief is $350. Please contact us if you are interested in this option.