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Ireland

Overview

This is a journey across Ireland for leaders who recognize that their most complex leadership challenges require more than analytical thinking. They demand imagination.

Details

8 days | Max 20 participants | Once per year

The Choice of Ireland

We chose Ireland because it holds on to something business education (formal and informal) systematically eliminates: imagination as practical intelligence.

While much of Europe moved through waves of industrial rationalization, Ireland preserved what W.B. Yeats called “unity of being”—a way of thinking that blends reason and imagination. Its landscapes, stories, and creative traditions show how imagination isn’t an escape from reality, but a tool for seeing patterns, spotting possibilities, and revealing dimensions others miss.

Today, neuroscience backs this up. The parts of the brain that power creativity also drive strategic thinking, adaptive leadership, and systems-level insight. We call it "imaginative intelligence". But those circuits go quiet under pressure, routine, and over-reliance on analysis.

We designed this leadership experience to wake them back up. Through structured experiences across Ireland, we’ll rebuild your access to imagination—and show how it can sharpen strategy, unlock new thinking, and lead to better decisions.

Curriculum Highlights

The Economics of Obsessive Quality

Inside Trinity College, we examine the Book of Kells—a 9th-century manuscript made with materials from five countries, pigments mixed from crushed jewels, and detail work so fine it took decades to complete. For the monks, quality wasn’t about luxury. It was about lasting impact. We explore what happens when an organization commits to excellence at a level competitors won’t. What seems inefficient at first often becomes the most durable advantage.

Finding Your Homegrown Advantage

At the Ballymaloe estate, the Allen family sparked Ireland's culinary renaissance by championing local ingredients when most restaurants imported their food. This visit becomes a case study in imaginative intelligence: building on what’s specific, available, and already good in your context—rather than chasing what’s new or external. We’ll help you reflect on where your own unfair advantage might be hiding, unnoticed.

Winning the Long Game

At the Cliffs of Moher, we’ll reimagine time. Here the Atlantic ocean assaults these cliffs, claiming inches of rock. But over 300-million years, the limestone cliffs stand strong, if not stronger. The erosion looks like loss, but actually makes the cliffs stronger. What remains endures. This is where we learn to see and treat time not as a threat, but as a collaborator.

The Wisdom of the Circle

In evening fireside salons at Gregans Castle, we recreate Ireland's hedge school tradition—clandestine learning spaces that emerged when 18th-century Penal Laws restricted Catholic education. These informal gatherings taught hundreds of thousands through collective pursuit of knowledge, with no single authority directing the learning. You’ll practice how to build the kind of space where people say what needs to be said—and collective intelligence emerges.

Inquiry and Application

If you’re at a moment of change—and ready to explore it deeply—we’d love to talk. We seek leaders committed to personal and professional growth who will contribute to an exceptional group dynamic.

Photography by Max Kütz