Strategic Planning & A Gala At The Sydney Conservatorium of Music
- June 30th, 2010
- Posted by: Joe Williams
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The Sydney Conservatorium of Music drew business and community leaders throughout Sydney to Dean Kim Walker’s Gala. I gave a short address to the group and then settled back to enjoy a wonderful evening of music, education and performances.
I’m a lucky guy. I get to go places ranging from Fairfax, VA to Bloomington, IN, and from Regina, Saskatchewan to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Dean Kim Walker, herself a three time Dialogue alum, invited me Down Under to do some strategic planning with her team for the Conservatorium’s 100th anniversary, coming up in 2015. Working with her team of approximately 20 administrators and professors, we prepared a very complete and thoughtful document.
With Dean Kim Walker at the Gala. A marvelous evening all around!
While there, Dean Walker invited me to join the Board of Advisors for the School, which I accepted with great humility.
The Aussies are wonderful to work with. Looks like I’ll be heading back to Sydney in November for a Board meeting!
Leading An Examined Life
- June 30th, 2010
- Posted by: Joe Williams
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The April 2010 Dialogue group examining a Saguaro during the early morning desert walk.
One of the unique aspects of the Dialogue in the Desert Workshop is not mentioned in our literature or on our web site and that is this: Spending five days in the desert helps one peel back the layers of their organization, their work and their lives and to see it from 360 degrees. And when we see it from different angles, different perspectives we see things that are there all the time, but go by ignored and unnoticed. For when we slow down we become more aware. By getting away, the desert and the tools–and the safe participant environment–helps us all in the Workshop to examine what is in front of us all along. The problem, I believe, is that most of the time we rush through our work and our lives without examination. Oh, we examine other people’s work and lives, but rarely our own. We are simply too busy to stop and see, to stop and be. Dialogue helps us stop. And when we stop we can think…think more clearly, more strategically. And then act with more confidence. It’s simple really. But most of the time we are too busy chasing after things. All we have to realize is that everything we want we already have. It is within us all the time. That is the gift this Workshop offers: A chance to stop, think, examine and then accept.
