Institute for Creative Leadership: Addressing workplace challenges in Northeast Ohio - ICL's Newsletter - July 2010

Dear Friend,

Welcome to the first issue of Institute for Creative Leadership's quarterly electronic newsletter. We hope you enjoy reading the latest updates on our work, play, and creative trainings.

In This Issue
Corporate Training
Education Training
Health and Behavioral Healthcare Training
Civic Leadership Training
Non-profit Training
About ICL
Employee Engagement at Dealer Tire

Board member CJ Murphy introduced Institute for Creative Leadership to her workplace, Dealer Tire. Important to Dealer Tire's culture is continuous employee growth and development. "While the employees grow and keep ahead of the change curve, so does the company," says CJ, Manager of Talent Development. ICL designed and facilitated two specific trainings for Dealer Tire.

The first training, involving the company's Emerging Leaders, focused on the principles of the book 360° Leader and awareness of one's own patterns, skills, and strengths. The instructional design and learning coordinating team attended the second "train-the-trainer" session. Using an adventure based approach, and a creative blend of theory and practice, attendees learned technique and tools to facilitate with other internal teams.

CJ, who also is an ICL trustee, reports, "Both sessions were highly engaging; deepening our leadership and influence skills go a long way in building healthy communications and efficient ways of working together."

ICL is pleased to help Dealer Tire be the high performing company that they are today with their over 100 years of business in Northeast Ohio.

Resource-rich Insight at E PREP School

The Entrepreneurship Preparatory (E PREP) School is conscious of the need to create a staffing team and work culture that truly helps Cleveland students realize their learning potential.

In the spirit of continuous self-improvement, E PREP invited ICL to facilitate a series of in-service trainings that addressed team building, diversity/cultural competence and communication skills building.Approximately 30 faculty and administrators explored how to be mindful of - and model - those human relation skills and qualities need to increase student effectiveness.

Says one educator, "Working with my fellow staff other than teaching....allows me to know other aspects that are there but usually unapproached," while another offered, "My co-teachers are a ready and resource-rich source for more insight, professional development and ideas".

At the end of the session, one faculty summed it up by posing both a question and a challenge: "How can we be of even greater service as we serve our students and each other in going forward?"

Adventures in Ethical Leadership with ADAMHS Board staff

Twenty-five ADAMHS staff recently attended ICL's newest course offering, Adventures in Ethical Leadership. Using Jon Krakauer's acclaimed book Into Thin Air and under the guidance of seasoned ICL facilitators, the attendees analyzed individual motivation and behavior, pride vs. responsibility, internal and external drivers of behavior, factors leading to poor judgment and decision making, team behaviors and roles, values and norms, personal loyalty, and different leadership styles. Challenging questions were posed such as, "How can conflicting goals lead to inappropriate decisions and behaviors?" and " How do context and pressure influence decision making and affect a leader's results?"

The group then considered their individual roles as organizational and community leaders. What ethical responsibilities do leaders have? What does an ethical institution look like? What ethical principles can we use to guide us? Are we vigilant of goals that are set and the actions taken to achieve them? How can we best serve our own followers and also influence the larger organizational and social structures? And so on.

For the past 27 years, the ADAMHS Board has been supporting its network of agencies in using ICL's experiential leadership, teambuilding, and diversity/cultural competence training.

A New Partnership for Sustainable Leadership

After one and a half years of creating and formalizing a partnership, board members from Institute for Creative Leadership (ICL) and Case-Barlow Farm (CBF) recently launched a joint $1 million capital campaign. This two-year campaign (2010-2011) will create and preserve the Center for Sustainable Leadership, ensuring regional leadership training and facilities.

Working together, the boards of ICL and CBF are crafting a new vision that fosters collaboration through shared values. The intention of the ICL-CBF partnership is to establish a Center for Sustainable Leadership that provides programs and resources to revitalize, teach and support tomorrow's leaders within a context that values the intersection of preservation and progress.

The Center for Sustainable Leadership is a venture that has its roots in the lessons and values of place and its wings in the capacity brought by trainings in leadership. The region's leaders in business, civic engagement, non-profit and education will be able to take advantage of the experiential learning offered by ICL in the highly impactful and resourceful location of Case Barlow Farm.

We are very excited about this new partnership and look forward to your involvement in our groundbreaking endeavor. For more information on Case Barlow Farm, please visit http://www.casebarlowfarm.com/. If this project piques your interest and/or support, ICL executive director, Marcia Mauter, would welcome your call at 216-932-3785.

Diversity Learning for the Achievement Center for Children

Institute for Creative Leadership recently facilitated diversity training for thirty staff from the Achievement Center for Children. Case Barlow Farm, a historically designated Underground Railroad site, was the location for this training, adding to the richness of learning.

The staff discussed the many 'take-aways' they experienced from this active and engaging training. They shared the importance of viewing the world from other ways in order to operate from a more informed viewpoint. They understand that strong and sustained efforts are needed to make sure that others don't become excluded/ marginalized because of ignorance or biases. They can better see others' diversities as being equally valuable as their own. They know that they must create movement, not just motions, so they can better meet their diversity leadership obligations, responsibilities, and challenges.

As one staff stated "As a society, we have made remarkable gains, but there is much more that can still be done. I need to push more to broaden my influence in positive ways. What am I waiting for?"

Thank you for your interest in ICL and for sharing our newsletter with other people who appreciate leadership and team development as a process and as an ideal. If you have issues that you would like to see addressed in our next newsletter, or if you are interested in learning more about ICL's experiential leadership development training, please e-mail me. In the meantime, lead on.

Sincerely,

Marcia Mauter

Director

Institute for Creative Leadership