Cosmic Centaurs

📣 Webinar Announcement: Building Systems to PERFORM 📣 We are excited to welcome Stoyan Yankov, bestselling author of PERFORM and PERFORM in Times of Crisis, public speaker, productivity and performance consultant, and founder and host of the Productivity Mastery podcast. Stoyan will: 🔹 Unpack his PERFORM framework 🔹 Explore how to design one’s own productivity system 🔹 Share useful practices from the 100s of leaders he’s worked with 📅 Wednesday, October 10, 2025 ⏰ 10:30 AM UAE | 9:30 AM KSA & Beirut 📍 LinkedIn Live If you want to replace distraction with focus and build systems that help you perform at your best, this session is for you. Register to attend. Link in comments. #CosmicConference #CosmicCentaurs #Perform

In our work with leaders across the region, one strength stands out: our collectivist roots sharpen systems awareness. When you grow up attuned to context, families, elders, alliances, and timing, you learn to read the web of relationships and nudge the whole, not just the node. Ludmila Praslova,'s article (linked in comments) reinforces this insight. She highlights how people from collectivist cultures are more sensitive to context and connections than to individuals in isolation. This shows up every day at work: leaders in our region excel at sensing patterns, mapping stakeholders, and designing smarter interventions, and that’s what organizations need. Recurring burnout, lack of inclusion, and poor strategy execution are symptoms of broken systems. Individual fixes such as workshops and coaching help, but they won’t repair a flawed design. The real work is to redesign the system. This edition of the #CosmicConference brings leaders from our region and beyond together to practice how to sense, influence, and redesign the systems we lead in. Join us in Dubai, Riyadh, Beirut, Abu Dhabi, and online, and become a systems architect. Register via the link in comments. #systemsthinking #leadership #GCC #organizationaldesign #orgchange

🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi, we’re coming to you. Last week, our first Leaders’ Circle in Dubai brought senior leaders together. INSEAD Alumni Association UAE shared a recap video on their page (link in comments), and we’re bringing that spirit to Abu Dhabi. As part of the 2025 Cosmic Conference, The System Is the Strategy, we’re hosting a Leaders Circle in partnership with INSEAD NAA to bring senior leaders together to shift from firefighting to future-building. At this exclusive gathering, expect a morning of reflection, insight, and meaningful conversation. Together, we will learn how to sense, influence, and redesign systems to unlock scale, clarity, and resilience. We will also be joined by Wissam Adib, Executive Leadership Coach and former Advisor at the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, who will guide a facilitated session on becoming the architects of the systems we evolve in. 📅 Friday, Oct 3 ⏰ 9:00 AM–12:00 PM 📍 The Lighthouse, Abu Dhabi It’s not too late to register, link in comments. #CosmicConference #CosmicCentaurs #AbuDhabi #UAE #INSEAD #Leadership #SystemsThinking

✨Last Friday, we hosted 25 leaders in #Dubai for a Leaders Circle, the first in-person gathering of the 2025 #CosmicConference, at Society Dubai. Over three hours, we stepped back from the day-to-day to explore what it takes to lead through complexity. Together, we paused to reflect and connect, exploring how our leadership styles can shape, and sometimes even create, the very challenges we see in our teams and systems. We're grateful to every leader who showed up with curiosity, shared openly, and turned the room into a learning community. A special thank you to Wissam Adib for co-designing and facilitating this experience with us. Check our program to see what’s next. Link in the comments. #CosmicConference2025 #SystemsThinking #Leadership #LeadersCircle #Dubai #TeamCentaur

🇦🇪 We enjoyed welcoming members of the INSEAD Alumni Association UAE, alongside leaders from across our community, to our first Leaders’ Circle in Dubai as part of the 2025 #CosmicConference. Together, senior leaders reflected, mapped the systems that drive performance, and exchanged practical prompts to take back to their teams. Thank you to everyone who brought curiosity and took the time to reflect and connect. We're excited to keep growing this community and bring more learning and leadership experiences to the region. 🔗 Explore the program to see what’s next. Link in comments. #CosmicConference #LeadershipDevelopment #SystemsThinking #OrganizationalPerformance #TeamCulture #FutureOfWork #CosmicCentaurs

📣 Webinar Announcement 📣 We’re thrilled to host Derek Cabrera, Ph.D., PST® and Laura Cabrera, faculty at Cornell University, founders of the Cabrera Lab Podcast (Top 3% worldwide), and organizers of the Cornell International Systems Thinking Conference, the largest in the world. In their session, Understanding the Systems Thinking Toolbox, Derek and Laura will define systems thinking, show how to put it into practice, share tools to navigate complexity, and tell stories of leaders applying it at every level, self, team, organization, and beyond. 📅 Wednesday, October 8, 2025 ⏰ 5:00 PM UAE | 4:00 PM KSA & Beirut Register to attend. Link in comments. #CosmicConference #LeadershipDevelopment #SystemsThinking #OrganizationalPerformance #FutureOfWork #CosmicCentaurs

📣 Webinar Announcement: Building Systems to Scale Psychological Safety 📣 We often think of psychological safety as something created inside a team. But what about the policies, incentives, and structures that surround it? Or the relationships that don’t fit neatly within a single team? Join Sander Hoeken, Co-Founder of The Fearless Organization Scan, in conversation with Marilyn Zakhour, CEO & Founder of Cosmic Centaurs. Together they will explore: ✨ How HR policies, incentives, and physical spaces impact psychological safety ✨ Systemic practices and behaviors that reinforce psychological safety ✨ How to scale psychological safety beyond the team level 📅 Wednesday, October 8, 2025 ⏰ 11 AM UAE | 10 AM KSA & Beirut If you care about building organizations where people feel safe to thrive, this one’s for you. Register now via the link in comments.

🔭 Understanding Systems Change: four rapid-fire insights from Darren Yeh During our most recent webinar, we asked Darren Yeh four rapid fire questions and here's what he had to say about #systemsthinking: ✨ An effective system: synergy of yin and yang, reinforcing and balancing loops in flow ✨ A leadership quality: facilitation that brings out each team member’s potential ✨ A go-to tool: the Iceberg Model to see patterns beneath events and act from the root ✨ A mindset: design the system to work for you so you lead with energy and clarity Watch the full Understanding Systems Change webinar to dive deeper into these points. Link in comments. #CosmicConference #SystemsThinking #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalPerformance #FutureOfWork #CosmicCentaurs

📣 Webinar Announcement: The Heart of Systems 📣 Join Rawan Albina, leadership coach and Leadership Academy Director at Chalhoub Group, in conversation with Marilyn Zakhour, CEO & Founder of Cosmic Centaurs. Together they will explore: ✨ How to navigate the tension between self and system ✨ The blind spots that comfort zones create ✨ Purpose, feedback, and connection at the heart of systems ✨ Leadership as simplicity and intuition in the eye of the storm 📅 Tuesday, October 7, 2025 ⏰ 4 PM UAE | 3 PM KSA & Beirut This session invites leaders to see beyond processes and reconnect with the human story of change. 🔗 Register to attend. Link in comments.

🤖 AI is changing the rules of business and leadership, and most organizations are still playing catch-up As part of the 6th #CosmicConference, we’re hosting Imad Lahad, Global Chair of AI & Intelligence at APCO. In his conversation with Marilyn Zakhour on Breaking the System, Imad will tackle big questions: 🔹 How to redesign business models and infrastructures for an AI-driven future 🔹 How leaders create new loops of value beyond incremental gains 🔹 The role of middle management with AI-native generations 🔹 Practices that keep leaders grounded and authentic through disruption 📅 Tuesday, October 7, 2025 ⏰ 12:00 PM UAE | 11:00 AM KSA & Beirut 📍 LinkedIn Live What question would you ask Imad about leading in an AI era? 🔗 Save your spot. Link in comments. #CosmicConference #LeadershipDevelopment #SystemsThinking #OrganizationalPerformance #FutureOfWork #CosmicCentaurs #AI