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Helping Hospitals Keep Patients Safe

03/26/2013

One of the most dangerous things about health care is human error. A pharmacist picking up the wrong bottle or a doctor forgetting to wash her hands can lead to unnecessary complications – even death.

You don’t have to imagine how many lives could be saved if such mistakes could be reduced – or how much less our health care system would cost. Saybrook student Mara Zabari is imagining it for you. A PhD candidate in Saybrook’s Organizational Systems program, Mara is leading a project to reduce patient harm in hospitals in three states by 40 percent.

Posted at 04:01 PM | Permalink | 0 Comments

Newsletters

Saybrook Offers New School in Organizational Leadership and Transformation

03/26/2013

There are lots of places someone can go to get a degree in the way business has always been done, and organizations have always been led.

But now Saybrook University’s offering a whole new kind of curriculum: its School of Organizational Leadership and Transformation is dedicated to developing leaders and change agents for the 21st century.

We can do better than we have in the past. Organizations can be led and managed with meaning, purpose, and integrity.

Posted at 03:56 PM | Permalink | 0 Comments

Newsletters

Support the work we do

03/26/2013

Rigor, diligence and discipline built Saybrook University; rigor, diligence, discipline and generosity will secure the future of humanistic education. Saybrook calls upon every member of our extended family to stand together and give generously to Saybrook this spring. Support from our community will expand opportunities for exceptional faculty and students to engage in important research and practice that moves us toward a just and sustainable world.

Posted at 03:51 PM | Permalink | 0 Comments

Newsletters

Join the conversation

03/26/2013

We know more about organizational transformation than we ever have before. Systems theory is advancing every day. There’s a vibrant conversation happening, and it’s going to change the world.

Do you want to be part of it?

Rethinking Complexity.com is where Saybrook’s scholars in leadership and organizational transformation share their expertise and their stories.

Posted at 03:50 PM | Permalink | 0 Comments

New Existentialists

Poetic Reflection

03/26/2013

Existential psychology embraces creativity and the arts, especially as a counterbalance against the field’s current emphasis upon empiricism and science. Indeed “we express our being by creating. Creativity is a necessary sequel to being” (May, 1975, p. 8). W. H. Auden once remarked to Rollo May (1975) in private conversation: “The Poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born!” (p. 85) So in teaching my students about the existential approach, I often encourage them to reawaken their artistic selves. I remind them that what our clients...

Posted at 10:00 AM

Mind-Body Medicine

MBM PhD Student Applies Hypnosis with Medical and Dental Patients

03/25/2013

From the time she was accepted into the Mind-Body Medicine PhD program, doors began to open a little wider for Lynne Shaner. She is a mind-body medicine practitioner, working in private practice in Washington, DC. She has a practice specializing in EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques, or “tapping”), hypnosis, and Reiki. Her participation in the Saybrook PhD program has deepened her knowledge of the areas she works in, and has opened up an entire range of mind-body skills and techniques, which she now uses regularly with clients.

Posted at 12:05 PM | Permalink | 0 Comments

Rethinking Complexity

MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) in Organizations

03/25/2013

I was pinching myself last Sunday when I joined the MBSR community from Northern California in San Jose. The gathering met with MBSR founders Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli and renowned MBSR and Vipassana teacher Bob Stahl for the day, exploring what is going on with MBSR and what is emerging. Evidence gathered with over 20,000 participants. The 85 participants who gathered were teachers or teachers-in-training of MBSR, an evidence-based meditation practice that has helped over 20,000 people improve their health through programs guided by the Center for Mindfulness of the University of...

Posted at 10:57 AM

New Existentialists

Better Than Food

03/25/2013

Zuangzi’s problem of the koi Zuangzi famously argued with a friend (Hueitse) over whether we could know the mind of another being. He noticed some fish swimming in the river under the bridge they were crossing, and said the fish must be happy. His friend argued it was impossible to know how the fish felt, as he was not a fish. Zuangzi argued that Hueitse could not know whether he knew because his friend was not him. And Zuangzi ended the argument by stating Hueitse’s argument proved the point: I know the fish are happy because of my own feelings on the bridge. This is a...

Posted at 10:00 AM

Rethinking Complexity

Three Fundamental Leadership Skills

03/22/2013

I talk with every client I have about three fundamental leadership skills. This isn’t the only way to think about leadership, but I find it an incredibly useful way to help leaders see how they tend to shoot themselves in the foot. (Because we all do this, right? If we’re lucky, we have good friends and colleagues who are willing to tell us how.) These are the three fundamental leadership skills that I’m talking about: the ability to take a stand the ability to stay connected the ability to manage your own reactivity Let’s look at each one a bit more in...

Posted at 11:57 AM

New Existentialists

Waxing Existential: Forced to Find Meaning

03/22/2013

I recently watched the film Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, with Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. Without giving it all away, Carell’s character, Dodge, is faced, as is all of humanity, with the imminent end of the world. An asteroid is on course to destroy the planet, and there are but a few weeks of life left on earth. The film portrays various responses to this whale of an existential dilemma. First, we view all forms of apathy (what’s the point; it doesn’t matter anymore) and anarchy (fair game for everyone; let’s destroy it because we can). Dodge...

Posted at 10:00 AM