An Integrally Personal Exploration of Conflict—Michael McElhenie & Larry Kiehl

As long as there is diversity and difference, there’s going to be conflict. The real question for us as Integralists who see “both sides" is: are we willing to get better at engaging in conflict for the benefit of all? Will Integralists model the way?

Get ready for a fully-participatory, developmental experience. Michael & Larry will provide a facilitated conversation and exploration, a flow of sorts, into what conflict is for each of us personally and interpersonally.

Notions about the structures, processes, and contents of conflict are important, but even more so is engaging in our personal experience of conflict. Therefore this will not be a standard lecture-style presentation about conflict focusing on theory.

Instead this session will help us look at ourselves to better understand what we think of as conflict, how it shows up in our awareness, what we make of it, and how we derail ourselves in dealing with it.

The first of the two sessions will involve looking at ourselves personally (UL and UR quadrants) and our relationship to conflict. The second session will lean more into societal orientation about conflict (LL and LR).

Each of these conversations will be set up with warm-up thought processes including personal inquiry into our individual understandings, beliefs, assumptions, etc., regarding conflict, the mental and emotional stuff we bring to conflict that is often sub-optimal. We’ll then move into interactive segments for engaging with each other.

Join us for this unique exploration, especially valuable in this intense time when new and old conflicts are occurring around us daily on every scale.

~ About the Presenters ~

Dr. Michael McElhenie has deep expertise in successfully guiding big changes around the globe. With a foundation in neuroscience, emotional intelligence (EQ), and crucial communication, Michael helps leaders navigate the dynamics of executive team and board relationships. He is often called upon to help leaders scale, merge, integrate, and evolve their organizations.

Michael and his team led the United Nation Development Program’s most successful global intervention, called “Leadership for Results” (LfR), aimed at developing multi-sector, emotionally intelligent leadership while creating solutions to critical challenges such as HIV/AIDS. Independent research indicates that millions of lives were saved and millions more were vastly improved through thousands of LfR events across the globe.

Currently, he advises global leaders in times of crisis, conflict, and change. His book, "Responsive Intelligence," is on track to be published in May of 2022.

Larry Kiehl has been a developmentalist professionally since 1978. He began his career focusing on “communication development,” then after a profound nine months of meditations, he opened into the capacity for what he calls "deep-take consulting." Eventually he evolved into Executive Coaching and "depth-mediations."

In the last 15 years, Larry has been navigating in and from the Turquoise perspective and endeavoring to identify the ways and means of “we-space” dynamics: being more authentically present and connected—very pertinent to understanding and engaging with conflict, whether interpersonal or intrapersonal." His work can be found at: www.EvolutionalConsciousness.com

In February, 2017, San Diego Integral began the Focused Integral Group Discussion (FIGD), a meta-structuring format where we briefly switch into an agreed upon process to optimally utilize the We-Space. The objective of FIGD is to collectively feel deeper into a topic and promote a causal state experience, a switch from a "collective of I's" to a "collective we." It may be derived from a presentation, a poignant comment by a member, a poem... whatever has resonance and can be expanded by the collective.

We invite your topic suggestions as well. Let us know your interests!