Leading Organizations to Health: Practical Applications of Complexity Theory and Positive Psychology for Leading Organizational Change

Sponsored by Relationship Centered Health Care, the Healthcare Consultancy of McArdle Ramerman & Co. and Plexus Institute.

Now in its fifth year, next cohort of this 10-month leadership institute begins in April 2010.

If you are working on a major organizational or social change project, prepare yourself by attending Leading Organizations to Health. LOH is a 10-month leadership institute that has offered a transformative learning experience to clinician leaders of all disciplines, management professionals, patient- and policy-advocates, consultants, and leaders from non-clinical healthcare organizations (insurers, professional societies, research institutes, government agencies, and others). LOH will prepare you for the work of change agentry with practical, actionable theories from complexity science, positive psychology and management; advanced facilitation and communication skills; and reflective practice. LOH combines rigorous formal sessions - 4 weekends of seminars, workshops and personal retreats in a rustic Rocky Mountain conference center - with the longitudinal learning of monthly coaching calls as you apply your learning to your work at home.. For more information, visit http://www.rchcweb.com/  or call 585-271-4233. Anthony Suchman, Penny Williamson, Diane Robbins

The Unite For Sight Global Health and Innovation 2010 ConferenceApril 17-18, 2010Yale University, New Haven, CTThe Unite for Sight Global Health and Innovation 2010 Conference will convene more than 2,200 students and professionals from 55 countries who are interested in international health, human rights, public service and social entrepreneurship. The conference will include keynote addresses by Jeffrey Sachs, Seth Godin, Jacqueline Novogratz, and Sonia Erlich Sachs.  Social innovation sessions will feature the work of Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, Partners in Health, and many other organizations including Plexus Institute.  Public health, medicine, micro finance, anthropology, philanthropy, environmental health and education will be among the topics explored. See conference details.  Plexus Institute President Lisa Kimball will discuss Positive Deviance.

Leading on the Edge: Complexity in Health CareSponsored by the American College of Physician ExecutivesMay 2-3, 2010Gaylord National Hotel and Convention CenterNational Harbor, MarylandHealth care is messy, chaotic and wildly complex and this conference will offer valuable insights in the field of complexity science as well as hands on demonstrations of how the concepts can apply to challenges in health care. Faculty will include Curt Lindberg, DMan, chief learning and science officer of Plexus Institute,  Anthony L. Suchman, MD, MA,  FACP, Relationship Centered Care, Linda Rusch, RN, MS, former executive at Hunterdon Medical Center, and Lawrence M. McEvoy, MD, Memorial Health System. For more information and to register, click here.

Plexus Summit 2010: Borders and BridgesMay 13-14, 2010El Paso, TexasBorders separate people and places; bridges re-connect them. Both borders and bridges invoke creative responses and interactions among humans. El Paso has witnessed the drawing and re-drawing of national borders for over a century. Residents of the region have been inspired to adapt to the lines drawn around their lives by crossing bridges, both metaphorical and physical. Few places inspire us to probe our responses to borders and boundaries more deeply than the ancient mountain pass at El Paso. This conference will bring diverse border-crossers together to discuss how we transform constraints into opportunities for human interaction. Standing on campus, you will see Mexico, and in its reflection, inspiration for our complex world. Click here for more information and to register.

Exploring Complexity in Science and Technology from a Santa Fe Institute (SFI) PerspectiveMay 19-21,  2010 Portland,  OregonThis two-and-a-half day course is an intensive, immersive tour of the sciences of complexity, a broad set of efforts that seek to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals.  This course, sponsored by the Santa Fe Institute (SFI), is specifically designed for professionals, faculty, students, and others who are curious to explore and apply this new interdisciplinary scientific approach.  This course has no prerequisites and requires no specific math or science background. The course will be led by Melanie Mitchell, Professor at SFI and at Portland State University, and author of Complexity: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press, 2009).  Dr. Mitchell and her team of SFI faculty will introduce the workings of complexity across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out the general principles that apply to all of them.  Faculty will include David Feldman, Professor, Physics and Mathematics, College of the Atlantic; Co-Director, SFI Complex Systems Summer School, Beijing; Van Savage, Assistant Professor, Biomathematics, University of California at Los Angeles, former SFI Postdoctoral Fellow;  Robert Axtell, External Professor, Santa Fe Institute, Professor and Chair, George Mason University, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, Department of Computational Social Science; and  Eric Smith, Professor, Santa Fe Institute. Click here for more information and to register

Complexity and Management Conference 2010: Rethinking Leadership/Management in the Crisis of Investment CapitalismThe Seventh Annual Complexity and Management Conference of the University of Hertfordshire Business SchoolJune 4 - 6 2010 Roffey Park Institute, Forrest Road, Horsham,West Sussex, RH 12 4TB, United Kingdom.

This informal conference is designed for past, present and possible future participants in the University's masters and doctoral programme, as well as for leaders, managers , consultants and academics who are interested in complexity and emergence in organisations. Prepared papers and presentations will be minimal, and serve the purpose of introducing themes and maximizing conversation. An internet discussion group will be established in March 2010 to begin the conversation. Participants use a research method that involves iterative writing and rewriting and practice-based narratives that are engaged with and challenged by co-researchers. Participants have found the method leads to new conversational patterns in their professional lives and organizations. The registration fee is due by April 25, 2010. Visit the Complexity and Management conference site to learn more and to register.

Read Professor Ralph Stacey's new book: Complexity and Organizational Reality: Uncertainty and the Need to Rethink Management after the Collapses of Investment Capitalism.

Scholars of leadership and management often think in terms of prescriptions for top executives to choose the future direction of their organizations. The global financial recession and the collapse of investment capitalism-surely not planned by anyone-make it clear that top executives can't do that. Despite this, current management literature generally continues to avoid the obvious - management's inability to predict or control what will happen in the future. The key question now must be how we are to think about management if we take the uncertainty of organizational life seriously. Ralph Stacey has turned to the sciences of uncertainty and complexity to develop an understanding of leadership and management as the ordinary politics of daily organizational life. In presenting organizations as a series of complex responsive processes, Stacey's new book helps us to see organizational reality for what it actually is - human beings engaged in many, many local conversational interactions and power relations in which they negotiate their ideologically based choices.  4th Annual On the Edge: Nursing in the Age of Complexity Conference

July 18-20, 2010

Gonzaga University

Spokane, WA

Learn the processes that help engage people for learning, action and  transformation, and practice using them.  Faculty will include Curt Lindberg, DMan, chief learning and science officer of Plexus Institute; Ruth Anderson, Professor at Duke University School of Nursing; Keith McCandless, co-founder of Oblique Strategies and an experienced practitioner of liberating structures; Christina Baldwin, an experienced practitioner of the circle process, and co-author of The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair; and many more scholars and practitioners whose knowledge and insight will make this conference an exciting, interactive experience. To learn more or register visit www.plexusinstitute.org  or email curt@plexusinstitute.org.

Positive Deviance:  New Action in Health and Healthcare

Sponsored by the Positive Deviance Initiative and Plexus Institute

September 22-24, 2010

Bethesda, MarylandDiscover new ways to work through known difficulties and unexpected events in the turbulent world of healthcare practice, policy and organizations.  

Problems often contain their own unexpected solutions. Sometimes the wisest, kindest and most effective ways to resolve intractable problems are right in front of us, just waiting to be discovered. All the parts of a healthcare system-or any system-are interconnected and continuously changing, visibly and invisibly. Now is the time to find a new way to liberate the hidden forces that bring out the best in your community.  Professionals in all healthcare fields face problems exacerbated by uncertainty, scarce resources and increasing complexity. Solving these challenges frequently requires social and behavioral change. The Positive Deviance approach (PD) is based on the belief that in any organization or community there are people whose uncommon practices help them resolve difficult problems better than colleagues with exactly the same resources.  PD is a process that fosters change from within.  Many wonderful micro-solutions are already practiced in unlikely places by people whose ingenuity can inspire and encourage others. When an entire community is engaged to act, creative improvements flourish in the form of new actions, designs and tactics.  Mark your calendar and watch for details!