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Weekend Conference Presentation
Morning Parallel Track - June 11th

Music, Leadership and the Art of Getting Beyond

Presented by Shem Cohen

Primary Focus: Leadership
Secondary Focus: Cultural Transformation

 

Abstract: The musician’s journey is to constantly nurture expansion by getting beyond one’s own envelop in technique, ideas and expression in order to invite the muse and create a most powerful experience. A leader’s journey is to nurture expansion by getting beyond one’s own envelop in thinking, seeing and acting so they can effectively influence their systems towards a thriving future. For both the artist and leader the main challenge is to get beyond our current selves in order to see and know differently than before and to employ this learning towards generating an ever greater expansion of possibilities and of a future.

All life aspires to grow. The drive to ‘Expand our Future’ is ingrained in all of us by life itself. As in all natural systems, growth is a process, a dynamic expansion of being… a constant state of becoming. The paths of this ‘becoming’ are composed by possibility, and possibility is defined by constraints. As sentient beings we are all the authors of our own internal constraints and these are rooted in how we choose to think and see, what we believe and what we think we know. The musician’s journey is to constantly nurture expansion by getting beyond one’s own envelop in technique, ideas and expression in order to invite the muse and create a most powerful experience. A leader’s journey is to nurture expansion by getting beyond one’s own envelop in thinking, seeing and acting so they can effectively influence their systems towards a thriving future. For both the artist and leader, the main challenge is to get beyond our current selves in order to see and know differently than before, and to employ this learning towards generating an ever greater expansion of possibility and future.

This interactive workshop will explore ideas and techniques for ‘getting beyond oneself’ learned from living a life as a musician on a journey towards mastery and from over 25 years as a practicing OD consultant working with hundreds of groups across professional realms and communities. The path of growth as a musician is also the path of growth as a person and as a leader, and the same path applies to whole systems. The goal of this workshop is to for participants to learn ideas and techniques that remove barriers to growth and increase each our own realms of possibility and to discover leverage for expanding each our own future.

   
       
 

Shem Cohen

Biography: Shem Cohen is a leadership and management consultant with deep expertise helping leaders to align, focus and energize their organizations to a desired future.  His work brings together the business and human sides of enterprise and is founded in methods of tapping and channeling the collective knowledge, skills, experience, interests and passions of client groups to discovery, novel solutions and committed action.  Through high-engagement, collaborative planning and the orchestration of self-organized change from within organizations clients significantly improve their capabilities as a system, integrate to new levels of expertise, cooperation and partnership and collectively achieve notable growth and success.  

Over the past 25 years Mr. Cohen has served as Socio-Technical Systems adviser and consultant for many corporate executive teams across a span of industries including business, technology, finance, healthcare, environment, law, education, arts, government, and community and faith-based organizations.  His client list includes UN Ambassadors and former White House leaders as well as small business owners and entrepreneurs. 

Services:

. Executive and Management planning
. Successful Organizational Change
. M/A integration
. Leadership transitions
. New business launches
. Teambuilding and Conflict Resolution
. Multi-stakeholder, cross-boundary planning and action
. Large-group planning summits including (and drawing from) Future Search, GE Work Out, Open Space and Whole Scale Change. 

Shem’s work has been included in three globally published books on best-practice collaboration and planning including the award-winning ‘Productive Workplaces, 25th Anniversary Edition’ by Marvin Weisbord.  Shem has been honored to serve as guest faculty for NYU Stern School of Business Executive Education, as keynote for the Project Management Institute and to have citation in the ‘OD Practitioner’ journal of the Organization Development Network. 

Clients include the Federal Reserve Bank, Soros Fund Management, JPMorgan Chase, the UK Mission to the United Nations, The British Home Office and Consulate, Xerox Corporation, Church and Dwight, Marriott, Heineken USA, Perkin Elmer, Cognex, Del Monte Foods, Iowa Health System, CDPHP, the National Parks Conservation Association, Washington Public Radio and many others.

Shem holds a Master’s Degree in Organization Development from the American University and NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science and holds certification in a number of psychometric tools.  Shem is also a classically-trained guitarist who enjoys listening to, learning from and playing music from around the world.

Contact: Shem can be reached by e-mail at scohen@changeevents.com for additional information about this Weekend Conference session

Website: shemcohen.com

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/shemcohen

   
       
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