Workshops throughout the day allow students to discover the connection between self-awareness and effective leadership. Games and exercises provide opportunities for introspection, radical listening, and empathy; participants work with the idea that one cannot feel empathy for others without access to one’s own inner emotional life. As Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, puts it, “Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading people to work toward a common goal.”

Workshops today build on self-awareness tools. As students focus on the art and craft of storytelling, they work to create a story of “self”, a story of “us”, and a story of “now”. Each perspective combines to build a cohesive story around a chosen climate issue: Why does it matter to me and to us? Why must we address it now? Each student identifies a particular climate issue or topic of personal importance to explore in the days ahead. Opportunities for sharing and self-reflection conclude the day’s activity.

Day three invites students to lean into difficult and inevitable conversations about climate issues in our world today. Bringing the work of day two into the classroom, we focus on how one listens with an open heart and mind to the ideas of others, how one reflects those ideas back to the speaker, and how one moves through conflict with finesse, rather than aggression to move the conversation forward. Students role-play conversations challenging their proposals and reflect together on the experience.

Today’s work drills down in depth on the previous day’s conversations, cracking open the elements of conflict to create space for negotiation and recognition of common ground. We look at specific tools to help bolster each student’s chosen cause, recognizing that sometimes the best tool is listening carefully to the opposition. Students learn about value creation, value claiming, building power, overcoming barriers, and the seven elements of negotiation.

On the final day, students explore the planning, design, and delivery of their specific climate issues. They try out tools of effective public speaking, addressing common fears and foibles that can limit the effectiveness of one’s delivery. Each student delivers a speech on their topic to persuade us all as to its urgency in the world today. Peers will practice offering effective feedback to each other. An opportunity for personal and group reflection marks the culmination of the week.