When the Challenge Gets Real

EVANSTON, IL  (September 18, 2026) — By Week Four, MTC feels different.

The challenge is well past theoretical. Fellows have spent months testing assumptions, building support, encountering resistance, making progress and finding out where the work is harder than they thought—and bumping into very real obstacles: detractors, limits and limitations.

Monday began there, with long updates in new small groups and 45 minutes for each Fellow to lay out what had moved, what hadn’t and what might be standing in the way.

For Gary Green of the Student Press Law Center, September marked a new stage. “September feels like a tsunami,” he said. “MTC provides the space, tools, insights, resiliency and courage to keep moving forward with your personal, professional and organizational goals through the most difficult of circumstances.”

The emphasis all week was on movement. Where are you on the S-curve now? What outcomes have you actually achieved? Which assumptions have survived contact with reality? What will it take to keep going?

Tuesday brought another tool to that work. Fran Scarlett introduced the Business Model Canvas as a way to look at each Fellow’s challenge—and, more broadly, at their own career—before the cohort began a series of five-minute updates focused on outcome wins and what mattered most between now and the end of the program.

Then came a reminder that the people in the room may be as important as any framework on the wall.

MTC alumni Maple Walker Lloyd, Karen Hawkins and Danyelle White returned to talk about what happens to those relationships after the fellowship: the calls you make, the perspective you borrow, the people who understand the work well enough to challenge you and help when things get complicated.

Katie Oyan of ICT recognized something similar happening inside this year’s cohort. “I recognized fairly early in my role at ICT that I needed to grow my kitchen cabinet – that trusted group of people who I could turn to for knowledge, advice and support,” she said. “What I realized this week is that my kitchen cabinet has grown exponentially and in ways I didn’t know I needed.”

That growth, she said, came not only from what Fellows know but from what they were willing to share with one another. “I’ve learned things from every single person at MTC, and the program itself has provided a space not just for knowledge sharing but for vulnerability and trust. The highlight of my week was feeling safe enough to express some of my biggest fears and challenges and walking away with a stockpile of solutions, plus the resources – and allies – to help see them through.”

That trust matters because September is also when the work gets harder. As Gary put it, “This week, we celebrate the wins and losses together in the safest of spaces and strategize solutions to extraordinary challenges, together.”

Wednesday moved deeper into the leadership required to make change stick. A session on listening explored what becomes possible when leaders slow down enough to understand perspectives and build trust. Later, Fellows returned to the power/opinion matrix for a session on influence: Who needs to move? What might move them? And how do you get enough people “up and to the left” to reach the beginning of the end?

Throughout the day, short updates continued, along with one long update to the full cohort—another chance to see how the tools look when they are applied to a challenge that has been moving up the S-curve for months. “Our coaches and cohort challenge your assumptions through trust and commitment to your leadership development,” Gary said.

By Thursday, the question was less about what Fellows had learned than what they would do with it.

The final morning returned to the S-curve and the “Beginning of the End”: assessing where each challenge stands and what still has to happen to reach the top. Coach-led peer groups then focused on the threats most likely to derail those outcomes—and how to use the week’s tools, insights and relationships to head them off.

Fellows from previous cohorts had warned Gary about June. His experience was different: “Previous cohorts warned us of June. But September was where it got real, and hard.”

That may be the point of Week Four.

The problems are real now. So are the wins, the resistance, the stakes and the distance still left to travel.

But the resources have grown, too: a sharper set of tools, coaches who know the challenge, and a cohort that increasingly knows when to push, when to listen and when simply to show up. As Gary put it, “Bonds created in MTC are those that will last a lifetime.”