Leading from the Future
A one-day workshop
It is something of a cliché to say that the world is going through an unprecedented amount of change at an unprecedented rate. We live in what are sometimes known as VUCA times – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
At such times, be it at work or at home, we seek innovation and new approaches that can best meet the times and circumstances we are in. This means downloading the future. It means understanding that the future is not tomorrow. Let me say that again … it is not the case that tomorrow is the future. Tomorrow is usually a recycling of the past. I take what I have learned from my past experience, repackage it and call it the future. As cotemporary mystic, Thomas Hubl puts it, metaphorically it is like picking up the carpet that I walked on yesterday, throwing it over my shoulder and laying it down in front of me and saying "See? It's tomorrow’s carpet. It’s in the future. Quite different from the past." But actually it’s the same carpet, just in a different position.
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To be truly open to the future means cultivating an inner and outer practice of seeing the world and all that is in it afresh. Can I meet you, in every moment, afresh? Or do I meet you with a pre-formed idea of who you are, how you will respond, and what you are likely to think, say and do? It means understanding that, from a mystical point of view, the future is already happening now.
If we can cultivate the inner conditions where we can deeply listen to the whisper of the future, we will hear a soft call to adventure, to the new, to insight and innovation. Often this whisper is drowned out by the noise of the world – our busy thoughts and busy lives.
Insight and innovation land in spaciousness. We need to cultivate this. As Thomas Hubl says, we need to become gardeners of space. The new cannot land if we are already filled with the old. We need to empty out and create the spaciousness in which the future can arrive.
‘Be still and know’, as Eileen Caddy said.
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To download and access the future, we need to create inner and outer spaciousness, within which we can listen deeply to its whisper and to our sources of inspiration, and cultivate the courage needed to act on what we hear and receive. In this way, the future can be embraced with a sense of adventure and possibility, and not with fear and foreboding.
The workshop:
Price: $500
In this workshop we will explore the true nature of the future, through deepening our understanding of the nature of insight, innovation, intuition and inspiration. We will develop the inner and outer competences that support our capacity to lead from the future.
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The workshop will be highly experiential, and will draw both on the wisdom of participants and on the teachings of such luminaries as Thomas Hubl, Eileen Caddy, Don Beck, Arny & Amy Mindell and other teachers who have profoundly influenced my philosophy and practice.
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I look forward to being with you.
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Robin Alfred
(CEO, Findhorn Consultancy Service)
More details and to book:
Charlotte - i.am.chaza@gmail.com
Robin Alfred
Executive coach, trainer, facilitator and organisational consultant
Robin Alfred, BA (Oxon), PGCE, M.Phil (Cantab) is an organisational consultant, facilitator, trainer and executive coach.
Robin worked as a trainer, educator and social work manager for 15 years in London, before moving to Scotland in 1995 where he founded the Findhorn Consultancy Service.
He has extensive experience in leading and developing groups and individuals across all sectors – corporate, public, and third sector.
Robin is trained in a wide variety of approaches to personal and organisational development including: Appreciative Inquiry, the Frameworks for Change Coaching Process, Process Work, Spiral Dynamics and Tools for Corporate Transformation. His facilitation work draws on these processes as well as Open Space, World Café and other innovative processes to maximize the group’s collective intelligence. For more than 25 years, he has facilitated groups of all sizes, from 6 – 600, in all sectors. Robin is a registered facilitator for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and was part of the design and facilitation team for the 2013 UN Global Compact in New York.
Robin’s clients include PricewaterhouseCoopers, BP, Birmingham City Council, the National Health Service, Friends of the Earth, ABN-AMRO Bank, RBS, Tasweeq Qatar, Equal Exchange, UN, Greenpeace International, Weleda UK, Carbon Disclosure Project and BAE Systems.
Robin is also a Senior Associate of Olivier Mythodrama Associates, for whom his clients include: Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, INSEAD, UN International Atomic Energy Agency, Daimler, McDonalds, UK Cabinet Office, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of Abu Dhabi, UK Office for Public Management, HM Revenue and Customs, London Institute of Education, IESE Barcelona, Mercy Corps, Bertelsmann University, Fried Frank, Rolls Royce, the Environment Agency and Freshfields.
Robin has participated in many local and national TV and radio interviews and phone-ins, on subjects ranging from criminal justice to organisational development, leadership and sustainability, and delivered a TEDx talk in May 2015, ‘Activists Anonymous – a 5-step recovery programme’. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U19R5nif008
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PUBLICATIONS
Robin is a contributor to The Guardian Online Sustainable Business www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business and has also published:
“Black Workers in the Prison Service” (ISBN 0 946209 22 7), Prison Reform Trust, London. Prize-winner in Prison Reform Trust national research competition.
‘Beyond You and Me – Inspiration and Wisdom for Building Community’ ed, Kosha Anja Joubert and Robin Alfred (ISBN: 978-1-85623-038-4). Permanent Publications.
“What’s the Best Day You’ve Ever Had at Work?’ by Robin Alfred and Robin Shohet, published in ‘Building on the Best – Appreciative Inquiry in the NHS’ ed. John Edmonstone (ISBN 1-904235-49-2). Kingsham Press.
‘Daring Not To Know’ - Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner, November 2003.
‘Working with the Inner Critic – A Coaching Story’ – Global Talent Network.
‘Acceptance’ in World Book of Values (ISBN 10 9461312598), Halewyck, Uitgeverij, 2013.
Findhorn Foundation Consultancy Service Occasional Papers, (for which he is also the Series Editor):
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“Integral Leadership”
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“Appreciative Inquiry – the 5th D” (with Robin Shohet)
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Contact Details
Mobile phone: + 44 7990 972827
Email: robin@findhornconsultancy.com
Websites: www.findhornconsultancy.com