Kathryn Goldman Schuyler interviews Alonzo King, Founder/Artistic Director/Choreographer of Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet in San Francisco, California, who has been named Artist-in-Residence for San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral for 2019-2020. King has works in the repertories of the Royal Swedish Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Hong Kong Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and many others. Since launching the company in 1982, he has collaborated with distinguished visual artists, musicians, and composers across the globe including Pharaoh Sanders, the Kronos Quartet, Jason Moran, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, and Zakir Hussain. King was recently granted an honorary doctorate by the Juilliard School.King’s parent were civil rights leaders: as a child he grew up around Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and other leaders of societal change. In the interview, he discusses both his unique approach to ballet and how he was influenced by the environment in which he grew up.

In addition to performing around the world, Lines Ballet offers education programs that go into schools around the Bay Area, conducts a summer training program for young dancers, and co-sponsors a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance that is the only BFA offered in the United States led by an active master choreographer.

In this episode, Kathryn interviews Ed Schein and Peter Schein, co-authors of Humble Leadership (2018), who together co-lead the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute (OCLI)—dedicated to advancing organizational leadership and design through a deeper understanding of organizational culture and career development.

KKathryn Goldman Schuyler has many years of experience in leadership development, organizational consulting, research, and somatic learning. She has helped hundreds of executives to cultivate healthy organizations and is Professor Emeritus of Organization Development at Alliant International University. Kathryn has published widely on leadership and change and is the author of Inner Peace – Global Impact (IAP, 2012) and the lead editor of Leading With Spirit, Presence, and Authenticity (Jossey Bass/Wiley, 2014), and Creative Social Change: Leadership for a Healthy World (Emerald, 2016). Her recent research focuses on awareness and mindfulness at work: her published work in this area highlights how being fully present enhanced participants’ connectedness with others and with the natural environment and renewed their sense of purpose in their work. In addition to earning a Ph.D. at Columbia University (NY) as a sociologist, she studied with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais who developed a sophisticated approach to somatic system learning. As a somatic educator, she helps children and adults with moderate to severe neuro-motor challenges to move, learn, and live fully. She has studied mindfulness and awareness with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mingyur Rinpoche, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, and other masterful teachers of meditation. Kathryn and her husband, a composer, live overlooking San Francisco, a view that encourages them to pause and appreciate gleaming sunsets and foggy mornings, the calls of ravens and the circling of hawks, and the sparkling city lights.

Ed Schein is Professor Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management and is a founding father of many areas of organization and leadership development. He has been awarded the ILA’s Lifetime Achievement Award as well as comparable awards from the Academy of Management and the International OD Network. He was educated at the University of Chicago, Stanford University, and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology. He has published extensively — Organizational Psychology, 3d Ed. (1980), Process Consultation Revisited (1999), career dynamics (Career Anchors, 4th ed. With John Van Maanen, 2013), Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th Ed. (2010), The Corporate Culture Survival Guide, 2d Ed., (2009), a cultural analysis of Singapore’s economic miracle (Strategic Pragmatism, 1996), and Digital Equipment Corp.’s rise and fall (DEC is Dead; Long Live DEC, 2003). Helping (2009) conceptualizes a general theory and practice of giving and receiving help, while his most recent books focus on humility in Inquiry, consulting, and leadership. He continues to consult with various local and international organizations on a variety of organizational culture and career development issues, with special emphasis on safety and quality in health care, the nuclear energy industry, and the US Forest Service. An important focus of this new consulting is occupational/organizational subcultures and how they interact with career anchors to determine the effectiveness and safety of organizations.

Peter Schein is a strategy consultant in Silicon Valley, providing help to start-ups and expansion-phase technology companies. Peter’s expertise draws on over twenty years of industry experience in marketing and corporate development at technology pioneers. In his early career he developed new products and services at Pacific Bell and Apple Computer, Inc. (including eWorld and Newton). He led product marketing efforts at Silicon Graphics Inc., Concentric Network Corporation (XO Communications), and Packeteer (BlueCoat). He developed a deep experience base and passion for internet infrastructure as the Web era dawned in the mid-1990s. He then spent eleven years in corporate development and product strategy at Sun Microsystems, where he led minority equity investments in mission-critical technology ecosystems. He drove acquisitions of technology innovators that developed into multi-million dollar product lines at Sun. Through these experiences developing new strategies organically and merging smaller entities into a large company, Peter developed a keen focus on the underlying organizational culture challenges that growth engenders in innovation-driven enterprises. Peter was educated at Stanford University, Northwestern University, and the USC Marshall School of Business Center For Effective Organizations.