Shrinkrapradio, a Californian Internet Radio focusing on psychology interviews Max Schupbach on Worldwork. Listen to it by clicking HERE

We are thrilled to announce the birth of the Deep Democracy Institute, an organization that should help us to carry our work in Palestine, Sierre Leone, and other places. Here is the mini-statement: Drs. Ellen and Max Schupbach, Dr. Josef Helbling, and Stanford Siver MBA are leading the new Deep Democracy Institute.  The purpose of the Deep Democracy Institute is to provide diverse and multidimensional leadership training programs that teach attitudes and skills to unfold the potentials of organizations and communities. In order to achieve this, we teach facilitation, coaching, and organizational and personal development skills and attitudes. We believe that assisting organizations and communities in discovering their natural potentials and unique beauty allows them to access and use inherent strength, develop wholesome community experiences, and gain success on many levels. Increased productivity and creativity is not our main goal, but a necessary byproduct. The question, “Does It Grow Corn?” - a Native American Navajo standard by which to scrutinize new models and approaches, is also a key concern for DDI in all endeavours."

Check out their "Get Involved" link, if you want to know more.

This November 2006 we conducted the first seminar of our Leadership Training in the Palestinian Westbank. We were very impressed by the skills of the participants, their openness to discuss all life areas that they were developing their leadership in, and especially their interest in the global theory behind Worldwork Leadership Development. The some fifty participants were primarily professionals from a variety of backgrounds: business, higher education, academia, politics and non-profit organizations. We are looking forward to our next course in April.

The Open Forum in Berlin in October 2006, on Muslims, Jews, and Christians living together in this city was a deep learning experience for us. In a room for 90 we had some 120 people which sat on the window sills, on top of each other, etc, which gave the whole thing a sense of family and community. To begin with many voices tried to ensure the common ground of all the religions, and how they could be used to create peace. Then someone brought the issue forward that they were also used to create wars, in germany for example, by many muslim kids going after jewish and christian kids. Several of the muslim people spoke about their problems with that. One woman spoke about revenge issues and anger present from territorial wars and then using religion to justify it and that she herself was just learning to deal with this. Many of us admitted being helpless around these issues. She spoke so authentic about her own path for finding her roots as a German born Turk, that she moved many people to tears. A present Iranian Imam, in full attire, said through his translators, that it was an opportunity for him, to say clearly, that Islam condones violence and is against killing. He looked at people and said that he loved everyone in this room, yet he also felt that Iran should not be pushed around by superpowers, and that to stand for one's conviction is important, which lead to a good dialogue what convictions one can stand for, and with many people wanting to stand for what they believe in. People talked about the Media, how evening like this is not front news, but when something bad happens it always ist.
At one point during the evening, a hotspot appeared, when one of the Christian German participants addressed the German Jewish speaker, who had spoken so well and moving around issues of being Jewish in Germany, and asked him to confer to the Jewish community that they should be more generous in visiting these kinds of events and appear on round tables, and discuss interfaith issues, hinting that in his mind, the Jewish community was isolating themselves. The Jewish speaker answered quietly, that altghough there was some truth in that, the fact was, that there weren't simpy enough Jews in Berlin to be present on all of these events. The room grew quiet, everybody understood the message, and the voices changed after that, talking about how to reach out towards each other. After the forum and and in the consecutive days after the meeting, many people spoke to us and told us, that the event had brought hope for more connection and autentic dialogue to them. We have our next Forum planned for June 2007.
Thank you Wolfgang Lenk, Eva Maria Forst, and Sigrid Peuker for creating the local conditions for such en event, and Susanne Roessing and Nader Shabahangi for facilitating together with me.

When walking directions, one can encounter all kinds of problems. Sometimes one meets obstacles and is driven to overcome them, like in this case meeting the kitchen table in my morning's inner work exercise.

We are happy to announce Open Forum Berlin, an initiative to create space for Deep Democracy Forums in Berlin and support awareness centered dialogue in the public arena. Wolfgang Lenk from the Milton Erickson Institute and me are the initiators of the project. We now work together with the Heinrich Boell Foundation, and IKIB, a group for Intercultural Collaboration for an International Berlin. We will start out with an Open Forum on October 22nd, 2006 on hotspots between religions.

Check out our new www.deepdemocracymovement.net website. Please send us your articles, lecture audio files, interviews, and other interesting items, that we can post it there, and visit one of the blogs and add your definition and idea of deep democracy to it.

In June 2005, I will be starting a course with the same format, three f2f modules and two on-line modules, for the German speaking area of Europe in Berlin. The three modules will focus on Facilitation, Leadership, and Strategy Development and Implementation and is called Prozessorientiertes Facilitating und prozessorientierte Führung. Nicola Voelckel,who is coordinating the course in Germany is great to work with! In case you are interested in learning more about it, she can assist you with more information.

In April 2005 Ntombizandile Tshabalala, Ellen and Max Schupbach will start a Leadership Training for NGO leaders near Johannesburg, South Africa. We will begin with a two day workshop, followed later on by a structured training beginning in June.

In a week, on November 22nd, we will be starting together with Christo Nel, who is the head of the Centre for Leadership Studies of the Business School of Stellenbosch in Capetown an Intensive Course for Process-oriented Change Leadership in South Africa. It is an integrated program consisting of three weeklong face-to-face and two two days on-line modules that will be conducted over a period of eight months between November 2004 and June 2005.  The course itself is a collaboration between
         

I am looking forward to learning and working with Christo and our South African Colleagues.

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