A Deep Dive in the UN: The LDI in Service of Changing Leadership Culture

We are excited to share with the LDI community a little about the ‘Deep Dive’ (aka LDI) that we provided to the United Nations Staff College in Sweden the last week in August. As you might not know, this our THIRD LDI for the UN, the first two taking place in Italy, and this year in Sweden .

Like every multi-national organization, the UN has internal challenges as it attempts to come to grips with a leadership role in an increasingly volatile world. The Dag Hammerskjöld Foundation, a research organization that is part of the UN eco-system, has been focusing recently on the leadership of the ‘international civil servant’.  Researchers from the Foundation have highlighted the legacy of Dag Hammarskjöld himself, the second UN Secretary-General. They concluded it was his unique blend of courage and integrity that proved so effective in the UN (and the world). As a result, they began to look for current leadership development programs that were in alignment with Hammarskjöld’s values, ones that might help UN leadership demonstrate his kind of behaviour. In the process, through the UN Staff College, they discovered our Deep Dive/LDI and, after trial programs in Italy are considering whether it might be a useful and ongoing approach to some of their organizational issues and the leadership currently needed in the UN.

The recent Deep Dive/LDI was offered near Ystad in Southern Sweden in a new partnership between the UN Staff College and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.  This is the first the Staff College has partnered with the Foundation, and the Deep Dive was positioned to contribute to the development of international leaders with high ethical standards and levels of integrity. As you can see from the workshop cover below, the program is presented as a three-way partnership: The UN Staff College, The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, and Scherer Leadership Center!  It was the Staff College that changed the name to Deep Dive to clearly differentiate it from the many other leadership development programs it offers.

The sponsoring organizations and participants alike appreciated the program not just as a personal leadership-development experience but also as a potential solution to some of their organizational challenges.  It was a pleasure collaborating with such thoughtful and creative partners!

Check out what our clients had to say (click here).

Jean, John and Ingrid at a 2016 LDI in Ottawa for Government of Canada employees through the Telfer Centre for Executive Programs, Ottawa University