We are on the threshold of a renaissance in leadership practice—the challenges ahead are not technical but transformational. Letting go of our industrial age myths will require not just intellectual understanding but the full power of the imagination. -Michael Jones

Michael envisions a new leadership story - one that involves a transformation in awareness from performance to presence, from uniformity to uniqueness, from abstraction to beauty, from efficiency to improvisation and from instrumentality to the expressive power of story and voice. Together they awaken a commons of the imagination - a collective field of possibility that transforms our mechanistic view of the world to a more sustainable and transcendent vision that is creative, organic and whole.

In this time of complexity, he suggests that leaders need new questions - questions that awaken qualities of being that are more organic, creative and whole.

Learning comes from questions. Questions come from not knowing. The source of not knowing is the ineffable mystery of what it means to be alive. Can we tap into that mystery as a force in our lives? Michael Jones is one of those helping us find our way.  -Peter Senge, Author, The 5th Discipline, Founding Chair, SoL (Society for Organizational Learning, Lecturer MIT

An accomplished pianist/composer, an evocative writer and storyteller, and a deep and thoughtful speaker, Michael Jones offers a uniquely creative, memorable and inspired experience as a keynote speaker.

For over thirty years he has been engaged in transforming leadership through awakening the life of the imagination. In times of complexity and sudden change he believes we need to build bridges across different disciplines in order to see our familiar landscapes with new and fresh eyes. In doing so, he draws our attention to the subtle forces that lie in the spaces between the notes - gifts, beauty, presence, grace, and voice.

...just wonderful, intelligent, genuine, open, transformational..Michael is able to meet his audiences where they are and move their thinking forward. — LeAnne Grillo, Conference Director, Pegasus Communications, Systems Thinking Conferences

"Who will play your music if you don't?" Michael asks. With this question he maps the journey to the heart of creativity enchanting his listeners with evocative stories to convey his message and musical performances to deepen it.

Questions that awaken qualities of being that are more organic, creative and whole.
- What are your own unique gifts and strengths?
- When do you experience a sense of joy and aliveness?
- How can you create as home for your gifts in the world?
- What would it mean to follow the thread of your own inspiration?
- How can you trust the authority of your own emergent experience?
- What would it mean to access the evocative power of story and voice?

The chaos and complexity in our world creates a unique opportunity for a renaissance in leadership practice. Renaissance means a renewal- a coming together - a sense of crossing bridges to create a new sense of the whole. As we enter a challenging new and uncertain world, the future will belong to those who can accept who they truly are, trust the process of natural unfoldment, speak authentically about what really matters and empathically create a home for others and themselves in the world.

In the future leaders will not be remembered for their professional, technical or cost cutting skills but for their wisdom, empathy, presence, intuition and artistry. It will be a way of leading that is more relational focused and based upon creating an empathic resonance with others as a networker, connector and convener of webs and communities.

My Business is Circumference

My business is circumference, Poet Emily Dickinson writes. This is also the business of leadership.

To understand the significance of circumference we need to acknowledge the new mindset required of leaders for integrative whole mind learning. As we struggle with new discontinuities, fragmentation and sudden change it is vital for leaders to think in more complex and holistic ways. This involves a shift in focus from a narrow and reductive emphasis on individualism based upon an industrial model of managing where the leader is the strong dependable self-made individual or hero towards a style of leading which expands the circumference within which the leader leads.

 
For leaders to engage in the shift of mind from being heroes to artists involves cultivating new disciplines for accessing the subtle power of the imagination. It involves understanding that while strategy and tactics may help leaders be effective technicians, in order to be good artists they need to also listen deeply and get a feeling for things—in other words to be attuned to the unheard melody that is emerging in the space between the notes.

Read more in Michael’s essay, “Transforming Leadership”

Listening for The Unheard Melody: The Leader as Artist

The Myths We Live By

• Perfection and The Myth of the Absolute Truth
• Isolation and The Myth of Separation
• Control and The Myth of Efficiency
• Limits and The Myth of Scarcity

Finding Meaning in a New Story

• The Steward—Finding Inspiration in Our Own Life
• The Enchanter—Discovering Our Own Way of Seeing Things
• The Weaver—Discovering What Our Life is Trying to Be
• The Visionary—Finding Authority in Our Own Subjective Experience