Ep. 029: Prof. Peter Hawkins: Gender, “WeQ” and the Urgent Need for Collaborative Intelligence In Organizations
It’s my contention, that, in spite of what’s been happening between the United States and North Korea, Syria, and that the Doomsday Clock is at 2 minutes to midnight, arriving at a world without armed conflict is possible in our life times. This is not just my hunch but based on some serious work by some serious people many of whom have been or will be interviewed on this podcast (John Horgan, “The End of War”, Episode 10, William Ury (“Getting to Yes” and “Getting to Peace”), Dr. Riane Eisler, “The Chalice and the Blade” (Episode 28), and Nobel Nominee, Scilla Elworthy, “The Business Plan for Peace” (upcoming guest).
It’s also my contention that the single greatest key to a more harmonious world is “getting gender right” in family systems and in organizations, the two building blocks of our world.
In this current episode of The Peacebuilding Podcast: Bridging the Divide, it’s my great pleasure to explore the connection between organizational culture and a more peaceful world with Professor of Leadership, Peter Hawkins from the Henley Business School in the UK.
Peter has been working with companies for decades on leadership culture and change initiatives. He is a leading expert in what he calls Systemic Team Coaching which I was lucky enough to receive training from him in. I think of his models as kind of the infrastructure for building collaboration in systems, very much like the extensive education I received from John Carter and the Gestalt Organizations and Systems Design Program.
I was drawn to interviewing Peter not just because of his stellar professional credentials but because of the human being and man that he is. I appreciate how he gets senior executives from the very largest companies to invoke all of the stakeholders of their decisions including their collective grandchildren and “more than human world”. As he likes to say, he gets people thinking "forward, back, outside, in".
Peter is brilliant and deep, and I think you will find it well worth your time to listen to him. Here are some highlights of the episode.
Peter will address with great sophistication my question about whether there is a relationship between getting gender and diversity right inside organizations and creating a more harmonious world;
He will address the idea that the era of heroic leadership is dead and gone, and that we face an urgent need to develop collective leadership and collaborative intelligence;
He will talk about what men and women can do together as leaders in our places of work that we couldn't do apart, and why this kind of leadership is so critically important for our organizations today;
He will speak directly to men in organizations, whether they are leadership or rank and file, and provide valuable guidance about how to think and proceed in the #MeToo era.
He will address the need for companies to rethink their career design models, which he says are designed for twentieth century white men, not twenty-first century human beings;
He will address a question that has always nagged at me, about how companies can get gender right and still stay competitive -- in other words, not feel like they're doing the right thing, only to fall behind in a hyper-competitive world;
And lastly, he will talk poignantly about the impact of absentee fathers, either because of wars or work and offer some profound words of wisdom to guide us as we go forward into this complex and exciting future together.
I know you will enjoy this deeply intelligent and thoughtful man talk about issues that are so critical for our time.
