On October 27th, the launching ceremony of Peter Senge & Otto Scharmer Innovative Leadership Shanghai Workshop was held at Shanghai Administration Institute. WANG Guoping, Executive Vice President of the Institute, and Peter Senge, head of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT, attended and addressed the ceremony. ZENG Jun, Vice President of the Institute, presided over the ceremony. HE Li, Director of the Division of Carder Education, the Department of Organization, CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee, delegates from UID Public-Service Foundation, IDEAS China 3.0 student representatives and members of the workshop also attended the ceremony.

    WANG Guoping pointed out in his address that the foundation of the workshop was the fruit of the good cooperation and exchanges among multiple parties. Peter Senge and Otto Scharmer are senior professors of Sloan School of Management, MIT, and internationally renowned scholars in the fields of innovative leadership and development of learning organizations, as well as members of the (short-term) foreign expert project of the 5th National Recruitment Program of Global Experts. From October 2015 to July 2016, the two professors showed their excellent teaching skills in IDEAS China 3.0 Training Program sponsored by the Department of Organization of CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and organized by our Institute and Tsinghua University, which consolidated our intention to have further cooperation with the two professors and their teams. After friendly negotiations, we decided to have in-depth cooperation and exchanges by founding a workshop. The decision was also strongly supported by the Department of Organization of CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee and UID Public-Service Foundation.

    WANG Guoping stressed that the foundation of the workshop would further improve the internationalized school-running performance of Shanghai Administration Institute. In line with the Institute’s internationalized school-running characteristics, it’s a new program and initiative to internationalize its education under new circumstances and in a new stage, which will greatly promote the continuing progress and implementation of Shanghai Innovative Leadership Training Program, enhance the research, publicity and promotion of “Learning Organization”, “Theory U” and other theories related to Innovative Leadership, propel the Institute’s innovation in cadres  education and civil servants training methods, and encourage the development of related disciplines and faculty of the Institute.

    WANG Guoping hopes that the establishment of the workshop will provide an important platform for enhancing the leadership skills of officials and conducting research on leadership innovation. Based on the workshop, we can further strengthen the education of Shanghai’s leaders and cadres and the innovative leadership training of civil servants and make it a platform for Shanghai’s leaders, cadres and civil servants to have international exchanges with experts, scholars and people from other sectors home and abroad. He hopes that the workshop can provide helpful research and lessons on China’s economic and social reforms, especially the major issues Shanghai may face with in the process of “innovation-driven transformation and development,” from the perspective of the system and creative thinking. He also hopes that the teachers that join in the workshop will value the chance to learn, development and keep improving their “soft power” and the “influence” of the workshop.

    In his address, Peter Senge thanked those who worked hard for the establishment of the workshop and said that such cooperative relationship would allow himself and Professor Scharmer to expand their careers, share their knowledge and experience with more people, and pass them on to more extensive leadership development. He said that the workshop would work around four subjects in the future: real achievements, future challenges of Shanghai, development of the leadership skills and other skills of leaders and cadres, and what communities to build and how to learn from them.

    On behalf of Ms. LIN Meijin, co-founder of UID Public-Service Foundation, a delegate from the Foundation read out the congratulations from her to the workshop.

    Afterwards, the two parties signed the Memorandum of Understanding and had the opening ceremony of the workshop.