Friday, November 01, 2013

Schaefer presenting at St. Catherine University’s 17th Annual Leadership Challenge Conference

St. Catherine University’s
17th Annual Leadership Challenge
January 30, 2014
8AM-4PM 
A Business Conference for Women
"Recognizing Possibilities: Taking Action"


Honored to be selected as an instructor for St. Catherine University's 17th Annual Leadership Challenge Conference "Recognizing Possibilities: Taking Action”, teaching "The Theory That Explains Everything: Organizational Leadership Implications of Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi).” 

Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) is a unique transformational change formula and process that presents a common language and code to describe the relationship between the development of human nature and the rise of societies, governance, values and organizational systems. SDi elaborates the work of Dr. Clare W. Graves that Maclean's magazine called "The Theory that Explains Everything.” I’ll be presenting the basics of this theory that provides power and precision to the design of human systems and 21st Century Leadership, and learn how to apply some of its lessons to advance as an individual, coworker, and leader.

Some areas covered:
  • Different organizations — companies and governments — occupy different positions on the spiral and need to develop managerial/governance strategies that match their people, their visions of the future, and the jobs they perform today.
  • Managers should develop a consistent and systemic approach to all the issues within the organizational loop - recruitment, selection, placement, training, internal management, and external marketing - so they all align, integrate, and synergize.
  • Organizations should be constructed from both “the top down” and “the bottom up” to link the functions, intelligences, and decision structures that the more complex new problems ahead will demand.
  • Successful organizations are in danger of failing if they continue to manage people in the ways that made them successful in the first place.
Conference details:
Thursday, January 30, 2014
8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m
Rauenhorst Ballroom
Please click here for more details and to register



Friday, October 18, 2013

Full Circle Friends

Susan & Robin friends since 1957 - 56 years friends!

Yup, I've known Robin Warshaw since we were pups! Childhood buddies, we met at Pennypacker Elementary School on Washington Lane and Upsal Sts., in West Oak Lane, Philadelphia. Robin's parents hosted the coolest Halloween Parties, so it's funny and fitting that she'd visit me this time of year. Umm, well, actually I'm lucky since I live literally across the Mississippi River from Robin's daughter, Becca, who is a freshman at the University of Minnesota. Really really great karma!

Becca and Mom

So when Parents Weekend was coming up I asked Robin to stay with me for a long weekend of sharing her excitement at watching Becca's remarkable transformation to a super together young university freshman while we get to reminisce about our own childhood, high school and university days.
Robin in my office/guest room. That's our high school graduation photo over her right shoulder!

Due to the peculiar gerrymandering of boundaries during our childhood, I attended elementary school with Rob, but we spilt ways during Junior High, me going to Leeds in Mt. Airy and she Wagner Jr. High. Ahh, but we caught up again becoming a part of the Heavenly 211ly graduating class of 1967 from the legendary Philadelphia High School for Girls. 

 My 100% accidental seat for the orchestra's performance! 

Becca's good friend is in the University Band - they did a bang up job!

Go figure that the first night of Robin's visit, we met Becca for dinner then attended a concert by her good friend who was in the band. Once seated we looked down and lo and behold I was in seat 211, our class number. Totally funny!

Robin went away for university and I moved into a rather dicey resident situation for my first year. Happily, Robin and ran into each other when she decided to return to Philly to attend Temple University, my alma mater. We became roommates in 1968, remaining together until 1970. 

Chris smiling, Becca glowering

Pretty amazing how in a good lifecycle, we come full circle. Now Becca is exploring her world, wings fully spread, circling all that life can offer. She has made great new friends, works very hard at school, and seems to like Minnesota a lot, which is good, since her beloved Aunt Ellie made her home here and she has family who love her. For me, it's simply a big, big blessing to be able to host my life long friend, see her wonderful girl grow into a truly remarkable young woman, and to ride the waves of friendship. 

Friday, September 20, 2013

Germany's Election: One degree of Separation


1° of Separation: As a graduate of one of the preeminent graduate programs in Europe, Maastricht University's Masters of European Public Affairs, which included training from the European Institute of Public Administration, I had a front row seat to the career of Peer Steinbrück, father of one of our classmates, who is now one of the contenders for Germany's Prime Minister, arguably the most influential position in the European Union. Sadly, he has been a loose cannon. I support Angela Merkel for many reasons. Americans have to start learning more about this great democracy and ally.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/20/world/europe/germany-steinbrueck-profile/?hpt=ieu_t4

Friday, August 16, 2013

Susan Guest Speaker at The Metamorphosis Center

Please join me on Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 6:30 PM for Creating Clarity in a Chaotic World: Changing with Intent at the Twin Cities's newest venue for self-generation - The Metamorphosis Center

For more information on my presentation and the Idea Exchange Series, please visit The Metamorphosis Center's website, or contact Laura Strong at 612.730.2250 Laura@tmcmn.net  


 





Monday, May 27, 2013

What They Fought For

What have they fought for?

So that peace would reign
Old men complain
Of taxes and weather
Children skip to school
And April bring a fool

So that nations could vote
Youth their books tote
Freely anywhere
Mothers caress
And we do our best

Today I honor the warrior
Who fought for the field of thought
For ideas brought forth
And grown men’s silliness
And genderless, color-free life
And less ritualized strife

You were the soldier of love
The dove
Not bound by strictures
But a soaring soul
Wise beyond our cosmos
Gentle beyond words
Loving beyond self

Today I honor you
For your life
Was what the fallen ones
Fought for

A poem for Martijn
Memorial Day, May 27, 2013

©2013 Susan Schaefer

Sunday, May 05, 2013

Spring to Change: Weekend Workshop June 15-16, St. Paul, MN

Take two days to make positive changes that will last you a lifetime. Powerful workshop mixing creative coaching and energetic bodywork exercises with somatic training. 
Change for life.
Please email Susan at insights@lifeintrans.com for registration and more information.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Spring to Change Weekend Workshop: June 15 - 16, 2013

Intentional Transitions Institute© in cooperation with Catherine Liska of Inner Lotus presents an exciting new weekend workshop on June 15 & 16, 2013, designed to help you become more centered and productive. St. Catherine University Campus, Coeur de Catherine, Room 370, St. Paul, MN 
file://localhost/Users/insights/Desktop/SpringChangeWorkshop/TwoDayWorkshopPoster%20SpringChange.jpg



Professional guidance, body movement & coaching in an inspiring setting help you devise and keep realistic goals, create new, productive habits, and defeat blocks and barriers.

In an intimate small group workshop setting you will:

Learn breathing & bodywork techniques to fully support your transition goals 
Create clear, obtainable objectives

Craft sustainable commitments
Identify your obstacles

Develop an attainable action/results plan
Receive one follow-­‐up individual coaching/bodywork session and workbook

Healthy lunch included both days

Tuition : $600* 
Contact Susan at insights@lifeintrans.com for registration instructions.

* Please inquire about scholarships and payment options. 


Friday, March 15, 2013

St. Catherine's University Hosts Simran Sethi: Fosters Women's Leadership


International Sustainability Expert Simran Sethi Rocks St. Catherine University’s Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence Series

Minneapolis, MN…March 14, 2013

Can so much wisdom and enthusiasm really be packed in such a petite package?

Don’t let Simran Sethi’s elfin frame fool you. It won’t be long until some clever cartoonist provides her super-hero avatar.

Thankfully, Simran Sethi is the emerging role model of female leadership – full stop. And St. Catherine University, aka St. Kate’s, tucked in the bucolic Mac-Groveland neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota, was just the place for her force to fly full throttle.

Director of the University’s Leadership Institute, Mary Angela Baker 
with Simran Sethi 

During a pre-lecture private reception on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, at the conclusion of her two-day scholar-in-residency in the University’s School of Business and Professional Studies, Sethi mingled easily with invited guests, demurring a handshake with a cheerful, “I apologize, but I’m getting a cold.” However, the cold’s symptoms were not apparent in either her hearty acknowledgement of St. Kate’s warm care for her, including kudos to Director of the University’s Leadership Institute, Mary Angela Baker, nor later in her one-hour public lecture.


Women’s Leadership: Cooperation over combativeness

Following the reception, Sethi disarmed the audience in the University’s packed O’Shaughnessy Auditorium. With the style and substance that define her career as a television producer and correspondent, freelance journalist, communications advisor and educator, Sethi’s speaking style electrifies.

Broadly speaking Sethi addresses environmental justice – her tool – deep knowledge and an uncanny ability to tell fact-filled stories about climate change and allied subjects. During the St. Kate’s lecture, she skillfully wove the highly personal stories and contributions of internationally renown, outstanding environmental, mostly female leaders like Judy Wicks, founder of Urban Outfitters, (of my hometown Philadelphia), and Gro Harlem Bruntland of Norway, former UN Commissioner and progenitor of the word sustainable, introducing the audience to the interdisciplinary career possibilities available in environmentalism.

Her topic was "Women's Work: The Role of Women in Sustainability," and she fulfilled its promise, highlighting the scientifically known differences between male and female leadership style. Pointing out that all embryo brains are female inter-utero until the eight-week gestation when a boy’s brain is bathed in the testosterone that naturally induces a more combative nature, she readily rattled off the reasons that female leadership lifts the whole ship.

“Females,” she underscored, “are engineered towards cooperation and collaboration…focusing on shared values and relationships, valuing equality overall… Not only do we excel in right brain activity of creativity and cooperation, but we also access and integrate the left brain facts and logic resources.” Men are sadly saddled with the strictures of hierarchical behavior that no longer serve the mandates that sustainability require: People, Planet and Pocket(book).

Local leading light in Women’s Leadership Education

St. Kate’s is an emerging player in the education of women leaders. Though now co-ed, its mission, vision and values are firmly focused on educating and enlightening young women to their place at the world’s table, no longer the kitchen table. St. Kate’s programs and events are gaining international attention.

Two days prior to Sethi’s presentation and reception, I was a guest at yet another reception, hosted by the Master’s of Organizational Leadership program, for women political leaders from the African countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, and Togo, who participated in a day-long leadership seminar taught by graduate Organizational Leadership faculty, featuring special guest speakers including Elizabeth Kautz, Mayor of Burnsville and Verna Cornelia Price, Founder of Power of People Leadership Institute.

The African leaders were part of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange program. Through short-term visits to the United States, current and emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields experience our country firsthand to cultivate lasting relationships with their American counterparts. Professional meetings reflect the participants’ professional interests and support the foreign policy goals of the United States.

The Minnesota International Center president, Carol Engebretson Byrne, IVLP representative, stated, “One of the reasons the State Department hosts emerging women leaders in Minnesota is because of the work of St. Catherine’s University.”