Thank you for visiting my website. On October 9, 2017, a firestorm destroyed my community north of San Francisco including my family's home and virtually all of our possessions. We only narrowly escaped. I am taking a leave of absence from all professional activities to tend to our recovery and that of my community. If you want to contact me, I am still reachable using the link in the navigation bar above.
WELCOME ...I am CEO and founder of The iDeal World, a “thrive tank” dedicated to building and developing human capabilities in the midst of conflict, uncertainty, rapid change, and other disorienting dilemmas. I am also CEO and founder of iDeal Counsel, APLC, a transactional law firm offering innovative legal solutions for the next generation of business and social enterprises.
I am known for my ability to resolve disputes, negotiate and close deals, facilitate meaningful dialogues, foster understanding among diverse stakeholders, and advance collaboration across sectors, cultures and perspectives. I have dedicated my entire 19+ year professional career to bringing brilliant new ideas to life by creating the conditions for people, organizations and systems to collaborate more effectively for greater success and impact. I work within and across business, civil sector, governmental and non-governmental organizations on a range of discrete and long-term projects. Together, we design, develop, negotiate, and implement strategic alliances, partnerships and funding transactions as well as organizational, systemic and social change initiatives. Most recently, I have been investigating the role of technology, business and cross-sector partnerships in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconciliation. In 2015, I was appointed to to the Mediation and Dialogue Expert Roster for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, Austria. In addition, I serve as an ombudsman for organizations, their boards, and their management teams, mediating and facilitating conversations that matter while also addressing deficiencies in governance strategies and structures. I design and help to implement fresh approaches to conflict management, resolution and prevention, giving special attention to investigating, revealing and strategically balancing the key drivers influencing disputes within organizations. In 2013, I served as Mediator to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France, where I focused on the unique challenges of introducing dialogue-based conflict resolution processes within a hierarchical organization, not subject to rule of law. As a complement to my work, I design and develop experiential learning programs that help adults navigate their way through adaptive challenges in the midst of conflict, ambiguity and complexity. I train people in negotiation, conflict transformation, facilitation, leadership, and creativity integrating both developmental and behavioral approaches that transcend age, gender, culture, and perspective. As a scholar practitioner, I build and test new frameworks in the areas of collaborative action inquiry and intermodal creativity, while engaging in qualitative action research to link processes with outcomes. I believe it is possible both to address our most pressing problems and to create the highest possible outcomes by using multi-stakeholder processes that bring together people of diverse perspectives to engage in dialogue, shared learning, action inquiry, prototyping, and purposeful performance. Leaders facing complex challenges can, and will, find ways to work together and address those challenges, but only if the conditions for a certain quality of insight and collaboration emerge. That's where I come in. I help people understand and work with complexity, break through boundaries, and cross thresholds together. Then, as desired, I help frame, source, design and implement the legal and organizational structures that nourish and support their vision. To me, it is a gift and the fulfillment of a long-held dream to contribute my efforts in ways that help to unbridle our highest potential. I am committed to infuse vitality, humanity, and creativity into my work and in support of people and organizations who seek to better lives around the world. I aspire to make visible and discussible what is unseen and unsaid, deepen our capacities to manage and transcend conflict, spark fresh and creative approaches to engage challenging problems, and support stakeholders in practical ways to advance their initiatives toward greater coherence, scale and impact. ABOUT THE IMAGES ON THIS SITE: The images on this site are all photographs of a single six-foot slab of quartzite taken from different perspectives. I was struck by the complexity of the patterns and the ways that nature so beautifully holds conflicting colors, minerals, and elements within a visually stunning yet integrated whole. A poignant metaphor for us all. |
NEWS:RECENT EVENTS:
3rd Spirit of Humanity Forum
"Composing Cultures of Compassion" with Carrie MacLeod, Tina Monberg, and Sophie Vrolijk Reykjavik, Iceland April 26-29, 2017 * * * Appointment to the Mediation and Dialogue Expert Roster for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
Vienna, Austria August 5, 2015 * * * Professionals Workshop: Expressive Arts Inquiry in Conflict Transformation
with Roseline de Thelin Home for Cooperation UN Buffer Zone Nicosia, Cyprus April 23, 2015 * * * Build Peace 2015
"Together Separate: Contesting Space" Expressive Arts Inquiry in Conflict Transformation & Community Building with Roseline de Thelin Nicosia, Cyprus April 24-26, 2015 * * * 12th Annual Global Technology Symposium - Panel Discussion
"Intermodal Creativity in Organizational and Human Development" Menlo Park, California April 2, 2015 |