United States
America’s diversity is its strength. Yet we often lack the skills and methods that can bring together diverse perspectives, make sense of difference, work through conflict, and make wise decisions that stick.
The Lewis Method of Deep Democracy USA provides leaders, facilitators, coaches, and project managers with a robust methodology that helps pairs and groups transform difference and tension into creativity and smart decisions. We are proud to be the pioneers of this innovative, game-changing methodology in the United States.
Our team of highly experienced consultants and facilitators can help you and your organization:
Learn how to read group dynamics and diagnose what is going on in the system
Learn how to head off polarization and help groups engage productively with conflict
Develop skills needed to help groups make lasting decisions
Gain tools for healing interpersonal rifts that impede team effectiveness
Increase the capacity to achieve real commitment and engagement
Our offerings include:
Facilitation: We design and facilitate crucial meetings that create full inclusion and engagement, productive conversations about different points of view, and lasting decisions
Training: We teach leaders, project managers, and facilitators Lewis Deep Democracy methods and skills that they need to work through differences and conflict on a daily basis
Coaching and Mentoring: We work one-on-one and with groups to grow skills and increase the ability to resolve tension and create more inclusion in meetings.
Conflict Consulting: We design and facilitate engagements that help parties in conflict diffuse tension and find rewarding solutions.
Instructors
Paul Horton
Partner and Principal Consultant at The Athena Group
CoResolve Instructor
paul@athenaplace.com
Paul is a leadership and strategy coach and organizational change professional with over 20 years of experience working with the public, private, non-profit, and higher education sectors. He is keenly aware of the pressures decision-makers and leaders are under to deliver in the face of rapid change, uncertainty, budget and time constraints, and increasing demands from stakeholders. Paul sees his work as helping leaders navigate complexity and change, lead with clarity, and achieve internal alignment and coherence. He also works with groups to help them become more adaptive and resilient and build and sustain a culture of trust, mutual respect, and ongoing learning.
Paul’s work is grounded in both a theoretical and a practical understanding of systems thinking, organization theory, and group (or “process-oriented”) dynamics. He specializes in using dialogue-based, participatory approaches to engage diverse perspectives, build social capital, and improve organizational outcomes. Paul is skilled at facilitating meetings where there is a high degree of difference or divisiveness, and that generate personal insights and uncover innovative possibilities for moving forward.
Paul received his Master’s in Leadership in Complexity & Strategic Sustainable Development from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden. He earned a Certificate in Sustainable Business from Pinchot Graduate School. Paul is also a certified CoResolve Instructor (a facilitation methodology for engaging conflict and working with differences).
Maya Townsend
CoResolve Instructor
Cambridge, MA
maya@partneringresources.com
Maya Townsend, MSOD, founder of Partnering Resources, brings diverse groups together to address complex problems. She uses knowledge of the art and science of networks to help leaders forge collaboration, create resilient strategies, and influence change. Her clients include Fortune 500, mid-sized, emerging, and nonprofit organizations.
Co-editor of the Handbook for Strategic HR, Maya is a prolific writer. She authored the “Network Handbook” blog column at Inc.com, moonlighted for the American Management Association Playbook, and currently serves on the Editorial Review Board for OD Review. Her articles have been featured in online venues and in print media, including strategy+business, People & Strategy, and Non-profit Quarterly.
Maya earned a Master of Science in Organization Development from American University / NTL Institute. She is pursuing a doctorate in Leadership and Change through Antioch University. When not working, she hones her chocolate tasting skills by leading professional chocolate workshops.
İpek Ütün
Founding Partner, Tribe
ipek@ipekutun.com
Ipek's passion is to contribute to a world where people dare and commit to live and lead with their full potential, with love and strength. In this regard, she sees conflict and tension as a major signal and fuel to make the necessary shifts in the systems, an opportunity for growth and expansion. However complex, stuck, or polarized it might seem, she has experienced over and over again, when people show the faith, courage, and commitment to go there, shift happens. It is her joy to support leaders, relationships, and teams in this journey using a variety of different approaches.
Ipek is an ICF accredited PCC level Professional Coach, ORSC accredited Organizational Relationships and Systems Coach, accredited Shadow Work Group Facilitator and Personal Coach, and Deep Democracy Facilitator, Trainer, and Elder. She has extensive experience in coaching, mentoring, and training senior executives, leadership teams, women leadership groups, and facilitating small to large group processes which hold an emotional charge, polarization, and divisiveness. Daimler, Unilever, Siemens, Pfizer, Bayer are some of the multinationals she works with.
Ipek's differentiating edge is her positive energy combined with a capacity to see and work with deeper patterns driving any complex situation and thus enabling personal or systemic transformation.