In February 2013, the 9th Sophia Workshop took place at Klosterhotel Marienhöh, Germany.

The workshop was focussed on »control« and gave our participants not only the opportunity to understand control, the loss of control and alternative ways to control in organizations. But it also paved the way to gain a deeper understanding of one’s own way and need to control, of one’s own fear, and of letting go.

There were different spaces to learn and to develop – in seminars, group discussions, talks and self-reflection, in creativity and in motion. The participants learnt about alternatives of control in an organizational environment that cannot be controlled – and they got an insight in problem solving strategies of gypsies and favela dwellers. Art and control, being creative as an alternative process to control, accompanied the whole workshop – in sculpture, painting and plaster work. Above all, the participants experienced »trust« as an opposite of control when they got carried by the group or while »intentionally getting lost«.

We thank all of the participants for their participation, their curiosity, their openness and their readiness to let go of control, to hold it tight, to look at it and to experience it in different manners.