How to face challenges in participatory manner in companies and organisations as well as the wider communities?
How to deal with complexity of today’s society?
General info
The Alpbach Professional Programme on Facilitation and Participatory Leadership is a 3,5 day training course designed to teach simple, yet powerful processes required for building communities, activating collective intelligence and fostering individual and collaborative leadership practices.

This training is special because it’s designed for the large group of participants from across multiple sectors and continents to practice participatory leadership and their ability to host and harvest conversations that matter. It’s organized during the European Forum Alpbach Programme 2018  “Diversity and Resilience” which will attract experts from the worlds of business, politics, culture and the civil society.  It will be hosted by international trainer team of 16 very experienced and committed hosts that are eager to explore, learn and practice with you!

Join us, and immerse yourself in international setting full of new ideas, mindsets, and contacts.  Let us join forces to answer important questions of today! Profit from the knowledge and experience sharing and let your skills grow in the inspirational environment of the European Forum Alpbach where you can connect with decision-makers from across the world.

Who is it for?
People who want to develop collaboration and participation skills and want to harness the richness of diverse backgrounds and experiences. We invite professionals in public service, change-makers, social innovators and entrepreneurs, representatives of NGOs, leaders in business, selected Forum Alpbach scholarship holders.

About
Based on “Art of Hosting” methodology, this training aims to give a dynamic and effective introduction to methods of working in a participatory and collective manner in order to tackle complex systems and challenges on local, regional, national levels and beyond.

Participatory leadership has proven its value in many different contexts as a means of activating collective intelligence within groups and organisations. Present and future leaders need to be more flexible and creative in order to successfully navigate the challenges we face, such as the accelerating rate of change, the increased complexity in organisations and the prospect of ever-widening diversity. The traditional command-and-control style of leadership alone is no longer workable. Tapping into the potential held in people is crucial and inviting everyone to participate, bringing diverse perspectives to the table, is the key to releasing this potential in organisations.

The practice of participatory leadership recognises strategic dialogue and conversations as drivers for development and change. It can be used to good effect in areas such as:
•Strategy-making, stakeholder engagement and alignment, organisational and community development
•Leadership and management alignment, team and network development, staff engagement
•Developing and animating networks and communities of practice

What are the benefits?
•Explore how hosted conversation as a process complements more traditional ways of leading teams and organisations.
•Explore collaborative means for responding to complex system and organisational issues.
•Experience how to design processes and host meetings and conversations with the help of methods such as Circle, World Café, Open Space, Appreciative Inquiry, Storytelling, etc.
•Gain an understanding on how to work with powerful questions and how to harvest the results of co-creational processes.
•Actively take part and have an opportunity to present your own project or idea and gain access to the collective wisdom of the group in shaping its implementation.
•Experience how to tap into the collective know-how and discover the strengths, talents and capacities hidden in the group.
•Experience and learn how to use tools that invite people to contribute their strengths and skills to meet a common purpose.
•Equip yourself to facilitate change using participatory methods and take these methods to scale.

For scholarships: Participants are selected among interested scholarship holders of the European Forum Alpbach 2018. Please send your application documents as a PDF along with your scholarship confirmation (from the Non-Profit Foundation of the European Forum Alpbach or one of the regional Clubs and IGs) between May 25th and June 10th to lara.weisz@alpbach.org