Join the Class: October 7-8, 2024
This 2-day virtual class will be delivered live over Zoom, 10 am – 4 pm ET.
Introduction
Now you can earn Certification in Conversational Leadership – the fast-growing and evolving art of conversation to improve communication in the workplace as well as in our everyday lives. Based on the highly praised “Conversational Leadership Workshop” delivered annually in recent years, KMI is proud to offer the newest addition to the CKS (Specialist) curriculum.
Rationale for Conversational Leadership
Conversational Leadership is about appreciating the transformative power of conversation, practicing leadership, and adopting a conversational approach to working together in a complex world.
The business world has seen an enormous amount of change in the last three years: companies going remote, shifts in power regarding who does what work, where, and when, and, for some, a blurring of the lines between personal and professional, as everyone has tried to negotiate an uncertain landscape. Norms have adjusted around how we operate on a day-to-day basis – employee onboarding, customer interactions, and especially how we communicate across teams in order to see a project through.
Technology has pivoted quickly to address the needs of teams scattered across the country or globe, but the primary way we communicate is still suffering. So much time, energy, and capital has been put into creating platforms to connect to each other that we’ve forgotten the reason we need to be in contact in the first place. What good is a perfectly run meeting on Zoom when we come away without understanding how to work together to define, act on, and reach a common goal?
Our ability to practice conversational leadership depends on taking responsibility for the issues we care about and our capacity to convene and host quality conversations. Today, more than ever, there is a dire need to use the art of conversation to improve communication in the workplace, spark new ideas, innovate, and grow stronger as a community.
From that community perspective, Conversational Leadership also goes beyond the singular, individual conversation of the moment. It also focuses on “the aggregate conversation” or the overall discourse, or simply said, all the conversations that got us to this point and what conversations need to look like moving forward.
What You Will Learn
In this 2-day workshop, you will engage in numerous experiential-based conversational practice and feedback sessions and learn about how to:
- Embrace complexity thinking
- Understand the human condition
- Take responsibility
- Practice leadership
- Converse in new ways
- Convene impossible conversations
- Sense-make together
- Develop agency
- Stimulate ‘communityship’
Meet Your Instructors
Donita Volkwijn
Donita Volkwijn is Senior Director of Member Engagement at Philanthropy New York, a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion expert. Donita leverages knowledge management tools and methodologies to ensure that access and information (as a result, power) are distributed fairly and equitably across organizations to drive engagement and performance.
She is currently designing a strategy that explores the relationship between Knowledge Management (KM) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). She has found that centering the three pillars of KM (people, process, and technology) can serve as an excellent entry point to DEI. At the same time, a thoughtful DEI policy can lead to better KM practices. Donita also firmly believes in the KM tenet of “knowledge shared is power multiplied.”
David Gurteen
David Gurteen is a keynote speaker and conversational facilitator. He works in knowledge management, organizational learning, and conversational leadership. He gives keynote talks, designs and facilitates Knowledge Cafés, and runs workshops around the world.
He is the creator of the Gurteen Knowledge Café – a conversational process to bring a group of people together to learn from each other, share experiences, and make better sense of a rapidly changing, complex, less predictable world to improve decision-making and innovate.
Saule Menane
Saule Menan is a certified Organisational Development Practitioner and Associate Certified Coach (ICF) with 25 years of business experience and a track record in organization effectiveness, change management, and leadership development.
Saule has attained a strong multicultural perspective through working in international companies and living in different countries. She offers organizational diagnostic capability and deep practitioner expertise to get things done. Her specialties include organizational effectiveness, change management, executive coaching, and leadership team effectiveness. She is a member of the NTL – Institute of Applied Behavioural Science.
John Hovell
John Hovell is a leader in the convergence of Knowledge Management (KM) and Organization Development (OD) and is the Managing Director and co-founder of STRATactical. He is a practitioner, speaker, and author of OD/KM strategies and their application to current challenges.
He is also the creator of the C-group, an innovative, experiential, and transformative learning methodology that enables a small group of people to practice and develop their interpersonal and conversational skills, which are critical in a complex world.
Registration for the Oct 7-8 class is now available
The CKS in Conversational Leadership is a 2-day class plus optional “KM Foundation” online course.
Standard rate for new students: $1,995; Past Grads (CKM/CKS): $1,595
Upcoming Events
Event: Conversational Leadership Café: How Can Chatbots Aid Critical Thinking? Wednesday, 29 January 2025, 16:00 to 18:00 GMT - Conversational Leadership Café How Can Chatbots Aid Critical Thinking? Date: Wednesday, 29 January 2025 Time: 16:00 to 18:00 GMT (London… 
Event: Gurteen Knowledge Café Workshop Thursday, 27 February 2025, 15:00 to 19:00 GMT - Gurteen Knowledge Café Workshop How to design and host a Gurteen Knowledge Café Facilitator: David Gurteen Date: Thursday, 27 February… Google Web Search
Photo Credits: DALL-E (Public Domain)