Ms Sheila Damodaran
Founder STRLDi SUMMARY: Sheila trains and uses The Fifth Discipline when working with national governments on their nation's persistent issues e.g. persistent unemployment. She is currently building her The National Strategy Firm and a food manufacturing company in Botswana, firstly to study deep seated issues that stop the country from growing their agriculture and manufacturing sectors. As we learn to turn them around, secondly, to glean lessons and become showcases for other organisations with the intent to grow the two sectors. She does not believe sheer grit or manipulation but rather that it is consistent and determined steps that paves the way for persistent growth despite external variability. INTRODUCTION: Sheila has been leading the efforts at disseminating the theory and practice of The Learning Organization text (The Fifth Discipline) in Asia and now in Africa, since coming across in 1996 Peter Senge's classic text The Fifth Discipline which he published in 1990. The text provided theories and methods to foster aspiration, develop reflective conversation, and understand complexity in service of shaping learning-oriented organization cultures. In 1997, Harvard Business Review named the learning organization as one of “the seminal business ideas of the prior 75 years.” PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND: She has a business management degree from National University of Singapore in 1987. She quickly became aware that the tools we learn do not work on the ground as we meet and work with persons within organizations. She therefore lived with the question, “what makes teams and organisations work together at their best". With a strong science and mathematics background and a family of engineers, mathematicians and businesses, she quickly saw when she came across the five disciplines that they provided the anchor and the disciplines teams, leaders and members need to build individual and collective capacities. She went on to gain professional qualifications in the practice of The Fifth Discipline from Civil Service College of Singapore in 1999 and is currently advancing the theory of Systems Thinking with her model of the onion of system archetypes. CURRENT ESTABLISHMENTS Sheila, is the founder and Managing Director of Systems Thinking Research & Leadership Development Institute (STRLDi) since 2009 and is a national systemic strategy development consultant. The enterprise undertakes global works in the field. She works with national leaders develop the confidence and habits required in making systemic impact on vexing issues that has remained persistent. As persistent issues are ironed out, the nation learns to grow their people, to work with nature as well as each other to grow their nation's economies. SHOWCASE EXPERIENCES: She successfully pioneered and completed the first of its kind globally in early 2019, a study on persistent unemployment that showcased the application of the tools on a national issue. Among her successes include working on areas such as understanding the cause of the persistent nature of, HIV & AIDs, human-wildlife conflicts and land degradation. In the case study, her work traced the causality of the populations' capacity to build agriculture and manufacturing bases successfully to their ability to understand education subjects such as mathematics and sciences, and instances when it was unable to do so, to establish the causal link to absent fathers in the households. National unemployment can be solved right from our homes. CLIENT BASE: She has conducted training on The Fifth Discipline disciplines and tools to over 10,000 senior personnel across central and local governments in Botswana, and the private sector in Asia, Europe and Africa. In the case of the Government of Botswana completed research support in their efforts to develop national strategies for systemic impact. |
"Change naturally happens or resists in five ways, most of which is unknown, even to ourselves. The gift Peter Senge gave to the world in his seminal publication, The Fifth Discipline, is in identifying the five unique ways or disciplines we use to uncover what matters. and learn and therefore change, both individually and collectively. Once done, it does not go back. For change to happen, we just need to change the way it happens.
- Sheila Damodaran
SERVICES:
She is:
For documented use of the tools she uses from the full repertoire of The Fifth Discipline, click here: https://sheilasingapore.wordpress.com/
For programme details, click here: https://sheilasingapore.blog/about-stldi/programme-structure/
For bio:
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilasingapore/ Blog Turning Points: https://sheilasingapore.blog/about-stldi/the-story-of-turning-points/ Milestones: https://sheilasingapore.blog/my-journey-my-milestones/ |