Victoria Castle is the author of Trance of Scarcity and a seasoned organizational coach. For over twenty years, she has been helping leaders and organizations increase their effectiveness by achieving greater congruence between their way of thinking and their way of being. With prevailing economic conditions making it ever more challenging to maintain our cool, Victoria offers some simple suggestions for building our capacity for resilience when it's needed most.

Victoria Castle laughs when she quotes a physician colleague of hers who once observed: "You want to be perturbable. Because if you're not, we're going to put you in a category called 'clinically dead,' and that's a very different future." While we might like to treat ourselves like machines--always running, never tiring--the truth is that we are living systems, designed to get perturbed or knocked off center from time to time.

Without the "fight or flight" instinct that comes with perturbation, we might not know to jump out of the street when a bus is barreling down on us. Those changes that stressful conditions trigger in our breathing patterns, blood pressure, hormone levels, and muscle tension are indispensible to our survival. They help us take action in a crisis. But as escalating complexity and regular bad news have created an atmosphere of chronic crisis, we find ourselves living in a state of "fight or flight" almost all the time now.

Building Resilience
How can we learn to hit the Reset button and get our systems back to a neutral state more regularly? Do we need to go away for a weeklong retreat, or get up an hour earlier and meditate? Not necessarily. We can't be centered all the time; it is simply not possible. And that's not the real game anyway. The key is to notice quickly when we're off, and come back, knowing that we'll get knocked off again. That's resilience.

For Victoria, resilience and leadership have become synonymous. The most effective leaders focus their attention on building their capacity to function well under stressful conditions rather than on trying to relieve the pressure--which often isn't an option. And the first step in building resilience is to recognize what it feels like when we're in "fight or flight," when we're triggered, or when we're stressed; that means paying attention to what's happening with our breath, what our muscles and bones are doing, what patterns our thoughts are falling into.

Latest program additions:

Adapt and Perform: What Boeing Is Learning from Living Systems
Dennis O'Donoghue, Boeing; Anne Murray Allen, Willamette University
Like complex organisms that respond unpredictably to changing conditions, large organizations cannot be directed; they can only be influenced. Learn how one Boeing business has applied system dynamics modeling and the principles of living systems to effect profound, rapid change.

Conflict as Catalyst: A Storytelling Approach to Contentious Situations
Robert Dickman, FirstVoice; Ken McLeod, McLeod and Associates
As a dynamic interaction between different systems, conflict is, at its core, pregnant with creative and constructive possibilities. Learn how to use the five elements of storytelling and the four stages of conflict to broaden people's perceptions and bring clarity to contentious situations.

Conversational Leadership: Strategies for Large-Scale Systems Change
Frances Baldwin, Designed Wisdom; Thomas J. Hurley, World Café Community Foundation
What principles and practices enable leaders in today's highly networked organizations to engage all the key stakeholders in conversations that address critical strategic questions? Join this forum to explore how conversational leaders can foster greater collective capacity for knowledge creation and innovative action.

Managing for Life: Lessons from Toyota for Creating Sustainable Businesses
H. Thomas Johnson, Portland State University
Through financial targets that compel businesses to pursue endless growth, we have turned the human economy from a life-sustaining to a life-destroying system. Learn how the concept of "managing for life" draws on Toyota's problem-solving and leadership routines to offer a more sustainable economic model.

Multi-Generational Collaboration: Shaping Tomorrow, Together
Juanita Brown, The World Café; Samantha Tan, Meristem Group
How can organizations actively engage all generations--including younger leaders and long-time employees--in exercising collaborative leadership to shape the future? Join this intergenerational dialogue and bring home powerful strategies for reaching across traditional boundaries to achieve unprecedented results.

See the System, Experience the System
Gerald C. Swanson, Boeing Corporation
When you understand the interconnectedness of the systems in which you operate, you gain leverage and avoid unintended consequences. In this fast-paced and entertaining session, you'll physically experience concepts such as homeostasis, sub-optimization, system constraints, and synergistic emergence.

Significant team discounts are available for groups of 4 or more. Call us at 1-800-272-0945 to talk about how the teams program at this year's Pegasus Conference can work for you.

Individual conference registrations are just $1295 through May 31 (a savings of $400 off the full conference price). Register now to secure your seat at this lower rate.