Integral Business and Leadership

This article introduces Integral Theory and situates the theory within a business context. There are five main elements of the Integral Business model. This article discusses four of them—quadrants, lines, levels, and types—and demonstrates their relevance to business analysis, problem solving, and leadership. Real world examples and applications are then explored.

LEO BURKE serves as Co-Director of the Integral Business and Leadership Center at Integral Institute, is the Associate Dean of the Mendoza College of Business, and Director of Executive Education at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to joining Notre Dame, Leo worked twelve years at Motorola, Inc. as a leader and innovator in education. He played a variety of roles including program designer, facilitator and Director and Dean of Motorola’s College of Leadership and Transcultural Studies. As Dean, he led a global team to educate 16,000 executives and managers in the U.S., China, and India. Leo is a recipient of the President’s Award, Motorola University’s highest honor for excellence and outstanding achievement.

JOHN FORMAN is a Co-Director of the Integral Business and Leadership Center and the Managing Partner of Integral Development Associates. For more than 15 years, he has advised organizational leadership and management in areas ranging from culture change and leadership counsel to strategic planning, organizational development, cultural diversity and complex communication issues. He has been a student of consciousness, science, and spirituality for substantially longer, and worked as an executive one-person think-tank at a mid-sized consulting firm for more than a dozen years. It was in that capacity, directly reporting to five CEOs in two organizations, that he expanded his studies to include complexity, systems-thinking, theoretical biology and developmental psychology as they apply to organizations, management, leadership, and change.

MICHAEL PUTZ is a founding member of Integral Institute and is Co-Director of the Integral Business and Leadership Center at Integral Institute. Prior to joining Cisco Systems as the Director of Business Development, Michael was a Director at Bell Communications Research (now Telcordia). He is a thought leader on Integral Business and Leadership theory and its application to building sustainable growth businesses based on Clayton Christensen’s concept of disruptive innovation. Michael has presented his work on Integral Leadership and Business at the Conference Board and the Association of Strategic Planning. He is the co-author with Michael Raynor of, “Integral Leadership: Overcoming the Paradox of Growth,” in the Jan 2005 issue of Strategy and Leadership.

BRETT THOMAS serves as Co-Director of the Integral Business and Leadership Center at Integral Institute. He is a co-founder of the Stagen Leadership Institute where he serves as research and development director, strategist, consultant, facilitator, and executive coach. Brett is a fifteen-year veteran of the human performance field and has facilitated hundreds of workshops and developed dozens of custom training programs for corporations. Brett’s specialties include developmental learning, peak performance, strategic alignment, innovative thinking, change engineering, and integral leadership.