Tag: Julie Auger


The Planet’s Life is in Our Hands… Really? Seriously?

If you’re hearing undertones of sarcasm laced with anger and heartbreak in the title of this post, you’re reading me right. I originally had grand intentions of creating an enlightened piece about integral leadership and spiral dynamics… well, not really, but it sounds dazzling. Instead, my attention swayed toward news over the more than 48… Read more »

Crisis of Power: Exploring Three Different Leadership Stances

Are you Not Enough, Too Much or Enough? At the 2011 National Training Lab Annual Conference this August, Collins Dobbs, Mary Ann Huckabay, Craig Shchuler, and Yifat Sharabi-Levine asked its participants to answer this question. I was one of them. The question was part of an experimental exercise designed to explore different sides of ourselves… Read more »

Transforming Our Economic System: From Egocentric Domination to Ecocentric Real Wealth

A reoccurring theme has been emerging in conversations with my friends and colleagues: our economic system. Does our current economic system work? Who does it serve? Who is it damaging? Is it sustainable? Is there a better way? Can the system be changed? I’ve wrestled with the underlying purpose of our financial structure for sometime…. Read more »

President Obama Retracted EPA Ozone Standards. Would You?

What?! More breaks for Big Oil and manufacturing at the expense of our health and natural environment? I thought we were moving beyond bottom-line resolutions. What happened to systemic, holistic approaches; sustainability; and corporate social responsibility? Earlier this month, U.S. President Barack Obama withdrew an EPA air-quality standard for Big Oil and the manufacturing industry… Read more »

First Thing’s First: Who Are We?

Today’s buzzwords are collaboration, community engagement, and networked leadership across several industries. There’s a lot of talk about adapting a systems perspective and moving away from linear approaches to change. These views and processes are all well and good. As a matter of fact, they hold the promise of a more holistic pathway towards ecological… Read more »

Three Levels of Conversations: Learning to Access an Organization’s Unique, Imaginative Intelligence

Can you help us with our strategic planning? Our organization needs assistance in constructing specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (or SMART) goals and clarifying objectives. Like most consultants, I am often approached with such requests.  Typically, a leader wishes to tease out a tactical plan in half a day in order to quickly move… Read more »

Systems Only Get the Right Answers When They Ask the Right Questions

Consider the possibility that everything we know today about our world emerged out of a vast pool of questions. Consider that human systems naturally evolve towards the questions people ask. Questions push the boundaries of our knowledge and understanding of what is possible. How might we transplant a heart or put a person on the… Read more »

Place Makes the Leader

What is place-based leadership? I’ve been asking that question since May of 2010, when I was invited to a dialogue session around the subject. Since that time I’ve been asked to give numerous presentations on place-based leadership, and at first I was nervous about it.  Though I had found the subject compelling, it seemed wispy… Read more »