How Are Internal Stakeholders and Team Performance Connected?

Photo credit: todd photography

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by Rachel Harris

In a periodic series, we share reports from the field about our work with clients. Recently, a client contacted us for strategy to retain top talent and enhance workplace dynamics. Here is the challenge our client was facing:

For the past few months, a group of senior managers, mostly women, have been meeting to re-organize an internal group of stakeholders. The quandary they were facing was retention of top female talent in a male-dominated workplace. By re-energizing the workforce through a special interest group (SIG) they hoped to curb the exit of female staff. 

This SIG hired Center for Purposeful Leadership (formerly Heartland) to re-focus the mission and vision, design a kick-off meeting and provide convening training. Over a period of five months, the design team met monthly. The SIG leadership team, along with key HR staff, took the Art of Convening workshop to learn effective communications and staff engagement techniques.

After the training, the SIG leadership team applied the meeting design principles to the re-launch kick-off with great effect. The SIG relaunched in March with over 70 people in attendance - double the expected turnout! With the SIG firmly in place and staff reengaged - both men and women - employees are seeing one another in a new light, taking time to collaborate and supporting one another professionally.

The internal stakeholders in the SIG have acted as champions for the organization and teams have transformed.

Looking back on these past months with the client, they benefited from executive coaching and training on more effective meetings, and exceeded their goals and expectations. Now that the SIG is up and running, they have requested a quarterly tune-up. 

You may think of tuning up cars on a periodic basis, but how about teams? Consider tuning up your team or a special interest group. Quarterly trainings and monthly coaching enable staff to embody positive business practice adaptations - for the long term. 

If you would like more information, we are happy to talk with you. Call Center for Purposeful Leadership at 612-920-3039 or email

Rachel Harris

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Using Convening to Transform Company Culture: June TLC

Photo Credit: Daniel Scotton

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by Rachel Harris

With Mother’s Day recently passed, I arrived at work yesterday thinking about how to create a positive future for all people, whether their path takes them into the business world or not.  An equitable workplace is on my mind.  I worry that it might not be possible to spark shifts in company cultures that dissolve the glass ceiling for women and minorities.  And, I hope that such corporate transformations are already happening.  

At the upcoming TLC-Twin Cities, Heartland will convene a conversation inspired by news of the 5th Annual Minnesota Census of Women in Corporate Leadership.  

In this important annual conversation - relevant for anyone who is making forward-thinking business decisions, has a daughter or knows a woman rising through the ranks, Heartland and St. Catherine University will relay how company culture impacts women’s advancement in Minnesota.

There are several ways to participate:

• Come for the morning session “Inclusive Leadership: Why Company Culture and Men Matter” ($99) and stay for lunch ($19) to extend the conversation.
• Bring a colleague to continue the conversation afterward at the office!  2+ participants per company reduces the morning rate to $89/person.
• Invite colleagues to attend the afternoon “Getting Your Life into Balance” Workshop ($75). People can participate in the Workshop separately from the morning.

June 10th will be a day of rich learning and action-oriented outcomes. We’d love to see you there. Regiser here.

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Wednesday Wisdom (or Wit) from Heartland: Love and The Art of Convening

Photo Credit: Craig Neal

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Love and The Art of Convening

by Cindy Wold

I started a graduate program this fall and am interested in carrying “love” as a scholarly topic of study and as a theme for my program. As I research this topic I am finding many others who are taking love as a serious phenomenon worthy of understanding for the sake of human wellbeing and effective relationships. The time seems right to dig deeper into this subject.

I find myself, still, passionately interested in studying the meaning and practice of love. I say “still” because this is not a new interest. It has its roots in many life experiences, in reading and study and, surprisingly, in the co-authoring of The Art of Convening!

Many years ago I read Erich Fromm’s classic book, The Art of Loving. In the book, Dr. Fromm posits that love is a not simply a sensation we may or may not be lucky enough to feel, but is indeed an art which one must study and practice to master. In the book he gave advice on how to both recognize and practice the art of loving.

When I collaborated with Craig and Patricia on writing The Art of Convening book, I began to think about one of the practices of loving that Fromm presented in his book: the quality of concentration.

According to Dr. Fromm this meant attending very deliberately to what one was doing in the moment, and multitasking as little as possible. He also took it to mean that we avoid, as much as possible, what he labeled “trivial conversation.”

Avoiding trivial conversation doesn't mean that everything we talk about has to be of grave or overarching importance. It means that what we talk about be genuinely of interest and meaningful to us and our conversation partner(s) and not just an exchange of pithy clichés or memorized talking points. In other words, we are urged to bring our conversations into the realm of truth, genuineness and recognition of the other.

I began to realize that The Art of Convening was a book that described a detailed method for bringing exactly this condition of concentration into our conversations. So, to me, as I have practiced the Art of Convening in my life and work, I consider that I am also practicing love. And I think that whether we intend it or not, we all bring a practice of love to our meetings, gatherings and conversations when we use the Art of Convening to create the quality of authentic engagement.

Do you have an experience of bringing the quality of love to your everyday work and life? Are there practices that you have discovered? Has the Art of Convening made a difference in the quality of your relationships? I'd love to hear from you and, if you're interested, would be happy to send links to some of my research.

Cynthia (Cindy) Wold is a Co-author of "The Art of Convening: Authentic Engagement in Meetings, Gatherings, and Conversations"

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Miracle of a Single Flower

Bedside-roses

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"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change."

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~ Buddha

via www.beautydialogues.com

From friend Amy Lenzo, Beauty Dialogues

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Martin Luther King

Photo credit: Jeronimo Bernot

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Lord, who can be trusted with power,

and who may act in your place?

Those with a passion for justice,

who speak the truth from their hearts;

who have let go of selfish interests

and grown beyond their own lives;

who see the wretched as their family

and the poor as their flesh and blood.

They alone are impartial

and worthy of the people's trust.

Their compassion lights up the whole earth,

and their kindness endures forever.

(A Book of Psalms, translations by Stephen Mitchell)

Thank you to Panhala

Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive <http://www.panhala.net/Archive/In_Memory_of_MLK.html>  

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Wednesday Wisdom (or Wit) from Heartland

Photo Credit: Craig Neal

A friend sent this link not long ago. It's a light touch to a serious subject.

Follow the Frog

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