Almost three decades ago, the Tällberg Foundation organized its first Tällberg Workshop. Over the years, the Foundation’s gatherings evolved into an important ongoing open conversation on the wider issues facing business and society. This conversation has been at the forefront of international debate.

The Foundation’s activities have evolved through three phases. The first phase (1981-2003) involved smaller workshops gathering up to 100 participants. Tällberg Foundation started out on topics related to the strategic agendas of large corporations. At the time, deregulation, technological innovation and changing values were pushing business into a new global context. The role of business was an important theme for the Tällberg gatherings, but in the early 1990’s the conversations focused increasingly on understanding the wider effects of the ever-increasing pace of global integration, not only on corporations but also on governance, public policy making and society at large.

In the mid-1990’s, a series of Tällberg Workshops on the role and behaviour of business in a global interdependent world led, among other things, to the UN corporate citizenship initiative – the Global Compact. A workshop in 2003 entitled “The futures we want: Can they be reconciled?” sharpened the focus of the Foundation’s agenda. This workshop made it clear that nations and cultures were approaching their futures with deeply conflicting visions and strategies, still not recognizing how interdependent the systems of human activities had become. It was also clear that growth ambitions would not stay compatible with the boundary conditions of nature.

The second phase of the Foundation’s activities (2005-2007) was in response to this analysis. Beginning in 2005, the yearly gatherings took the form of the Tällberg Forum, with over 450 participants addressing the over-arching question “How on earth can we live together?” These award-winning events have been widely acknowledged as important inspiration for hundreds of leaders from multiple disciplines and from more than 70 countries. The Tällberg Forum successfully integrates intellectual conversations of the highest calibre with world-class cultural and artistic experiences, and adds powerful experiences in the beautiful natural setting.

The Foundation is now further expanding its activities when it from 2007 moved into the third phase of its development. It is expanding into new fields of activities that go beyond the yearly Tällberg Forum and beyond the sole ambition to convene conversations and help leaders grow, and aims at becoming a “re-think tank”. The Foundation’s new strategy includes 8 areas of activities:

1. Tällberg Forum
This landmark event tanking place in Tällberg in the summer is now recognized as one of the very few truly global gatherings working in the interest of the whole. It will continue to be a yearly event aiming at helping leaders develop new insights and increasingly at developing policy and strategy recommendations.

2. Tällberg workshops
These larger seminars/workshops with 25-100 participants are organized in Tällberg or elsewhere, either separate activities in their own right or as part of the Tällberg process.

3. Tällberg conversations
These are shorter events lasting 24 to 48 hours for small select groups of leaders, taking place around a specific subject and with the help of key people from the Tällberg network.

4. Tällberg Leadership programs
These programs prepare leaders to base their actions more on systems thinking. The Tällberg New Leader Program (organized since 2006 in conjunction with the Tällberg Forum) is an intensive reflective and pedagogical process that examines systems challenges in depth. Special programs for other constituents are also being planned. 

5. Learning journeys
The Tällberg Foundation Learning Journeys serve as on-site introductions to complex problems. These mobile workshops include meetings with experts, study visits at various sites, internal work sessions, facilitated conversations among the participants and instant documentation and analysis.

6. Research and reports
The Tällberg Foundation also produces reports based on its own research or in cooperation with other institutions or commissions and analysis on subjects in line with its strategic focus.

7. Enhanced Online presence
The enhanced web-based presence of the Foundation involves a broader audience in the activities and in the discussions at the Forum. It includes extensive Tällberg-related content and engages its wide network in ongoing processes.

8. Tällberg programs
In partnership with other private or public institutions, the Foundation works in more long-term programs. Two current examples are the Tällberg Consensus project together with the Stockholm Environment Institute and the organization of the Youth Employment Summit in Sweden in 2010 together with the YES Campaign.