Last week I completed Seth Godin’s altMBA. The fundamental objective of the altMBA is to make change happen. Over five weeks I worked through 13 projects with four different learning groups, with some late nights and busy weekends.

One project encouraged me to find someone that I disagree with, and then become intentionally curious to understand them, to see them for who they are. Empathy is at the heart of this sort of analysis and this sort of leadership.

We explored organisational change, being asked, “As we leave the industrial age, the question is: how are you going to build a network or an organisation that does what you want it to?”

Another project developed public speaking for change, encouraging us to stand up and speak up, knowing the change we want to make, and changing yourself into the kind of person who leads.

The course finished with a project on creating change through empathy and enrolment. Changemaking happens when people fall in love with a different version of the future. So how do we make people feel safe enough to leap? Seth says that you can feel enrolment in the anticipation of the crowd at a concert, and you can find it in the best PhD. seminar. It happens when we describe a feeling or a destination and say, “over there… I’d like to go over there. Do you want to come?”