In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast, CEO of Integrated Work, Jennifer, shares her empowering experiences for women and introduces her groundbreaking book, The KOAN Method: Breakthrough Leadership for a Divided World. The KOAN method emphasizes kind open adaptive networks, highlighting the power of patience, curiosity, and facing challenges. The enduring impact of questions in the KOAN method is discussed in terms of its relevance in organizational and personal contexts, concluding with insights on the “Succeed Mantra” and the importance of building sustainable systems in community. Overall, the episode provides profound insights into leading with empathy, meaningful questioning, and blending ancient wisdom with modern leadership practices.

Chantal Pierrat is Founder & CEO of Emerging Women, a global network of brilliant women creating new leadership paradigms and supporting the rise of leaders across all sectors of society. Chantal is a celebrated podcast host, speaker, thought leader, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to advancing conscious leadership and helping women be seen, heard and lead from the truth of who they are. Her ideas have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, The Street and more. Emerging Women has graduated thousands of women (and men) from peer mentoring and sponsorship programs sponsored by such Fortune 500/100 organizations as HP, Inc., Halliburton, Oracle Corp. and more.

Jennifer Simpson, CEO of Integrated Work, brings almost a decade of collaboration with Chantal in the Emerging Women community. As an advocate for women’s empowerment and authentic expression, she is the author of The KOAN Method: Breakthrough Leadership for a Divided World, drawing from her 30-year exploration of uniting people across differences. The KOAN method emphasizes open adaptive networks, prioritizing patience and curiosity for breakthroughs. Jennifer champions transformative leadership, blending ancient wisdom with modern practices, evident in her interconnected model of leadership development, featuring peer coaching and stakeholder integration.

— The KOAN Method: Breakthrough Leadership for a Divided World

— Emphasis on the importance of connection, empathy, and authentic expression in personal and professional relationships.

— “It’s not about ignoring those histories, but it’s about recognizing that in order to create a different future, we’ve really got to start from what’s important to us.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast

— “What can I bring into a conversation that’s going to create those little moments of spark and disruption that are going to lead us to a different outcome rather than just reproducing the same one, right?” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast

— “But if we start from the premise that what we’re doing is trying to build a common good, then I actually think that creating opportunities for disruption to occur in containers of care right inside communities where we really want to find a way forward, that’s good for everyone is what allows us to have all the voices around the table heard is what allows us to loosen our grip on our own felt sense of what the right outcome is so that we can hear each other and so that we can find our way to solutions that work for broader communities and have broader impact.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast

— “What I love about this is that not only are we asking questions of the group, but we’re inviting people, especially those people who don’t speak up very much to you know, bring their own questions and it’s a little bit easier to invite your team and especially those who don’t speak up to say, what questions do you have than it is to say, especially if someone is not used to voicing their opinion.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast

— “And it it really becomes super powerful when we stop feeling like our job is solving the past or fixing what’s broken when we start focusing on who do we want to be tomorrow or 10 years from now, we shift our energy in the direction of our hopes and dreams instead of on our despair, right? Like the things that were so sad and frustrated are not yet better than they are. I think even from an emotional energetic place, getting people into hope and aspiration and commitment for what they care about creates a radically different trajectory than grappling with the messy things that are the bane of our days.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast

— “It is more fun to be uncomfortable in community than it is to be uncomfortable in isolation.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast

— “There’s a lot of different varieties of leadership in the emerging women community and the more that we reach for connection and continue these questions, even when we don’t have an official organization or a large team, We help to create a new model even for entrepreneurs.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast

Chantal Pierrat

Emerging Women

Jennifer Simpson

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