About the Center…..
The Center for Progressive Development provides state-of-the-art knowledge and resources for organizations, institutions and individuals seeking positive development and continued evolution of their human capacities — an ongoing challenge within today’s careerist and technology-driven culture. That is, positive development is often impeded by the many confusing transitions, conflicts, competing values and social conditioning that adult and midlife men and women face within a rapidly-changing culture that is now highly interconnected and globalized.
We help individuals and organizations deal with the ways in which careers, the changing workplace, gender issues, and the urban culture affect adult character development — either contributing to health and growth or to conflict and decline during adulthood, especially during midlife and midcareer. We apply this understanding to career conflicts, management and “green” leadership development, intimate relationships and sense of life purpose.
For organizations, we provide resources to deal with the impact of change and transition upon the organizations’s mission and leadership. It helps organizations learn how to reduce the gap between organizational mission and actual conduct or practices. The Center also helps organizations address and resolve the mixture of personal and management conflicts which frequently affects individuals in today’s organizations, as they seek more sustainable practices.
We help people create effective solutions and strategies for leadership development and transition in the light of state-of-the-art knowledge of adult development and both the internal and external forces affecting organizational success. In addition, we conductexecutive assessments for determining the best fit between organizational culture and mission, and prospective candidates for senior positions within the organization.
For individuals, the Center provides a range of resources directed towards new learning, personal change, and resolution of emotional conflict in personal lives. Resources for individuals include executive coaching, focused on development or transformation in both career and personal lives; support groups for men and women dealing with life change and transition; and psychotherapy for individuals and couples.
Dr. LaBier and the Center carry out this mission for organizations and individuals through:
- Educational seminars and lectures
- Consultation to senior executives and organizational leadership
- Research on positive adult development
- Resources for leadership development and assessment
- Programs for resolving personal and organizational conflicts
- Individual executive coaching
- Support groups
- Psychotherapy for individuals and couples
The Center’s Philosophy
Our work is grounded in a recognition of the interconnectedness of all life; that interwoven relationships exist between our physical, emotional, cognitive, relational, and spiritual lives; and between our mind/body/spirit and the larger physical, social and cultural systems of which we are a part. The latter include family dynamics, gender socialization, socially conditioned attitudes and values, economic and political forces, new technology, and the globalized, interdependent world that now exists.
The workplace and the larger culture shape our character orientation, our values, the kinds of relationships we engage in, our unconscious attitudes and conflicts. All of these forces become expressed in our overall way of life, or life practice. They also determine our perceptions of available solutions to our life dilemmas, including those in the realms of intimate relationships, career, and life purpose or vision. The mix of family, cultural, and social forces can negatively affect, distort or freeze human development, psychologically and spiritually, throughout adult lives.
Human development — personal evolution and growth of such human capacities, as compassion, connection, and creativity — is both possible and necessary for the well-being of individuals and societies. However, the forces which support it are inadequately understood and seldom practiced. Human development extends beyond resolution of conflict or trauma. It extends to the realm of major shifts within our awareness, perspectives, and overall life practices. In addition to freedom from the distortion and damage from childhood experiences, positive development also requires awakening to and letting go of socially conditioned attitudes and values which limit self-awareness and feed self-serving, egocentric perspectives and behavior.
Cultivating meaning, purpose, and the capacity for love are forms of strengthening our connections in life, rather than serving our isolated egos. This core life task is essentially nonmaterial and spiritual. It requires cultivating our relational lives through practicing compassion and mutuality, as opposed to domination, submission or isolated detachment. It also requires cultivating our creative powers in work and in everyday life, through flexible thinking and resiliency in the face of new challenges or problems.
We want to help reverse the prevailing assumption in our culture that human life exists to serve economic and business development and success. This assumption has generated the rampant workaholism, disconnection and dysfunction in our society. In contrast, economic development and business success should support human development — enhancement of well-being and security; strengthening human connection and community; and building democratic institutions, community, social justice and sustainable practices at all levels of society. In short, the Center believes that the creation of wealth and capital should serve the positive development of human lives.