GREETINGS AND WELCOME
Bill Torbert introduces his work and his new book in this International Leadership Association podcast.
Bill Torbert’s latest book (and, he says, his last) — is now available at Amazon.
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1951805410
Ebook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Y9BDZ63
Numbskull is a memoir of Torbert’s life of discovering and enacting a theory and practice of leadership development, organization development, and scientific development. This highly readable book illustrates a new kind of social action and social science where the researchers include themselves in the study and explore to what degree all the different participants are, or are not, exercising timely and mutually-transforming action. Integrating leadership, teaching, and research, Torbert has won numerous awards for his work, which he now shows us from the inside out.
Buy it here now and please forward this information to colleagues who may be interested. If you wish, we would very much appreciate your writing a short (or long!) comment/review on Amazon.
What people are saying:
This bubbling memoir is a guide to assumption-busting practices at work, at play, and in science that lead to mutually-transforming inquiry, power, and love.
Chuck Palus, Center for Creative Leadership
We live in a moment of profound disruption, a crisis of our economies and of our underlying models of economic and social science thought. Bill Torbert’s pioneering work on Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry addresses this root issue head on. His concept of integrating first-, second-, and third-person action inquiry are foundational for transforming social science to better illuminate our collective agency in bringing forth a new world. Highly recommended!
Otto Scharmer, Author of Theory U; Co-Founder, Presencing Institute; MIT
In his usual fashion, Bill Torbert has written a provocative, engaging, and timely book that illustrates how his groundbreaking ideas of Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry emerged over his career. This book neatly weaves the personal with the scholarly (be sure to read the endnotes!) to provide a kind of roadmap we can compare to our own lives and organizational experiences. For fans of Torbert’s work and new readers, it will be hard to put this one down!
Sandra Waddock, Galligan Chair of Strategy, Boston College
Torbert — a senior member of the fields of adult and organizational development — introduces a transforming paradigm of transdisciplinary social science, where timely action is the fruition of successful inquiry.
This book is a memoir of Bill’s own development and, importantly, includes three stories by a Millennial woman of color. Through their humor, humility, candor, and discipline, these and all Bill’s stories invite us readers to reflect on our own lifetime development.
Hilary Bradbury, Editor Action Research Journal and the Handbook of Action Research
In the five decades since 1967-68, when I was a young teacher at Bill’s first venture in leading a community of inquiry — the Yale Upward Bound Program — I have had the privilege to witness and share in his work of thinking/friendship.
Numbskull is his own critical uncovering of this life-journey, in which he has explored and demonstrated, intellectually and interpersonally, the deep connection between illuminating social theory and liberating social action. It tells a remarkable story, of a remarkable life.
W. Thomas Schmid, Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
‘Numbskull’ is as delightful and charming as I experienced Bill Torbert when we met. Both vulnerable and witty, both memoir and scholarship, this book not only shares Bill’s profound contributions, but his remarkable journey that brought them to life.
Frederic Laloux, Author of Reinventing Organizations
2022 Action Inquiry Activities
You can now link here to the 2020 update of Bill Torbert’s renowned 2005 Harvard Business Review article “Seven Transformations of Management.” The 2005 article won an international award and became one of HBR’s top ten ‘most read’ leadership articles ever. The new 2020 article summarizes much of the action inquiry and Global Leadership Profile research done in the 15 years since.
Our Global Leadership Profile (GLP) helps you determine your current leadership action-logic and how you can transform to the next through the practice of action inquiry.
Visit:
Global Leadership Associates, led by Elaine Herdman-Barker and Richard Izard, featuring an automated GLP ordering and administration process, GLP coach certification workshops, action-inquiry-based consulting, and more.
In Northern Europe, Amara Collaboration led by Heidi Gutekunst and Jane Allen, and in Southern Europe, Veronica Menduina and Associates led by Veronica Menduiña spread the word – and, more importantly, the practices – offering the Action Inquiry and GLP workshops in their neighborhoods (the GLP can be taken in Spanish). Read Amara’s book “Street Smarts” and come to Alicante’s beach, or any of our venues. for an “Action Inquiry and GLP” workshop.
With our primary partners at the Center for Creative Leadership, Chuck Palus and John McGuire, we have developed ‘games’ meant to ‘democratize’ leadership development, including the Transformations card deck and the Vertical Self-Estimate.
ActionResearch+, led by Hilary Bradbury, invites you into the kinds of relational action inquiry that generate live friendships, first via webinar, then in person.
The Third Act (led by Ed Kelly) offers programs for those of us beginning to explore how we can generate a creative and meaningful final third of our lifetimes.
Other action inquiry community members can also be contacted for coaching or consulting purposes here
Video:
See Bill give a brief description of
1) the Action Inquiry & Global Leadership Profile Workshop
2) how the GLP can support your work
3) what Action Inquiry means
4) why action-logics matter in the work world
5) why timing is key to leadership efficacy
