Making Sense of Uncertain Times

Duration: 33 minutes

For your convenience, this video is available as an audio download:

Right-click to download audio version of Making Sense of Uncertain Times

John Schmidt is CEO of Avastone Consulting, a professional services firm that supports Fortune 500 companies in movement toward realization of organizational vitality, resilience, and sustainability. He is the impetus behind Avastone’s practical application of leading-edge leadership theory and the creative force behind Avastone’s innovative work in executive and organization development. John’s consulting career spans thirty years and includes work with a distinguished base of global organizations. Prior to forming Avastone, John spent eight years with BearingPoint (formerly KPMG). John has both master’s and bachelor’s degrees in business administration.
 

Cynthia McEwen is Principal of Sustainability and Leadership at Avastone Consulting, an international consultancy committed to the vitality and sustainability of client organizations and the larger global community. Avastone serves as advisors to global corporations and nongovernmental enterprises, bringing thought leadership, integral consulting and design, and practical impact-oriented solutions to complex challenges and human development. This includes executive and leadership development and whole-systems approaches to organization development and change.

Written by David Riordan
 

When I first saw the topic of their presentation at the JFK Integral student gathering this year was Sustainability and the Corporate Leadership Challenge, I wouldn’t have predicted that they would stop the room that night. Not that sustainability and leadership aren’t important topics, but there was no way of knowing that what they would present would so directly address the financial meltdown from an integrally informed perspective. What got shared that night so heated up the room that they didn’t even get to the third part of the presentation. Each time they asked for questions, the audience of very bright JFK Integral students demonstrated just about every emotion we are all feeling: fear, optimism, anger, depression, and nervous anticipation just to name a few.

In spite of their busy schedule John and Cynthia agreed to tape a video interview with me the next day. I wanted to know two things: the integral implications of their work with corporations and NGO’s as it related to sustainability, the economy, and leadership; and the effect this information was having on their personal lives.
 

Part 1: Making Sense of Uncertain Times covers much of what they are experiencing in their consulting work as their clients react to the unprecedented changes that are taking place.
 

Part 2: The Personal Impact of Knowing covers their responses as a result of this work, including their spiritual perspective.
 

We have also included a link to the study they reference in Part 1 of the interview entitled “Mindsets In Action”.  If you want to see how 10 corporations are doing in terms of creating sustainable businesses in this chaotic environment, it is a must read.
 

Right-click to download PDF
 

So, if you’re trying to make sense these uncertain times, do as we did: watch (or listen) to what John and Cynthia have to say. All of us who have experienced what they have to impart have been changed in ways that are still reverberating.