An Emerging Transformative Learning Journey to Foster Sustainability Leadership in Professional Development Programs

Theoretical Perspective

The Learning Journey draws on two theoretical perspectives, socio-materialism and transformative learning, and integrates the Journey with the Inner Developmental Goals. A socio-material perspective reconceptualizes the social as part of rather than separate from nature; the natural and human world are entangled (Barad, 2007). Agency is not owned by persons or by things but is an intra-action among them that reconfigures their entanglements. In Barad’s words, “To be entangled is not simply to be intertwined with another, as in the joining of separate entities, but to lack an independent, self-contained existence. Existence is not an individual affair. Individuals do not preexist their interactions; rather, individuals emerge through and as part of their entangled intra-relating” (Barad, 2007, p. ix). In this view, agency is not the acting on of subject-object dualism but acting with. In this ethico-onto-epistemology, “Ethics is … about taking account of the entangled materializations of which we are part … even the smallest cuts matter … ”(Barad, 2012, para. 37). This is the intra-connected relationship with both the natural world and each other. It is an ethical relationship. Ann K. Brooks (2019) points out, “Barad sees ethics as already inextricably entangled in meaning and matter becoming. This she calls ‘agential realism’. This is not the acting on that is complicit in the subject-object dualism; nor is it the intersubjectivity of social constructionism (Berger & Luckman, 1967; Gergen, 2009). Rather it is an action with. Knowing is part of material-discursive intra-actions through which we ‘cut apart’ what is together. These ‘agential cuts’ are ethical in that they both exclude and open up possibilities” (pp. 45–46). Particularly relevant to the Learning Journey, Ann K. Brooks writes, “They might include or exclude political oppression or environmental destruction and might be instantiated through far vaster socioeconomic–material networks” (p. 54).

Others have also looked at sustainability education and transformative learning through the lens of socio-material theory (Lange, 2004, 2009, 2018; O’Neil, 2018; Rodríguez Aboytes & Barth, 2020; Selby, 2002; Walsh et al., 2020) and seen this relational ontology as an important way of re-understanding transformative learning considering the world’s sustainability challenges. Lange (2018) refers specifically to Barad’s work in calling this a relational shift, noting that others have moved toward a relational view in understanding transformative learning theory. She goes on to write,

In a relational ontology, transformative learning, and sustainability education would attend to the dynamics of the whole, and nested systems as much as possible…It would address as much of the relational network as possible—geographic place and other nonhuman relations in that place, the myriad of work, personal, and familial relations brought into the room by learners, and the larger cultural, social, economic, and political relations as well as cosmic mythology and spiritual relations that exist at the historical moment (p. 291).

We view transformative learning as an evolving theory, drawing on a wide variety of perspectives as the theory has changed over time (Anand et al., 2020).

Through this lens, transformative learning for sustainability addresses the intent of the Inner Developmental Goals [IDGs]. The IDG Framework has five dimensions: Being - Relationship to Self; Thinking - Cognitive Skills; Relating - Caring for Others and the World; Collaborating - Social Skills; and Acting - Enabling Change. These dimensions are further defined by “23 Skills and Qualities” (IDGs, 2020). We refer to these dimensions and italicize the skills and qualities in reporting our data analysis for the transformative learning outcomes.

Data and Analysis

Our analysis of the transformative learning outcomes from the emerging Learning Journey comes from the design and delivery of two nature immersion retreats and seven other executive development programs over three years at the University of St Gallen. The quotations included here come from takeaways, questions, and reflections participants in these programs generated, as well as an interview with faculty familiar with the Coffee Case (Brooks, R. E, 2023) in the Learning Journey, who had observed its delivery on two occasions. Informed consent was procured for all quotations used as required by the University of St Gallen Ethics Committee. Research materials related to this paper are in a saved and password-protected folder and can be accessed only by Rachel E. Brooks. The two researchers consisted of one on-site researcher, and one who collaborated with her on various aspects of program design, data analysis and theorizing the pedagogy. In analyzing this small data set, first, we used open-coding, keeping in mind a socio-material perspective on sustainability; second, we coded according to Hoggan’s outcome codes (2016a, 2016b); third, we searched for any contradictions in the data; and fourth, we analyzed according to the Inner Developmental Goals. We then reflected on our journey in offering these programs, questions we still have, and possibilities for developing the Journey.

Building “Transformational Skills” for Sustainability: Four Activities for Transformative Learning Outcomes

O’Neil (2018) defines three orders of change within sustainability education: “about [content], for [learning to act for change] and as sustainability.” She defines the third order change as transformative or “an ontological change in how humans and the material world relate” (p. 365). Our Learning Journey aims at the second and third orders as do the IDGs, although some activities necessarily address the first order as well.

To develop a Transformative Learning Journey, keeping in mind the “transformational skills” outlined in the IDGs, Rachel E. Brooks identified four potentially transformative activities from professional development programs delivered to groups across sectors: facilitated Nature Immersion (Kasap et al., 2021); a Coffee Case focused on social justice and complexity (Brooks, R. E., 2023); Design Thinking (Bakker et al., 2010; Manna et al., 2022); and Action Learning (Jiusto et al., 2013; Revans, 1982).

We discuss these four activities, making specific reference to both Hoggan’s (2016a) transformative learning outcomes and the IDGs; we italicize both in the text for clarity.

Nature Immersion

The first phase of the Journey draws from place-based education, immersing learners in nature. Since existing social structures, including those of higher and continuing education, are implicit in reproducing knowledge and power hierarchies that contribute to the current ecological and social challenges central to the climate crisis, this phase removes participants from these spaces (Gruenewald, 2003). It is also important given the modern world’s taken-for-granted understanding of the natural world as an object we act on, use as a resource, or defend ourselves against, rather than see ourselves as an intra-acting part of the natural world (Barad, 2007; Walsh et al., 2020).

In nature, participants can experience their entanglement with the natural world and make sense of this through critical reflection, alone and with others. Takahashi (2002) points to the modernistic rational dualism that conditions us to suppress the non-rational, which includes “...the sense of wonder, the sense of the sacred, emotion, intuition, the body’s ways of knowing, and life-sustaining values such as care and respect” (p. 175). He describes a realization he had when taking children into nature: “[It] made me realize that conscious engagement is sometimes required in order to awaken ourselves” (p. 176). These non-rational elements of being human, this awakening of our consciousness, are key outcomes of transformative learning (Hoggan, 2016a). Abrams (1997) describes the transformative power of a journey to another place that engages all of our senses: “The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, and nostrils–all are gates where our body receives the nourishment of otherness…these feathered bodies and antlers and tumbling streams–these breathing shapes are our family, the beings with whom we are engaged, with whom we struggle and suffer and celebrate” (p. 9). This also points to embodied and emotional dimensions of the transformative potential of nature immersion related to how we understand ourselves and is supported by recent research in neuroscience (Abercrombie, et al., 2023; Okon-Singer, et al., 2015; Van der Kolk, 2014).

Nature Immersion in the Journey is designed to build self-awareness, openness, and connectedness to self, others, nature, and the world. We base this on the Regenerative Leadership Programme, designed by primary facilitators Ruth Förster and Anaïs Sägesser in collaboration with Rachel Brooks and offered for the first time through the University of St Gallen in 2023. Regenerative Leadership acknowledges that “the challenges we face can seem overwhelmingly complex,” and that leaders need to step back and observe interconnections between issues and our own role within them (Regenerative Leadership, 2024). To do this, Förster and Sägesser guided participants through embodiment exercises and solo walks in nature; group dialogue, storytelling, and reflection; and self-reflection exercises such as journaling and making learning artifacts. These activities enable participants to connect to the natural world in new ways. They work on questions such as, “Where do I stand in this and what can I contribute to the sustainability transition? What are my resources? What are my greatest obstacles? What concrete methods and tools will help me on my way forward? How can I practice regenerative leadership, serving the wellbeing of myself, my team, my organization, the land and the world?” (Sägesser, & Förster, 2023).

Working on these questions while immersed in nature and interacting with others in new ways, such as through reflection and mirroring of shared and solo time in nature, can bring tangibility to the notion of entanglement. Prior to including it in her programs, Rachel E. Brooks experienced nature immersion during an outdoor weekend facilitated by Sägesser and Förster for a small group of women near Interlaken, Switzerland in 2022. She reflected,

For me, it was a new experience to explore what I would do without any of my usual reasons for being outdoors in nature. I wasn’t there to run, climb, do any kind of sport. I had to define an intention, walk over a self-defined threshold (I chose a small root), and then spend two hours just following my own curiosity. It was fascinating to observe my own actions and how they made me feel. First, I went uphill into the woods. I discovered a rock I could sit on, which I did. I sat and listened to the birds, looked at the insects that wandered by, felt the moss. I was surprised by how unfamiliar it felt to look at nature in such a detailed way. Then I walked further uphill, towards a cliff. I wanted to know how high it was, whether it was climbable. I spent some time there looking at the steep, mossy rock wall and then discovered a small path leading out of the forest, into the sunlight, and into a small field. There I laid for quite a while, looking at the clouds, the mountain across the valley, and trying to fathom the beauty and intensity of the blues, greens and golds. I was quite overcome by how immense the feeling of gratitude and joy was, as it swelled in my chest.

This suggests new ways of being and connecting opened by this alone-time in nature. With enough time, without fear of judgment, and with the purpose to explore her intention, she was able to engage with nature in a playful and curious way. She found it insightful to observe her own actions and reflected on what she chose to do and how those things made her feel. This showed her the potential of nature to mirror one’s inner self, making more visible what may have been hidden.

Then she reflected on her own reflections and analyzed them through the lens of Hoggan’s (2016a, 2016b) transformative learning outcomes. For her, the experience in nature nurtured a more comprehensive and complex worldview, along with new awareness and understanding of herself as part of nature. Interacting with nature in an unfamiliar and detailed way triggered a new understanding of self in relation to others and the world. Laying in the grass and looking at the mountains, valley, and interacting colors delivered an embodied and affective experience of life. Contact and interaction with moss, rocks, and branches with no purpose such as sports led increasingly to extra-rational ways of knowing. Together, these outcomes contributed to deepened consciousness of complexity and connectedness with the world around her.

The group reflections were also transformative for her. She wrote,

These ongoing group- and self-reflections guided by the phases of taking stock, identifying resources and obstacles, solo immersion followed by harvesting and integrating, facilitated a transformative process of self-learning, while enabling her to partake in fulfilling new forms of interacting and relating with others. Sharing her experience in nature deepened and shifted her understanding of herself in relation to others and the world and contributed to developing a new personal narrative, encompassing the intra-connection of humans and nature. Having her story mirrored back contributed to feelings of empowerment and responsibility, giving meaning and purpose to possible actions for sustainability, and providing metaphors from the natural world that strengthened sense-making after the experience.

This phase supports all five dimensions of the IDG framework. In Being, it contributes to a strong inner compass, to integrity and authenticity, to self-awareness and to presence. In Thinking, it supports sense-making and long-term orientation and visioning. In Relating, it supports all four dimensions of appreciation, connectedness, humility, and compassion. In Collaborating, it supports communication skills and trust. In Acting, it strengthens courage and optimism.

Coffee Case Study

In this phase, participants face multiple stakeholders’ needs in tackling sustainability challenges. The Coffee Case (Brooks, 2023) focuses on a multinational food company’s effort to address sustainability in their global supply chains. The Case was based on observation and interviews with small coffee farmers in Latin America and within the multinational company over three years. Because of the interviews and observation on the farms, the Case provides a deep view into the challenges farmers and their families dealt with due to the dynamic and often low price of coffee, showing how climate change increased both costs and insecurity. Participants explore the needs and priorities of the company, farmers in the coffee supply chain, and the international non-profits, collaborating to develop a social needs assessment. They also step into the perspectives of diverse stakeholder groups, temporarily taking on the roles of the farmers, non-profits, and the multinational company. A faculty member familiar with the Case noted that one impact comes from students having…

to put themselves in the shoes of different stakeholders, which not only builds empathy but means they are forced to think differently within different conditions. If I’m in the role of the farmer, my first priority is to feed my family and one bad year is a problem. If I’m in the role of the MNC, it’s a different lens, there’s pressure from the media.

The Coffee Case pushes participants to address questions of social justice and inclusion. In small groups, one group elaborates the challenges the company faced, another elaborates those faced by farmers, and a third focuses on non-profits. They then develop SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analyses, with the different groups taking on the perspectives of farmers, the company and non-profits. For many participants, particularly those coming from a business background, working through the perspectives of farmers and non-profits was transformative. Their view of farmers shifted from seeing them as poor producers for a company, to understanding them as small business owners. It deepened their understanding of the farmers’ agency and humanity.

Next, the facilitator mixes groups so that farmers, non-profits, and the company were represented in each new small group. These groups were then asked to devise a strategy that contributed to social, environmental, and economic sustainability, while delivering on the needs of each stakeholder group. Through this exercise, participants gained an experiential understanding of the intra-relationships between social, environmental, and economic sustainability and the challenge of creating value for and meeting the needs of all people and organizations involved or impacted. Participants began to question how the business focus on economic growth impacts other areas of society and the natural world.

The exercise also helped participants question who needs to be at the table when devising cross-sector collaborations for sustainability. In the collaboration studied for the Coffee Case, farmers were not part of the company’s workshops, even though these workshops focused explicitly on improving farmers’ lives. Without farmers’ perspectives, solutions represented only the needs and assumptions of company and non-profit collaborators. The exercise invited participants to question taken-for-granted epistemologies and practices that are the status quo in many businesses and organizations. The faculty member quoted above continued, “…I remember students saying they felt pressured in a different way, they experienced (the Case) in a different way very personal to them. And if we think about learning and that we want them to learn at cognitive and emotional levels, the case contributes to that.”

Participants’ descriptions of their takeaways and reflections suggested several transformative learning outcomes. One said, “Opened my eyes on the plight of farmers around the world,” demonstrating a more comprehensive and more complex worldview, and new awareness and new understanding. Others shared new understandings: “No one solution fits all”; “Solution needs to be on multiple dimensions”; “Adaptable solutions are necessary”; and “Collaboration is key.” These reflections suggest epistemological shifts as participants became more discriminating regarding how to tackle sustainability challenges, shifted their thoughts and ways of thinking about the challenges and their solutions, incorporated more complex thinking, and evens shifted their worldview related to assumptions, beliefs, values, and expectations.

Participants’ questions suggested increased meaning and purpose, and an increased focus on human beings. One participant asked, “How do we put people first?” This participant was already searching for next steps, suggesting empowerment and responsibility. This outcome emerged repeatedly, with participants asking: “What can I do next?” “How to become transparent?” and “Where can I support?” These reflections suggest a shift in consciousness. Participants also demonstrated shifts towards more complex thinking: “Are we [richer nations] depending on cheap sources at the price of developing countries?” Their reflections also suggest development of the transformative skill of critical reflection.

In working through the business reality that coffee farmers face, their objectification as “a resource” and their absence from the meeting, participants faced the limits of their own understanding of the world. They also began to see the limits of their own life and work contexts. This links to Barad’s concept of intra-acting. Barad (2007) writes,

…the ongoing practice of being open and alive to each meeting, each intra-action, so that we might use our ability to respond, our responsibility, to help awaken, to breathe life into ever new possibilities for living justly [emphasis added]. The world and its possibilities for becoming are remade in each meeting. (p. x)

In this view, agency is not the acting of subject-object dualism most participants came with, but intra-acting with. In this ethico-onto-epistemology, “Ethics is … about taking account of the entangled materializations of which we are part … even the smallest cuts matter … ” (Barad, 2012, para. 37).

The Coffee Case contributes to building capacity in all five dimensions of the IDG framework. In Thinking, it supports all five areas of critical thinking, complexity awareness, perspective skills, sense-making, and long-term orientation and visioning. In Relating, it supports connectedness and compassion. In Collaboration, it supports communication skills, co-creation skills, an inclusive mindset and intercultural competence, and mobilization skills. In Acting, it supports creativity, and in Being, it supports a strong inner compass.

Design Thinking

In this phase, participants “dig deeper,” experiment, and collaborate. Design Thinking, a methodology for driving user-focused solutions, has also been explored in sustainability literature. It provides a clear cycle for developing solutions, including need finding, synthesis, ideation, prototyping, testing, and repeating the cycle as necessary (Beckman & Barry, 2007; Dorst, 2011; Earle & Leyva-de la Hiz, 2020; Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018). This invites participants out of usual approaches to problem-solving (Brown, 2008; Kolko, 2015). However, another body of literature discussing transitions suggests “transitions are not designed but emergent; they depend on a mix of interacting dynamic processes, both self-organizing and other-organized (by humans)” (Escobar, 2018). Escobar points out that a key principle of emergence is that it occurs through largely unplanned actions. In line with this, Design Thinking in the Journey focuses on developing individual skills that can support participants in carrying out meaningful local actions and does not aim to facilitate design of largescale or systemic transitions.

In executive programs, Rachel E. Brooks has seen Design Thinking encourage participants to clarify the problems they are trying to address. When applying it to their own contexts, many participants discovered they tended to jump to solutions before exploring the problem and building an understanding of underlying causes. One reflected that prior to the course, “mostly, I did not pay much attention to the workshop tactics, in some cases I started the discussions with the solution, without discussing the challenge in detail. Recently I changed my tactics and the workshops and meetings I attend or facilitate is more successful.” This suggests epistemological shifts, including becoming more discriminating (deconstructing the problem), a shift in thoughts and ways of thinking (focusing on the problem instead of the solution), and more complex thinking (distinguishing between complex and interacting elements of a given problem).

Many visible problems in sustainability are symptoms of larger systemic challenges, which design thinking can help uncover. Participants work in teams, leveraging diversity of perspectives and backgrounds as a strength for uncovering problems’ roots. They develop skills in qualitative research methods such as participant and non-participant observation. In Rachel Brooks’ programs, this has encouraged participants to question a tendency to develop solutions based on desk research and instead, take the time to more deeply understand the problem. Referring to Hoggan’s outcomes, this participant’s reflection suggests new awareness and new understandings of what may have been missing and a new awareness of how she can build a deeper understanding of challenges by listening to people and their stories.

In ideation, participants use creativity techniques to develop new ideas, which encourages them to resist tendencies to judge their own or others’ ideas as unfeasible and to experiment with ideas they might normally disregard. They practice methods such as “brainwriting,” a process for sharing ideas that enables all participants, even the most reticent, to share their ideas. It also provides more time for thought. In the Learning Journey, participants write their ideas on Post-it notes in a time-limited session before proposing them on a whiteboard. These participatory methods are useful in complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives, where mastery of the dominant language, socio-cultural backgrounds, and competences vary widely.

Participants later make their ideas tangible through prototyping. For many, this is challenging and pushes them to engage with new ways of thinking, as they express their ideas using drawings, models, and structures. Through testing, they quickly discover whether their ideas have potential. This pushes them to become more open in designing, communicating, and receiving feedback on their ideas. They learn to accept negative feedback as an opportunity for learning. Becoming aware of diverse perspectives is an important outcome of transformative learning as evidenced by research on cross-cultural experiences (Brooks, A. 1992; Intolubbe-Chmil et al., 2012; Marmon, 2010; Taylor, 1994).

This phase of the Journey engages participants in a way similar to Barad’s description of her own university-based group, which is bound together by a shared commitment to a sustainable world. She told her interviewer, “We flourish as a group by honoring our differences, respectfully disagreeing, and working collaboratively with and through our differences” (Juelskjær & Schwwennesen, 2012, p. 16). Barad’s (2014) concept of diffraction is central to these collaborations. She described it as an “ethico-onto-epistemological engagement, attending to differences and matters of care…in order to creatively repattern world-making practices with an eye to our indebtedness to the past and the future” (p. 16).

What is transformative about diffraction in the context of Design Thinking is the shift away from critique and separation and toward “thinking with and through differences rather than pushing off of or away from and solidifying difference as less than” (Barad, 2014, p. 16). Participants in Rachel Brooks’ programs have pointed out that they learned the problem may not be what they thought it was. The transformative learning here is not a “radical break with the past” (p. 16), but “understands its indebtedness and entanglements to the past and future” (p. 16). We might even say that this socio-material understanding of transformative learning is entangled with past understandings, or in Mezirow’s (1978) description of perspective transformation: “becoming aware that one is caught in one’s own history and reliving it… reformulates the criteria for valuing and for taking action” (p. 100).

Considering the IDG framework, this phase of the Journey contributes to the dimension of Collaborating. Whether or not participants continue to use the Design Thinking cycle as a guide, they cultivate essential co-creation skills, an inclusive mindset and intercultural competence. This phase also contributes to Being, particularly in relation to embracing openness and a learning mindset. It supports Thinking in the context of perspective skills and sense-making. It contributes to Relating by helping to build empathy and compassion for the perspectives of others. Finally, in the context of Acting, this phase nurtures courage (particularly the confidence to act), creativity and perseverance.

Action Learning

The fourth element of the Journey, Action Learning, enables participants to engage in critical reflection and identify their own agency. Participants engage in Action Learning throughout the Learning Journey, entering a space where they can describe their own challenges. Peers question them about seemingly unsolvable challenges they describe facing and encourage them to think from new angles and question their assumptions. In four executive programs for sustainability facilitated by Rachel Brooks, the Action Learning part of their Journey encouraged reflection and action.

In the Learning Journey, Action Learning has been a powerful method for encouraging the fourth pillar of the European Commission recommendations, “Acting for Sustainability.” It also embodies Barad’s concept of agential realism. Action Learning sessions of 90 minutes accompany multi-modular professional development programs at two-week to one-month intervals. In virtual sets, participants each have 20 minutes to present their challenge and receive questions from their group. While short, this has met the strong need of executive program participants to address their own issues regularly. For participants unfamiliar with such open sharing and listening practices, Rachel Brooks has seen that the short duration increases openness to the process. Critical reflection, as part of the Action Learning process, has helped participants question the assumptions embedded in their work contexts and turn the abstract concept of sustainability into actionable next steps or projects in their professional roles. This has enabled them to shift consciousness and gain clarity on self in relation to others and the world along with new awarenesses and understanding, in turn, empowering them to take these actions.

Action Learning has also helped bridge knowledge, experience, and sectors represented within diverse participant groups in open enrollment executive programs. Through Action Learning, participants from diverse levels of seniority and industries built an understanding of other’s perspectives and appreciated the richness this brought to the exchange. Critical reflection in small groups of peers also helped participants build a strong community within their cohort.

That Action Learning can lead to individual transformative learning is not a new idea (Dilworth & Willis, 1999; O’Neil & Marsick, 1994; O’Neil & Marsick, 2007; Robertson et al., 2021; Yorks, O’Neil, Marsick, Nilson & Kolodny, 2002). Lamm (2000), for example, in a study of an Action Learning program at Volvo Truck, found that a sense of trust was an important condition for transformative learning to occur and that spending informal time eating, drinking, and traveling together helped build the environment for the program. Robertson et al. (2021) developed a framework including antecedents, process, and outcomes from their study of Action Learning and transformative learning in management development programs: “Antecedents include readiness to learn, supportive relationships and a diverse team. Process includes active reflection and managing the need for control. Individual transformative learning outcomes include multiple perspectives, self-awareness and self-confidence” (p. 102).

Action Learning unites the five dimensions of the IDG framework, in particular Being, by creating an environment of accountability inviting people to act with authenticity and integrity, openness, self-awareness and presence. Regarding the Collaborating dimension, it supports communication skills, particularly listening and finding strength in diverse groups. In Relating, it nurtures appreciation, connectedness and humility. In Thinking, it contributes to complexity awareness. Under Acting, it contributes to the four dimensions of courage, creativity, optimism and perseverance.