Alpesh Bhatt

Al is a Principal of The Center for Leadership Studies and Managing Director of it’s Advisory Services division. The Center for Leadership Studies honors the study of the human systems within organizations as pivotal to innovation, discovery and creativity in business growth. We nurture the talents of those individuals with the unwavering sense that there is something more to untangle, to contribute, and to learn within their organizations and selves.

Advisory Services at The Center for Leadership Studies include:

Designing from the Future: Managers Plan, Leaders Create™
This service supports organizational members who are in the very early stages of a breakthrough. At this stage there is little other than an intuitive sense of possibility, a nagging feeling that there is something much ‘bigger’, more valuable, something that would transform the organization’s or department’s future and open up much greater opportunity. Conversely, the organization may have a sense of impending threat from forces in the marketplace that seem ambiguous, unpredictable and unknowable. The habitual response to this is to begin the process of analysis and planning; a path that, in our extensive experience, narrows the opportunity to a fraction of it’s potential. Our support here is to facilitate the process of creating, of engaging with the future as an artist engages with a canvas. These engagements result in powerful and transformative visions of possibility and, more importantly, an extremely high level of commitment and clarity on the part of key leaders and sponsors of the vision.

The Trusted Advisor: New Visions require New Ways to See
Taking on the work of Leadership, of creating a new reality for your organization, requires the willingness to take on a new reality for yourself. In our experience, this is one of the most commonly overlooked aspects of organizational transformation. Too often, the assumption is that the Leader must take on a clinical, detached posture with respect to the breakthrough they are committed to creating and that a behavioral, skill and tool-based approach to increasing the Leader’s effectiveness is what is required from their advisors and coaches. Over the course of hundreds of client engagements, we have found that this approach is fundamentally flawed. The work of the Advisor certainly includes the development of skills and the introduction of tools, but the true value extends far beyond this. Engaging with one of our practitioners in a Trusted Advisor role provides you with personal, one-on-one space in which you will transform your understanding of what you are capable of. Our promise is not that you will ‘change’ but rather that you will ‘emerge’ even more powerfully and with greater presence than you currently do. These engagements are grounded in deep trust between Client and Advisor and are rarely shorter than 1 year in duration. In every case, business outcomes are defined that, when achieved, will provide the organization with a return that far exceeds Advisory fees.

Dialogue Leadership: Creating space for your thinking
Facilitation of small and large group Dialogues that, unlike traditional public speaking, are not aimed at attempting to train and/or convince an audience based upon content expertise, but instead are designed to open up space for conversation and thinking that allows participants to engage from their own experience and knowing. Dialogues include a broad spectrum of topics of relevance to organizational members including: Leadership, Change, Innovation, the Future of Business, Authenticity, and Personal & Interpersonal Effectiveness.

Graduate Student Education & Mentoring: Development of future organizational practitioners who are currently enrolled in pursuing advanced degrees in fields of study such as Industrial & Organizational Psychology and Organizational Development.

Prepare For Surprise is the unexpected, the obvious, the pertinent and the profound. Hosted by Alpesh Bhatt with regular commentary and contribution by prominent figures from a variety of industries and backgrounds, Prepare For Surprise will try to nudge you toward a new perception of the world and your work in it. If you’re interested in an open exchange with other people on the same journey, join us.