Enguerran's Odyssey, A Journey into Leadership (at the Thierry Graduate School of Leadership, Ardennes)

Enguerran's Odyssey is a collection of narratives about the life-odyssey of a person who meets leaders, and has become one himself or herself. It is the ongoing journey into the vast realm of leadership. Created by Jean-Pierre Bal, the founder of The Thierry Graduate School of Leadership, the Odyssey includes the findings he compiled during more than fifteen years of personal study and research, leader practice, and leadership development education. This odyssey mirrors the life of leaders: it is a constant work-in-progress, in learning, with the many travels into the meanders of the mind, the heart, the soul, and of our worlds-in-action.

Enguerran... What's in a name? Enguerran, a fictitious character, is the beholder of a long-lost name, the origin of which dates back to the early Middle Ages. Although the odyssey bears his name, Enguerran's female companion, Ermesind, brings an equally important contribution. Both characters welcome and accompany their reader-learners into a leadership journey of a non-linear type, shifting back and forth through several millennia of civilisation, travelling randomly in many parts of the world. Ermesind travels with her leader-learners, Enguerran with his, and vice-versa, when they not travel together. To the great benefit of their journey-companions our "heroes" allude to the "other" ways of learning how to learn, and how to lead. To know oneself and to lead better, that is one of the Odyssey's main goals.

The Odyssey's style and format blend classical narration, or storytelling that stimulates implicit learning, with the explicit (direct) mode of knowledge-sharing used nowadays in education and training. Many fields are visited in the Odyssey's journeys: literature, history, philosophy, sociology, religion, science, strategy, psychology, education, the arts, nature, technology,... The interconnections coalesce, similar to a stream flowing through a large web in which all of the aforementioned fields are interweaved with other elements and tools, such as biographies, interviews, and audio-visual resources (blue marble @_THIERRY series).

With the aim of enlarging, or widening the learner's cognitive horizon, and intuitive abilities, the Odyssey also interweaves imagination, creativity, rejuvenation, growth, and change processes that take place in the personal, interpersonal, and organisational dimensions. The true Art (or artistry) of leadership is sought to be mastered, its quintessence - each learning-leader's own personal quintessence.

Curriculum-wise Enguerran's Odyssey is embedded in the personal development and universal knowledge components of the Masters and PhD curricula and programmes offered at the Thierry Graduate School of Leadership and at the Institut Supérieur International de Leadership (INSIL). A second type of odyssey is found in the Chronos, the exclusive top-leadership (CEO) programme of the school.

For further info please send an email to: directorate@thierryschool.be

© Copyright 2005-2010, The Thierry Graduate School of Leadership & Outdoor Academy Ardennes, and Research units of the school, © held on behalf of Jean-Pierre Bal. All rights strictly reserved for all countries. R ef 11082005. Page updated on: 25 May 2010