UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL, Faculty of Business Administration

Managing and leading organizations has become an increasingly complex and challenging matter in our current world of rapid change and uncertainty. Too often managers face issues that are beyond our existing capacities and skill sets. In making reference to the “complexity” of the current world conditions, we also recognize that we are fundamentally talking about ourselves as managers and leaders. In describing the world as complex, we acknowledge the underlying relationship between the complexity of our minds and the current state of our world.

Consequently, our program examines the following questions in greater depth: how can we skillfully work with uncertainty in our working contexts without the negative by-products of stress and anxiety? How can we successfully act from our core intentions while improving our capability to find creative approaches to the demands and challenges we face? How can we learn to navigate current management and leadership challenges with greater ease and efficiency?

Building on the work of psychologist Robert Kegan from Harvard University, we recognize that the demands of the 21 st century workplace do not require the acquisition of new skills so much as a more complex order of consciousness. In other words, we need to change how we make sense of the world and how we act within it This is the core aim of the Complexity, Consciousness and Management Program.

This program does not offer definitive or quick answers to the challenges of being a leader and manager in today’s context of uncertainty and complexity. Instead, through innovative approaches and cutting-edge practices, participants in the program will learn to outgrow old patterns of reactivity and evolve new ways of responding to management type situations with creativity, consideration and discernment.. In particular, the program draws on the practice of mindfulness, which — by inviting us to see the world differently by suspending our premature judgments — offers possibilities for developing new ways of action and being.