The Barcelona International Peace Center (BIPC) and Cultivating Leadership are pleased to announce the Complexity Fitness Workshop on cultivating a self that is fit for the complexities of peacebuilding, development assistance, crisis management and humanitarian aid, to be held in Barcelona, Spain from June 12th to 15th 2023. We would love to have you join us for this powerful workshop.
Introduction
As our world is becoming increasingly interconnected and interdependent, it is also becoming increasingly volatile and unpredictable. Along with this change, practitioners have been confronted with the ways that many of the tools and ways of thinking in common use simply don’t work in complex contexts. Thus, for more than a decade, global development actors have been experimenting with approaches to delivering aid that draws on the science of complex systems. These new methods and approaches are changing aid practice in promising ways, challenging old modes of thinking and doing, at the same time requiring practitioners to tool up in some very new ways.
As complexity becomes a new kind of normal, and as the ways we work are changing, it is more and more a strategic imperative for leaders everywhere to be able to navigate this territory with greater agility, creativity and resilience. Those that can do so bring a distinct comparative advantage to their work. This workshop is designed to deliver just that. The Complexity Fitness Workshop draws from thinking and practices in complex adaptive systems, adult development, neuroscience, somatics and mindfulness.
This workshop is intended to help aid and peace professionals to become better fit to navigate the challenges that we face in a complex world. More particularly, it is intended to help practioners working to apply new tools and practices that emphasize learning and adapting. The workshop weaves cutting-edge theory, research and practice that has been proven to help leaders in becoming the best possible version of themselves as they work to address overwhelming challenges.
Benefits
Participants will:
- Learn to distinguish complex contexts from complicated and obvious contexts
- Gain valuable insight into changing aid practice, and why approaches to problem solving used in the past, don’t work in complexity
- Practice pragmatic leadership strategies for leveraging complexity to unlock new possibilities
- Increase your ability to see patterns and recognize solutions
- Increase your ability to deal constructively with conflict, diversity, paradox, and ambiguity.
Methodology
This will be a highly experiential workshop. As a participant, you will work with habitual reactions to complexity through emotions, body, language, and meaning making. You will practice cultivating internal states of awareness and resilience. And you will be guided to develop action strategies for engaging with complexity.
You will be asked to come with a personal or work challenge that you are finding difficult to resolve and that you are willing to work on with others. You will also be asked to help others work on their challenges.
For whom is this course?
This workshop is designed to benefit global professionals working in contexts of peacebuilding, international crisis management and humanitarian assistance. While the activities and examples will be drawn largely from these contexts, the content is applicable for anyone who wants to develop a self that is fit for the complexities of our world. In addition to global aid professionals, it will benefit coaches, leaders and people working in organizational development roles. In fact, the workshop is suitable for anyone who is curious about how they can resource themselves and others to more skillfully meet the increasing demands and uncertainties of their life.
How to register
The sign-up deadline is May 14, 2023 (but no later than April 14th 2023 for those requiring visas to travel to Barcelona). To register for the course, we ask you to complete a brief questionnaire with your background and motivations and submit this to info@bcnpeacecenter.org with copy to mpace202@gmail.com. Please see the Registration form here for payment information and further details. We can provide logistical assistance and letters in support of participants’ visa applications upon request, and when the course fee has been paid in full. The course fee will be fully refunded for those denied a visa.