When people understand themselves better, they lead better, collaborate better, and build better organizations and communities. We create the structured experiences that make that growth possible.
Organizations invest in strategy, systems, and culture initiatives while overlooking the factor most predictive of whether any of it works: the self-awareness, empathy, and collaborative capacity of the people inside them.
In high-demand environments, the conditions for genuine self-reflection — on values, blind spots, decision-making, and purpose — rarely exist. Yet without this clarity, performance and leadership both plateau.
Trust, psychological safety, and shared purpose don't emerge from org charts or offsite agendas. They're built when the individuals inside an organization are growing and this growth is rarely acknowledged or supported.
Lasting organizational and community change requires people who understand themselves, relate well to others, and can navigate complexity with intention. This foundation has to be built deliberately.
Research in leadership, organizational psychology, and adult development consistently links individual self-awareness and interpersonal capacity to team performance, organizational culture, and collective outcomes.1 That body of evidence is what the Center for Collective Transformation (CCT) is built on.
Our programs are designed to develop the specific capacities: self-awareness, empathy, values clarity, and collaborative skill that translate directly into stronger teams, better-led organizations, and more engaged communities.
Working within professional coaching standards precisely to keep the work focused. Our work is not therapy and not inspiration, but instead structured experiences that build real, transferable capability.
1 Key sources: Eurich (2018), Insight; Edmondson (1999), Administrative Science Quarterly; Druskat & Wolff (2001), Harvard Business Review; Kegan & Lahey (2009), Immunity to Change.
A clear, structured path, whether you're an individual, a team, or an organization.
We meet you where you are, whether as an individual, a team, or an organization,and what specific capacities, if developed, would produce the most meaningful change.
Through retreats, workshops, and programs grounded in organization development and evidence-based coaching, we develop self-awareness, empathy, and collaborative skill in a structured way.
The growth individuals do in our programs carries back into their teams, their leadership, their organizations, and their communities. This transfer, from personal to collective, is exactly the point of our work.
From multi-day immersive retreats to organizational engagements, we believe very experience creates real transformation.
Multi-day immersive experiences in natural settings. Deep reflection, creative practice, and guided group dialogue. Come as you are. Leave changed.
Learn more →Focused half-day and full-day experiences exploring self-awareness, resilience, empathy, and creative collaboration. Powerful. Practical. Lasting.
Learn more →Custom-designed experiences for leadership teams and companies ready to build cultures of genuine trust, adaptability, and collective purpose.
Learn more →A transformed humanity, united through empathy and shared understanding,
working creatively and collectively
for the common good of all.
Our Vision · collectivetransformation.org
Most culture and leadership initiatives treat people as variables in a system. We treat them as the system itself because the self-awareness, empathy, and collaborative capacity of your people determines almost everything about how your organization performs.
Research on sustained behavioral change is consistent: individuals who develop in the context of an ongoing community maintain their growth longer and apply it more broadly. The CCT Community is a membership-based practice space, facilitated circles, digital programs, and a resource library built around the connection between individual development and collective outcomes.
Or $50/year — two months free.
Better me, better you, better us. Everything we do flows from the conviction that personal growth is the most powerful catalyst for collective change.
To foster personal and collective growth through transformative experiences that deepen empathy, expand understanding, and inspire creative collaboration for the common good. By bringing individuals, groups, and organizations together, we build a foundation for a more connected and resilient humanity.
"A transformed humanity, united through empathy and shared understanding, working creatively and collectively for the common good of all."
Research in leadership, organizational psychology, and adult development consistently links individual self-awareness and interpersonal capacity to team performance, organizational culture, and collective outcomes.1
We exist at that intersection between the personal and the organizational, between structured reflection and applied skill, serving to create experiences that develop the specific capacities that connect individual growth to collective outcomes. Our programs are not therapy and not designed to be focused on inspiration. They are structured development, grounded in evidence and facilitated with professional rigor.
Every experience we design flows through one controlling idea:
"To cultivate self-awareness, empathy, and collaboration as the foundation for new ways of being and working for the common good of humanity."
"We don't do this work for people. We create the conditions for people to do this work and then we get out of the way."
collectivetransformation.org
[email protected]
Nashville, Tennessee
All meaningful change begins with honest self-knowledge. We create the space for that kind of deep looking.
The group knows more than any individual. Our programs harness the power of shared experience and collective reflection.
Empathy is a skill and a discipline; not just a feeling. We build it intentionally in every experience we design.
We operate within clear ethical boundaries, aligned with professional coaching standards, ensuring experiences that challenge but never compromise.
Whether you're an individual seeking clarity and direction, or an organization ready to invest in its people, this page helps you identify the right starting point.
At the Center for Collective Transformation, growth isn't passive. It's structured, intentional, and grounded in honest self-assessment. This page gives you concrete entry point, tools, paths, and a short assessment, to help you figure out where to begin.
Browse the tools below, find your path, or take our free self-reflection assessment to get a personalized recommendation.
Take the Self-AssessmentCCT works with two audiences: individuals seeking structured personal development, and organizations investing in the growth of their people. Choose the path that fits.
You're a professional, a leader, or someone at a turning point who wants to understand yourself more clearly, and contribute more meaningfully to the people and systems around you.
You lead a team, an organization, or a community — and you know that real performance, culture, and change all depend on the capacity of the people inside. You're ready to invest in that.
Transformation isn't confined to retreats. These tools extend the work into everyday life and several are free to use right now.
A rotating set of powerful questions designed to deepen self-awareness one day at a time. Free. No account needed.
Use the Prompts →A guided PDF exercise that helps you identify, rank, and act on your core values, the same exercise used in our retreats.
Download Free →A short reflective questionnaire that helps us understand where you are and recommend the right program or starting point for you.
Take Assessment →Short-form research summaries and practitioner reflections on personal growth, collective change, and transformative leadership.
Join Waitlist →Facilitated audio exercises for individual us, bringing the depth of our retreat reflections to wherever you are.
Join Waitlist →Regular facilitated online gatherings for reflection, storytelling, and shared growth, extending the retreat into ongoing practice.
Join Waitlist →Take our free 5-minute assessment. We'll ask direct questions about where you are, whether you are acting as an individual, a leader, or for an organization, and recommend the most useful starting point.
No sign-up required to get started.
Begin the AssessmentTakes about 5 minutes · Results delivered immediately
We answer every inquiry personally. No automated funnels. Just a conversation.
Start a ConversationEvery program, whether live or digital, is grounded in research, shaped by real facilitation experience, and designed for individuals committed to meaningful growth.
Our online program is built as a progressive sequence of four modules, each one grounded in research and designed to develop specific capacities. The first two are free. Modules three and four, along with full community access and a monthly live workshop, are included with membership.
You don't need to attend a retreat first. This is a complete program in its own right and the natural starting point for anyone new to the CCT's work.
A research-grounded introduction to how identity, experience, and conditioning shape the way we see ourselves and others. Builds the conceptual foundation for everything that follows and helps you understand why self-awareness is the starting point for collective change.
An interactive, web-based self-assessment that maps your current capacities in self-awareness, empathy, values clarity, and readiness for collective contribution. Not a personality test. A structured diagnostic with a clear results framework and specific recommendations for what to work on next.
Free modules also include basic community access — read and browse community discussions without participating.
Interactive exercises that build the cognitive and empathic capacity to understand how others experience a situation and a structured journaling interface for developing the habit of intentional self-inquiry. Practical and applied, not theoretical.
Use of Self is the conscious use of your whole being, your presence, awareness, values, and judgment, in the intentional execution of your role, for greater effectiveness in whatever a situation is presenting. This module develops that capacity: the ability to show up with intention, read what a situation requires, and respond from your full self rather than from habit or reaction.
Our signature retreats are carefully curated, theme-based multi-day experiences that blend deep personal reflection, creative practices, facilitated group dialogue, and time in nature. They are not lectures. They are not therapy. They are something altogether different.
Each retreat explores a specific theme — Courageous Clarity, Creative Courage, Empathy in Action — drawing on the arts, reflective writing, facilitated dialogue, and structured inquiry to develop self-awareness, values clarity, and empathic capability in ways that carry back into everyday life and work.
Not every situation calls for a multi-day retreat. Our focused workshops and half-day or full-day intensives bring the same depth of facilitation to a tighter container.
These experiences are designed for groups seeking meaningful growth in a structured, time-efficient format. Ideal for community organizations, professional groups, or anyone ready to invest focused time in genuine reflection and connection.
Regular, ongoing gatherings — in-person and virtual — where participants share stories, explore themes together, and build the kind of community that sustains individual transformation over time.
Inspired by the power of facilitated storytelling, these circles are a structured space to reflect, connect, and apply the work in community, not just at a once-a-year retreat, but as an ongoing practice.
Our Start Here page helps you find the right experience for where you are right now.
Go to Start HereOrganizational performance is a function of human capacity. The self-awareness, empathy, and collaborative skill of your people determines far more about how your organization operates than strategy or structure alone.
Most corporate wellness programs focus on perks — apps, gym stipends, or meditation sessions that look good on paper but rarely move the needle. We take a fundamentally different approach.
At CCT, wellness isn't a benefit, but rather a foundation for organizational resilience and performance. Our work helps individuals, teams, and organizations develop the self-awareness, empathy, and collaborative capacity that actually builds cultures worth working in.
The result isn't only individual "well-being." It's a culture where people feel seen, teams perform at a higher level, and organizations are prepared for whatever the future brings.
"We don't offer perks. We offer transformation and that's what lasting organizational change actually requires."
Aligns With
ESG goals · DEI commitments · Employee well-being strategy · Leadership development · Culture transformation initiatives
Self-awareness and decision-making capacity lie at the heart of resilient performance. Our programs help leaders and employees understand their patterns, triggers, and values, building the foundation for focused, grounded work.
Trust, psychological safety, and genuine empathy don't happen automatically, they're built through intentional shared experience. We create the conditions for teams to develop the deep connection that makes collaboration exceptional.
Organizations that navigate complexity are built on cultures of shared meaning, clear values, and collective identity. We help organizations build the adaptive capacity to thrive, not just survive, uncertainty.
We don't sell off-the-shelf programs. Every organizational engagement begins with a conversation about where you are and where you want to go.
Multi-day off-site experiences for senior leaders. Deep personal reflection combined with collective visioning and culture-building practice.
Focused half-day or full-day experiences building psychological safety, shared understanding, and authentic collaboration within specific teams.
For organizations navigating significant change, conflict, or cultural drift. A structured engagement that surfaces what's real and charts a path forward.
Not sure what you need? We'll design something together. Every organization is different, the best engagements emerge from genuine partnership.
The most common objection to this kind of work is "it's too soft." But organizations that invest in genuine human development see measurable improvements in employee engagement, retention, and adaptive performance.
We're not selling inspiration. We're building the inner architecture that makes sustainable organizational performance possible.
Individual growth is most durable when it happens alongside others doing the same work. The CCT Community is an individual membership — a structured, ongoing practice space between retreats and workshops.
Most online communities are places to consume content. The CCT Community is built around a different premise: that sustained growth requires ongoing practice, structured reflection, and accountability to others doing the same work.
Membership is for individuals. It gives you access to the Circle.so community platform, monthly virtual community circles, CCT's Insight Briefs, and the resource library, all organized around the connection between individual development and collective outcomes.
Join the Community →We charge a modest membership fee because free communities don't work; people don't show up. A real price signals real commitment. We keep it low intentionally: CCT subsidizes the difference because we believe this community should be accessible to anyone doing the work.
Individual membership. Full access to all community features. Cancel anytime.
Subsidized by CCT to keep the work accessible.
Join MonthlyIndividual membership. Two months free. Priority registration for in-person circles, retreats, workshops, and new programs.
≈ $4.17/month
Join AnnualNot ready to join yet? Attend a retreat or workshop first.
Monthly facilitated virtual gatherings organized around a theme or question drawn from CCT's research and program work. Structured conversation, not a drop-in chat. For individuals committed to ongoing development.
IncludedCCT's short-form research publications, delivered directly to members. Each brief translates current research on individual development and collective outcomes into clear, actionable insight. It's substantive — not content marketing.
IncludedA curated library of research summaries, reflection guides, values tools, and practitioner reading lists. Core resources are included with membership; select premium resources may carry an additional fee.
IncludedAnnual members receive first access and priority registration for in-person community circles, retreats, workshops, and new programs, before they open to the public.
Annual OnlyLive and on-demand virtual workshops, online cohorts, and structured programs for those who want more between retreats or aren't able to travel. Same rigor, different format.
In DevelopmentConnect with other members, practitioners, leaders, and individuals who share a commitment to this kind of development work.
Coming LaterThe CCT Community is where individual development becomes a sustained practice.
Questions? Get in touch.
Our founding team brings decades of experience in organization development, transformative facilitation, leadership coaching, and the art of creating conditions for genuine human growth.
Co-Founder & Managing Partner · Executive Coach · Assistant Professor of Social Entrepreneurship
Dr. David Harkins has spent his career at the intersection of human development and organizational transformation — a practitioner equally at home in the academic study of change and the messy, human reality of creating it.
As an educator, executive coach, and management consultant, David's work focuses on leadership development, strategic change, workplace culture transformation, and community collaboration. He has advised organizations including the Alzheimer's Association, Microsoft, Girl Scouts of the USA, Special Olympics, and National 4-H Council, among many others.
David is an Assistant Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Belmont University and has held faculty positions at Georgia Southern University, Bowling Green State University, and Western Carolina University. His peer-reviewed research examines the intersection of culture, volunteerism, organizational identity, and the dynamics of systemic change.
He is the founder of David Harkins Company, LLC, and brings that consulting depth directly into the Center of Collective Transformation's approach: rigorous, evidence-based, and relentlessly practical. For David, the individual work in support of collective transformation isn't abstract; it's the most important work anyone can undertake.
Doctorate in Organization Development & Change, Bowling Green State University
Master of Entrepreneurship, Western Carolina University
Certified Professional Coach
Co-Founder & Partner · Facilitator · Leadership & Transformative Coach
Jennifer Tuttle Harkins, known to most as JuJu, brings to the Center for Collective Transformation a rare combination of financial acumen, deep facilitation skill, and a hard-won understanding of what it actually takes for people to transform.
Beginning her career as a tax accountant with Arthur Andersen and later working in healthcare finance, Jennifer's professional path took a decisive turn when she found herself drawn to a different kind of work, one focused not on what things cost, but on what they're worth. Her coaching practice emerged from her own lived experience navigating the professional world and her desire to help others stand in their authentic power.
JuJu specializes in leadership coaching, helping people align their professional goals with their values and build genuine resilience. She facilitates workshops, retreats and women's circles with a talent for creating structured environments where honest reflection and practical growth become possible.
Her background in yoga instruction informs how she designs retreat experiences that engage participants fully, not just intellectually, but through movement, reflection, and structured practice.
Trained in ICF-certified coaching methodology
Master of Accounting, UNC Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler Business School)
BS Business Administration, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
RYT-200 Certified Yoga Teacher · Gentle/Restorative & Trauma-Sensitive Yoga
We're building a network of practitioners who share our commitment to evidence-based, ethically grounded facilitation and the work of collective transformation.
Start a ConversationWhether you're an individual ready to explore, an organization seeking something more meaningful, or a practitioner who wants to partner — we want to hear from you. We answer every inquiry personally.
Center for Collective Transformation
collectivetransformation.org
We respond to all inquiries within 2–3 business days.