Barrett Brown

About Barrett Brown

Barrett C. Brown. Since 1995, Barrett has worked in nine countries as a consultant and entrepreneur in the areas of leadership, organization development, communications, and sustainability. He has helped launch a dozen organizations, led executive teams through strategic alignment, developed multi-year leadership development programs, delivered leadership initiatives for Fortune 500 executives, and briefed high-level officials at the United Nations Development Programme headquarters and the US State Department. He specializes in the intersection between organization development, leadership development, and global sustainability.

Integral Reflection on Occupy Wall Street Protests

10.22.2011 By
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As I sit typing on my iPhone from my seventh floor apartment overlooking the Amstel river, embedded in one of the most sustainable and beautiful cities in the world, with the sun gently caressing my face and a full tummy from my delicious gourmet musleix, the souls of 3,000 people are readying themselves to be released from their bodies today due to malaria ravaging their body, two billion people will scramble to earn their average one to two dollars in earnings today, another long-term unemployed person will just turn over in bed using sleep as an escape from their brutal reality, a trillion dollars in US student debt will remind its owners of its presence, and many millions of people will physically or emotionally suffer from the reactions of a contracted, under-resourced individual in their lives who is struggling just to live a dignified life. How do I respond? I see the foundations of our economic and political systems crumbling. The faint signals that portend significant … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture and Society, Current Events, Home, Worldviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Interview with Peter Merry on Sustainability Leadership

04.27.2011 By
Interview

Peter Merry and I met in The Hague this past summer for a deep discussion on sustainability leadership. Peter offers a powerful blend of insight, wit, and presence that has allowed him to serve the development of sustainability in some fascinating arenas. In this interview he discusses how he designs sustainability initiatives, and cites recent work with the State of the World Forum in Brazil. I think you'll find the interview fascinating. Peter Merry Interview on Sustainability Leadership_20100624         … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership, Sustainability

Ph.D. Dissertation on Conscious Leadership in Action

04.04.2011 By
Unmergent by Todd Guess

"Barrett Brown has given us a timely, important, significant, and very telling empirical study of some of the highest stages of human development. Combined with his terrific commentary and superb analysis, this is must reading for all those interested in leadership, development, spirituality, or integral studies."  – Ken Wilber, The Integral Vision What does conscious leadership look like in action? I've spent the last two years researching this question, specifically exploring how change agents with complex worldviews design and lead complex change initiatives. The bottom line is that these individuals represent less than 5% of the population, and in some cases, less than 1%. They are true outliers in how they see and understand not only the world around them, but also their own inner experience. The leaders I researched for my Ph.D. dissertation have achieved a level of development that represents the farthest reaches of what science can currently measure. I was … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecology, Home, Integral Theory and Methodology, Leadership, Psychology, Sustainability Tagged With: , , , ,

Four Quadrants of Sustainability

04.04.2011 By
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Integral frameworks are being used to guide sustainable development communication strategies worldwide. The framework has been applied to Appropriate Communication with a focus on sustainability. Integral approaches have been applied by senior leaders in UNICEF and in the HIV/AIDS group at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Civil society organizations (CSOs) and business consultants on six continents apply it to support organizational and societal transformation toward sustainability. In essence, the Integral framework seeks to weave together the many threads of human knowledge in an inclusive way. It attends to objective and subjective, and individual and collective, ways of knowing. At the same time, it is sensitive to the development of people and cultures over time and the impact this has on the way individuals and groups perceive the world. This comprehensive, developmentally-aware approach can aid communication by ensuring that messages do not marginalize … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home, Integral Theory and Methodology, Sustainability Tagged With:

Communicating Sustainability to Different Worldviews

04.04.2011 By
communicating-sustainability

Why care for the environment? Ask this question of people from around the world and myriad responses will return. You might hear "Do it...." For your children For the technical challenge of achieving sustainability Because the Glorious Qur’an states that this is man’s obligation To save Gaia Because it is the ancestral way For the opportunity to make money To preserve the beauty of Nature So I don’t get cancer from pollutants Because it is honorable and is our responsibility to be stewards To stop the greedy industrialists by any means necessary Because pollution is a sin against Creation To sacredly express love for all of existence. What is your answer? Do any of these responses feel true to you and appeal to your deepest sensibilities? Which responses, if any, fail to strike a chord or feel uncomfortable to you? How and where does that discomfort show up in your body? Place your attention in those areas of your body and feel into how you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecology, Integral Theory and Methodology, Leadership, Psychology, Sustainability, Worldviews