Keynote & Conference/Workshop Topics
Ask us to share one of these highly successful seminars or keynotes with your organization. Contact the office for a conversation on how we may best fit your needs.
- Creating Conditions for Conversations That Matter
- Leading Change Through the Power & Practice of Story
- A Wealth of Stories: Financial Planning and Client Legacy Tales
- Spiritual Practice for Times Like These
CREATING CONDITIONS FOR CONVERSATIONS THAT MATTER
A One-Day Workshop with Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea
"One of the valuable things I gained from the day was the exercise of surfacing a topic that needs to be talked about, but no one has had the courage to bring up. Thank you for all the gems you shared with us."
--Sr. Frances Getchell, MN
Important conversations require the right social container for listening and interacting. In many organizations, the absence of such a social container limits the scope of conversation in ways that become habitual and accepted. People tend to be so busy managing the conversations that are occurring, and the work requirements at hand, that it is difficult to stop and ask: What is the conversation we're not having--and how do we create successful conditions to have it? This one-day workshop provides the opportunity to reflect on what needs to be said in your organization, and then provides leadership and facilitation skills to host these conversations.
Workshop content includes:
- Silence, breaking silence, and understanding timing
- Identifying readiness in yourself to have these conversations
- Identifying readiness in your colleagues and organization
- Identifying topics and how to bring them forward
- PeerSpirit Circle Process as a methodology for hosting real talk and real listening.
"Beyond being a preeminent innovator of Circle practice, Christina Baldwin's presence, wisdom and skilled experience as a facilitator are the best I have experienced in my 40 years of practicing that art."
–Roger Harrison, Ph.D.
In May 2007, Christina and Ann offered a version of this workshop through QualityLife Company to a capacity group in Johannesburg, South Africa.
LEADING CHANGE THROUGH THE POWER & PRACTICE OF STORY
With Christina Baldwin, based on her latest book, Storycatcher
"Christina Baldwin is a brilliant and loving guide into the realm of story--that interior place of experience and interpretation that surfaces in our actions. For many years, I have learned from Christina skills and sensibilities that I treasure and use daily."
–Margaret Wheatley, author, Leadership & the New Science,
Turning to One Another,
Finding Our Way
We are at the end of the old road and the well-known story. One of the requirements of leadership now is to articulate the path forward: to name the unnamed territory and elicit stories that will guide us on. In a professional arena crowded with tools and theories, the return to story shines in its clarity and simplicity. The one who knows his own story stands like a tree in the wind. The one who tells the collective story holds the heart of the organization in his/her hand.
We may not know what stories we most need: but we will know them when we hear them coming out of each other's mouths.
People have been practicing the skill of story for tens of thousands of years in every language ever spoken and every society ever developed. Story is the transmitter of wisdom, the carrier for ninety percent of everything we know. Story will set the vision in place for where we are going: we proceed from the story into the action. Want to change yourself? Your organization? The world? Start with those stories... You will experience the power of story to significantly influence the quality of your personal life and your engagement with the important organizations—both professional and community based--to which you belong.
This material can be offered as a keynote and/or in workshop format of adaptable length.
"Christina, your message and content are so powerful. Our audience came away feeling connected to their own stories and more inspired to connect with those around them. It is rare to find innovative and fresh content like yours. You bring the ancient (storytelling) into the present for a world which is so hungry and in need of it."
–Kris Knopp, Director of Programming, Compass CoachCastTM
In June, 2008 Christina delivered a keynote at the National Journal Conference 2008. Her topic was "Restorying the World—How Journal Writing Can Heal the Future." Other examples of this material as consulting work include: in the autumn of 2007, Christina and Ann taught a version of this workshop to non-profit association directors in St. Louis, MO; and in 2006/07, Christina taught it as a full-to-capacity module in the Shambhala Institute for Authentic Leadership in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
"I learned that story telling can be a great non-aggressive way to communicate."
"I learned some different ideas to help our citizens share their concerns more positively
through a story-telling process."
--Comments from participants, National League of Cities Leadership Training Institute, March, 2008
A WEALTH OF STORIES: FINANCIAL PLANNING AND CLIENT LEGACY TALES
A half-day or full-day workshop with Christina Baldwin
There's a "story" attached to money. This story can be an essential resource or a mysterious blockage in the process of financial planning. Understanding the client's story of money unifies the planner's skill with the client's readiness. Master Storycatcher, author, facilitator, Christina Baldwin, provides financial planners with tools to elicit story as an integral part of the planner/client relationship.
- Story lets you find the context in which your client is planning.
- Story allows you to better tailor your services.
- Story provides a trajectory and framework for allocating assets, managing risk, and setting goals.
Christina was a "Super Session" presenter at the 2007 FPA National Conference in Seattle. This content is adaptable to different professional fields.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE FOR TIMES LIKE THESE
With Christina Baldwin
In the midst of unrelenting change, having a personal practice for holding centeredness and maintaining a course of action is invaluable. Spiritual practice is an action or actions done on a regular basis that realigns us to spiritual guidance in the workaday world. Spiritual practice includes three aspects:
- Ritual: daily action with sacred intent;
- Reflection: the ability to pause and check-in with the indwelling voice of guidance;
- Interaction: bringing a sense of blessing into the ways our lives intersect with other people.
This content is popular in religious and non-religious settings, and can be offered as a keynote and/or in workshop format of adaptable length.