We live in a rapidly changing world and we are all feeling the effects of time-honored and familiar workplace systems breaking down. The transformation of our organizations is therefore utterly essential as we face these new challenges.
In this talk, David Laveman presents a fresh view of Jungian Archetypes that addresses these new and unforeseen systemic upheavals. When seen through an archetypal lens, new perspectives and opportunities for wise action become more accessible.
Embracing this challenge is both timely and important as it reveals with inescapable clarity entrenched dilemmas facing corporate leaders today. On the one hand, leaders must produce tangible results that are tightly wedded to well-established expectations of shareholders, customers and employees.
On the other hand, true transformation requires that one leave the safety of the known and make one’s way through a ‘dark wood’ where risk is a daily companion, where trusting one’s inner compass is critical, and guarantees of success are non-existent. The drama of these conflicting agendas is heightened when they take place in an organizational environment where ‘prediction and control’ assume a god-like status, and mastery of the outer environment is a cherished ideal. Trying to satisfy both the urgent requirement for fundamental change without upsetting the status quo often leads to one-sided attitudes, superficial diagnosis, and compromised action.
By re-visioning ‘transformation’ as including an urgent call to honor the ‘reality of the psyche’ and take seriously the communication of the ‘unconscious mind’, a new source of creative, frame-breaking problem solving can emerge along with a revitalized workplace environment.
This lecture is designed to engage the audience in a dialogue about Depth Psychology’s role, and the potential impact of an archetypal perspective, for Leadership Development & Organizational Transformation. We will examine the practical relevance of the ‘reality of the psyche’ to effective leadership. This includes how leaders work with the ‘shadow’ elements of the individual and organizational psyches to increase creativity and accountability.
We shall further consider how an archetypal understanding of organizational transformation yields new ways to successfully engage the complex network of stakeholders who are needed to make transformation a reality. The practical implications of committing to an archetypal perspective will be examined in greater detail in the workshop on Saturday.
David A. Laveman, MA, founder and President of Laveman & Associates, brings over 2 1/2 decades of senior level corporate consulting, coaching and change management expertise. Dave has maintained a sustained interest in Depth Psychology for the last 3 decades. In 2010, he received an MA in Mythological Studies with an Emphasis on Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute.
His views appeared in the Harvard Business Review & Forbes Magazine. In 2012, Dave was a guest presenter on Archetypal Leadership at The Symposium for the Study of Myth, co-sponsored by The Joseph Campbell Foundation, The Opus Archives & PGI. He was a guest presenter at The International Conference on “The Jung-Pauli Dialogue & its Impact Today,” in Lihn, Switzerland, sponsored by the Society for Mind-Matter Research. Recently his interview, "Seeing the Shadow: Depth Pyschology in Leadership was published on Depth Insights and DepthList.com.
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