Mike Ginn: The Integral Institute’s Presidents’ Circle Meeting
Attending the first retreat for members of the Integral Institute’s President’s Circle in September 2006 was extraordinary in many ways. I met a dozen President’s Circle members who are making contributions to enable II’s current expansion (e.g., Integral University, Integral Spiritual Center). Obvious from just their written introductions was an unmistakable personal commitment to make a difference in the world, each expressed in unique and creative ways. Simply getting to know this group, and getting to know myself as one of them, was worth the trip to Denver.
I want to ask the question: how are these people expressing integral leadership, and how are they developing themselves as integral leaders? First let me tell you about the weekend.
Saturday morning Genpo Roshi led us through a four-hour session of Big Mind. I had already done Big Mind in other II events – with Roshi in the Integral Organizational Leadership workshop and with Diane Hamilton in the San Francisco iWET. But to repeat it in this intimate setting and to have Roshi extend our time for an extra half-hour so as to include Tozan’s five ranks, which describes and aids progression of skill in working with the mind, was an awesome experience!
Saturday afternoon we had a Q&A with the president of II, Ken Wilber. Ken was his welcoming, generous self—and was clearly impacted by his injured arm. We were grateful to have an opportunity to be with Ken and to voice our appreciation for his leadership in establishing II and for all of the writing he has been and is doing. He mentioned that he would address his injury as soon as he completes two of the three books he is currently working on. I’ve read a draft of one of them, “Integral Spirituality” and from my perspective…it rocks!
Sunday morning the members of the President’s Circle met and agreed how we could together work to enhance the value that we (as the President’s Circle) provide to II. We formed a half-dozen working groups to address things like self-managing our activities and interfaces with II, outreach and welcoming new members, starting up a new mentoring program with II staff, and finding ways to contribute to the well-being of the at-large integral community.
We then met a group of a dozen or so youthful Integral Institute staff for lunch. It was great to be reminded that the noblest of ventures proceeds like any other—with hard work and frustration balanced with joyous success, while being a part of something bigger than yourself that can potentially change our world. It’s also great (after getting over realizing how old I must be) to be inspired by kids half your age.
After lunch we attended a session with Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber. Each made a few opening remarks as to what it feels like to be enlightened and then began to interact with us, taking our comments and questions. Again, my experience was of a remarkable opportunity to hear, see and interact with the people who are shaping the integral movement—to be open to being impacted by who they are and what they are creating in the world.
So let’s return to the questions about integral leadership: what is integral leadership, how might the President’s Circle members be expressing it, and using the President’s Circle structure to further develop ourselves in this way? And what are the most useful ways of even asking these questions?
I think we are served by not rushing towards a consensus definition of integral leadership, and my initial thoughts about integral leadership would be to include something about bringing all of ourselves to whatever challenge is at hand, and providing an opening or space for others to do likewise. Might we then consider whatever practices we engage in that create or enable these openings, this space – for others and ourselves – as practices of integral leadership? When I look back at the weekend, it seems as if it were designed as a series of opportunities to explore this space making, in which we indeed able to find ourselves in each other.
One implication of this particular conception of integral leadership is a thrashing of one kind of philanthropic behavior that we might still value as an example of a more general kind of leadership, or as a practice that develops a line of the lower right hand quadrant. In the past I have contributed my time, effort, and money to very worthy causes in a passionate and even heroic way. But I will propose here that this act was an act of integral leadership only to the extent that I was expanded and found more of me and at the same time created space for others to be and to make a contribution. Also to the extent that the act was given by or created a transformation of cultural givens, and was itself a novel and even surprising action on my part made with the intention of working on improving existing social processes and structures.
If I say that it was my experience that this kind of integral leadership was present in our President’s Circle retreat, I should also say that it didn’t seem like it was personal, like is was something that I was doing myself or experiencing alone. It seemed like we were doing it all at once, for and with each other, and that this each other extended to you who is reading this sentence.
Thanks for listening,
Mike Ginn
To join the Integral Institute’s President’s Circle: www.integralinstitute.org/joinus2.htm