ORGANIZATIONAL AWARENESS LIVE LABs™ 

THE WORK GETS MORE COMPLEX. SEEING CLEARLY MATTERS MORE. 

Experienced professionals rarely struggle because they don't know enough process.

The harder moments happen when the process can't tell you what you're actually looking at.

A decision appears to have been made, but nothing moves.

Stakeholders agree in the room, then behave differently outside of it.

A delivery problem keeps returning despite stronger execution.

A team appears resistant, but resistance may not actually be the problem.

In complex organizations, what you see first isn't always the whole story.

Organizational awareness is the ability to notice what's happening around the work, test what you think it means, and exercise judgment before deciding what needs to change.

And it is a capability you can develop.

THIS IS A LAB FOR A REASON.

Organizational awareness isn't developed by simply listening to someone explain it.

You have to practice seeing.

In the Organizational Awareness Live Lab™, you'll encounter ambiguous organizational situations before you're given an interpretation.

You'll notice what stands out to you.

Make your own call.

Hear what other experienced professionals saw.

Then we'll examine the evidence together.

Designed as a group learning experience, the Live Lab is intentionally limited to 60 participants, creating room to think, compare perspectives, and learn from what other experienced professionals see.

Decisions. Contradictions. Conditions.

We'll explore where observation becomes interpretation, what assumptions may be shaping the way we read a situation, what information we're privileging, what we may be overlooking, and what deserves greater understanding before we act.

There won't always be one correct interpretation.

The practice is becoming more deliberate about how you arrive at yours.

What Happens in the Room

This isn't a presentation you sit through. It's a leadership experience you participate in.

The Organizational Awareness Live Lab™ takes the perspective-shifting concepts introduced through The Leadership Shift™ framework and turns them into practical, repeatable leadership skills.

Through realistic organizational scenarios, guided reflection, interactive exercises, and collaborative discussion, you'll practice recognizing when your current perspective may be incomplete and learn how to uncover what you aren't seeing.

Examine Your Own Lens

Learn to recognize when assumptions, familiar patterns, or incomplete perspectives may be influencing how you interpret a situation.

You'll practice using a set of anchoring questions to examine what you know, identify what you need to understand, and explore the people, relationships, and organizational conditions that may be shaping what you're experiencing.

The goal: Know when to change your lens and how to surface what you may be missing.

Help Others Examine Their Lens

Changing your own perspective is only part of the challenge. Leadership also requires navigating situations where other people see the same circumstances differently.

Through practical exercises, you'll explore how purposeful questions can surface assumptions, clarify concerns, and help others reconsider their interpretations without turning every difference in perspective into a confrontation.

The goal: Use questions to create understanding, improve communication, and move conversations forward.

Leverage AI to Strengthen Your Judgment

AI can do more than generate answers or summarize information. Used intentionally, it can become a powerful thinking partner.

You'll explore the AI Sandwich, a practical approach that keeps human judgment at the beginning and end of the process while leveraging AI to challenge assumptions, pressure-test thinking, examine alternatives, and support decision-making.

You'll see how The Leadership Shift™ AI Coach supports this practice, while learning approaches you can apply with other AI tools.

The goal: Use AI to strengthen your thinking and decisions, not replace your judgment.

Your Organizational Awareness Live Lab™ Toolkit

The experience doesn't end when you leave the room.

Every participant receives a collection of practical resources designed to help you continue applying what you've learned in real leadership situations.

Your Live Lab Toolkit includes:

• The Branded Perspective Viewer: A physical reminder to change your lens, featuring key questions and perspective-shifting anchors you can return to whenever a situation calls for a different way of seeing.

• The Organizational Awareness Field Guide: A reusable workbook with foundational concepts, anchoring questions, practical exercises, and space to apply the approach to your own leadership challenges.

• The Lens Questions Reference Card: A convenient, durable quick-reference tool for keeping the essential questions close at hand, whether you're preparing for a meeting, navigating a difficult conversation, or working through a decision.

• The AI Sandwich Practice Guide: Practical guidance and examples for using AI to challenge your thinking, explore alternatives, and strengthen decision-making with the AI tools available to you.

• 90 Days of Leadership Shift™ AI Coach Access: Complimentary access to continue practicing, reflecting, and strengthening your leadership judgment after the Live Lab.

You'll leave with more than a new perspective. You'll have a repeatable approach, practical tools, and greater confidence in knowing how to uncover what you may not be seeing.

What People Are Already Carrying With Them

A different way of seeing doesn't end when the presentation does. It changes what you notice when you return to your work.

At the 2026 PMI Silicon Valley Symposium, project and program leaders experienced elements of the thinking behind Organizational Awareness and Leadership Shift. Their reflections reveal what happens when leaders begin questioning their assumptions, changing their perspectives, and approaching familiar challenges with greater intention.

Seeing Past Situations Differently

“Looking back, I can think of situations where your framework would have helped me see things differently and work through my assumptions.”

Sometimes the value of a new perspective becomes clearest when we recognize how it could have changed a situation we've already experienced.

Putting the Thinking Into Practice

“I incorporated the question ‘what do I need to understand before deciding’ into my daily workflows.”

Eunice Kibebe | Symposium Participant

The shift isn't simply learning a new concept. It's carrying a better question into the decisions you make every day.

Changing the Lens

“You helped us change our lens to see what else the situation might require of us.”

When leaders change the lens, they begin to recognize possibilities, conditions, and responsibilities they might otherwise overlook.

Practical, Immediately Applicable Leadership Thinking

“In my opinion, hers was the most practical and immediately applicable talk.”

Angelo | Symposium Attendee

The most useful leadership insights aren't necessarily the most complicated. They're the ones you can recognize and apply when you're back in the middle of the work.

A Perspective That Stays With You

“I won’t forget the Viewfinder example.”

A memorable image can become a lasting reminder to look again, question what appears obvious, and consider what another perspective might reveal.

A Reminder Worth Keeping on the Desk

Amy | Symposium Participant

Amy shared that she wanted to purchase a View-Master to keep on her desk as a reminder of the perspective and wisdom she took away from the presentation.

Sometimes a leadership insight resonates so deeply that we want a physical reminder to carry it into the next meeting, challenge, or decision.

Strengthening Judgment in the Age of AI

“Your focus on using AI to broaden our thinking while keeping human judgment at the center was a valuable takeaway.”

Hanu | PMI-SV Chapter President

AI can expand what leaders consider. But knowing what to question, what to investigate, and what to do next still requires human judgment.

Remembering What Leadership Requires

“As a leader, what is required of me now?”

This question captures an essential shift: moving beyond what the process says to do and considering what the situation actually requires of us as leaders.

These reflections came from the PMI Silicon Valley Symposium, where participants experienced foundational concepts that inform the Organizational Awareness Live Lab™.

The goal isn't to leave with more information. It's to leave noticing differently.

THE PRACTICE CONTINUES AFTER YOU LEAVE THE ROOM.

Every Live Lab registration includes 90 days of complimentary access to the Leadership Shift™ AI Coach.

Some of the most important opportunities to practice organizational awareness won't happen during the Live Lab.

They'll happen when you're back inside your organization.

Before an important meeting. After a stakeholder interaction that doesn't quite make sense. When a decision stalls. When the explanation everyone has accepted stops matching what you're observing.

The Leadership Shift™ AI Coach gives you a place to work through those moments as they happen, using an AI coaching experience built from Dori Young's leadership perspective, pattern recognition, questions, and distinctions.

For teams attending together, that means the shared experience doesn't end when you leave the room. Each participant has a way to continue practicing the thinking in the situations they encounter back at work.

90 days of access are included with your Live Lab registration, a value of $87.

Because seeing differently for one day isn't the goal.

Developing a way of seeing you can take with you is.

WHO IS THE LIVE LAB FOR?

The Organizational Awareness Live Lab™ is designed for experienced professionals whose work requires them to navigate people, priorities, decisions, competing perspectives, and organizational complexity.

That includes professionals working across project and program leadership, PMOs, product, transformation, change, and other complex cross-functional environments.

You don't need a particular title.

You do need work complicated enough that process alone doesn't always tell you what to do next.

Earn 3.5 PMI® PDUs 

Participants who hold a PMI certification can earn 3.5 Education PDUs upon completion. PDU category allocation across the PMI Talent Triangle will be provided with completion documentation.