The Aspen Seminar Executive Summery

The Central America Leadership Initiative Foundation (The CALI Foundation) is a joint venture between the Aspen Institute, INCAE, TechnoServe and FUNDEMAS. Inspired by the Henry Crown Fellowship Program of the Aspen Institute, the CALI Foundation is designed to create a new generation of civically-engaged leaders across Central America, moving them “from success to significance” and “from thought to action” as they envision the creation of a “good society” in their region and commit to personal leadership projects to help make it a reality.

CALI Fellows also form part of a wider global network called the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN), a growing, worldwide community of entrepreneurial leaders from business, government and the nonprofit sector, currently 950 Fellows from 43 countries. All share the common experience of participating in the Henry Crown Fellowship or one of the dozen Aspen Institute leadership initiatives it has inspired in the United States, Africa, Central America, India, and the Middle East.

With four classes of CALI Fellows graduated or underway we are going far towards building a critical mass of values-based leaders who will help the Central American region manage its growth and development on one hand, while addressing social, economic and political problems, persistent poverty, provision of educational opportunities and basic health care, and protecting the environment, on the other. Central America has great development potential, but is dogged by significant leadership challenges.

Building upon their first seminar, the Challenge of Leadership, the fourth class of CALI Fellows took their second in the series of four seminars, The Aspen Seminar, a seminar that challenges Fellows to think more critically and deeply about the “good society” and the tensions between different and limited goods, such as liberty, equality, freedom, and efficiency. The method of text-based dialogue offers participants a neutral forum in which to reflect on timeless human values, pursue common ground, and cultivate a richer understanding of the human condition. Fellows emerge from The Aspen Seminar personally renewed, professionally re-focused, and better prepared to lead as they confront the difficult choices of the ever-changing world.

The Aspen Seminar Report

From July 10-16, 2009 the fourth CALI class, self-named CALI-dad, gathered at the Aspen Meadows Resort and Spa in Aspen, Colorado for The Aspen Seminar: Defining the “Good Society” – their second in the series of four leadership seminars that comprise the Fellowship.

Guided by the Aspen Institute’s senior moderator Stace Lindsay, along with moderators Sylvia Gereda and Margarita Herdocia, Fellows focused on the components that make up a “good society” and where prompted to consider those societal values they deem most important, and the trade-offs they are willing to make in seeking a good and just society. Classic and contemporary texts reflecting the breadth of human civilization form the starting points of the rich conversation in which the questions posed by the group were frequently as illuminating as the varied, timeless wisdom of the texts. Fellows read and engaged in animated dialogue on the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Graham Sumner, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, John Locke, Karl Marx, Arthur M. Okun, Confucius, Niccolo Machiavelli, Martin Luther King Jr., among others. They also performed Antigone, the classic tale of leadership and hubris by Sophocles.

Only 22 of the 24 Fellows that comprise the fourth class attended the seminar, nonetheless, the group maintained a good balance, which provided an opportunity for Fellows to deepen the bonds of trust they began to develop during their first seminar. Also, one Fellow from CALI III, who hadn’t been able to attend The Aspen Seminar with his classmates, joined the CALI IV class, adding a unique component to the group dynamic.

This class is already having a measurable and positive impact in the countries and communities where they live. During this seminar in particular, Fellows reported their leadership project proposals explaining their leadership commitments and plans to make changes in their professional and/or personal lives as a direct result of the CALI seminars, and disclosed the status and progress of their leadership projects thus far.

The CALI-dad will meet again in January for their third seminar – Leading in an Era of Globalization, at the INCAE Campus in Alajuela, Costa Rica.