Organization Development Network

Linda Ackerman Anderson, Being First, Inc.

Most organizations have more change efforts underway than they can count. Have leaders ensured the governance, resources, and capability for these changes to succeed? Have they assessed their organization's capacity to undertake this work along with the day-to-day operating priorities? Do they have a common change methodology to drive change? All too often, the answer is no, and the results are obvious. This session presents a new approach that moves beyond change management to change leadership. This requires C-Suite attention to define the enterprise-wide change agenda, and secure the leadership, infrastructure, capability, and capacity to succeed. Learn how to build change capability and ensure much greater success by applying the Strategic Change Office concept.

Srik Gopalakrishnan, The Ball Foundation
Michael Palmisano, The Ball Foundation
Barbara Iversen, The Ball Foundation

Organizations struggle to cope with a rapidly changing environment that exposes the limitations of the century-old principles under which they operate. This is especially true in large, complex school systems where hierarchy, control, and mandates prevent them from effectively serving the needs of stakeholders. There is a need for systems to transform, not just reform, in order to meet the needs of tomorrow. This session offers a set of principles drawn from various fields of knowledge that are applicable to any systems transformation effort. The Ball Foundation team will share their experience as a partner in transforming urban school systems. Attendees will learn the principles they applied, how these principles enabled large scale transformation, evidence of success, and lessons learned.

Sherene Zolno, Asst. Professor
Saybrook Graduate Institute/Leadership Institute of Seattle

Business, government and non-profit leaders say that, more than ever, they need exceptional skills and creative new approaches to respond to the complex, systemic challenges facing their organizations. However, structuring a change process to effect whole system change is a new knowledge area for most of these leaders, and for those who consult to them. Identifying this as Whole System Intelligence (WSIQ™), this session offers a model for assessing and gathering data that becomes a tool for ensuring that change intervention is systematic. We'll also cover the components that should be included in a large-scale, long-term change process to ensure that a critical mass for change is achieved–and that the change process is systematic as well.

Meryl Natchez, TechProse
Anne-Marie Grigsby, Cisco

Even the best technology can fail without employee buy-in. Often, workers fear new technology, or believe that corporate initiatives will make their jobs harder. Understanding these fears, explaining the reasons behind the change, and letting users know what the change means to them is key to a successful global implementation. This presentation uses a successful 18-month change management program at Cisco to explore the change management process. It includes a description of the challenges, the approach, team members and their responsibilities, and it provides practical tips to ensure success. Get the benefit of reviewing real-world experience with a global initiative and generic samples that are relevant across the change management spectrum.

Barry Oshry, Power + Systems

The session demonstrates how our blindness to systems leads us to fall into scenarios that weaken us personally and diminish our contributions to those systems. We'll explore the personal and organizational costs of system blindness and the personal and organizational power that comes with system sight. The focus will be on life in the Middle positions within organizations. Barry Oshry will demonstrate how with system sight, Middle positions can be transformed from weak links in the organization to highly valued central players in systems change. You'll come away with concrete strategies for creating individual and collective power in the middle, and tools for improving the experiences and contributions of others.

Christi Olson, NTL Institute
Glenda Eoyang, Human Systems Dynamics Institute

So many organization change initiatives fail to make it through the critical middle stages. Why is it so difficult to make the mid-change shift? How can we do a better job of getting organizations over the hump? Anchored in Human Systems Dynamics, the CDE (Container-Difference-Exchange) method is a powerful tool that organizations can use to get out of their own way. Case studies taken from client work illustrate how to apply CDE for "in the moment" interventions, and how to leverage CDE in easy, practical ways to accelerate and achieve dramatic results. This session is for external and internal OD practitioners and leaders responsible for facilitating and leading significant organization change.

Mallary Tytel, Healthy Workplaces, LLC
Susan Heidorn, Heidorn, Anderson & Associates, Inc.
Mary Nations, Nations Alliance LLC

As OD practitioners, when systems are in disequilibrium we often find ourselves stretched to make sense of seemingly strange behaviors, to "fix" derailed projects, and to offer adaptable solutions. At such times, we can help leaders consider choices about what to do by integrating ideas from complexity science to examine the conditions that influence self-organizing. There is much to learn from outside the field of OD that reveals alternative choices, ranging from getting and maintaining control, to staying in and making sense of chaos. In this session participants will learn, experience, and use self-organization concepts to identify effective options for developing new, desired patterns of behavior.

Alejandro Reyes, Dell, Inc.
Ashley Yount, Dell, Inc.

Increasingly, responsibility for some of the change and consulting work conducted by OD practitioners is being assumed by HR. Dell has been on a significant journey to fundamentally transform the business, and HR is a critical enabler of this effort. Learn how a Fortune 50 organization is leading change by preparing its global HR teams to effectively partner with business leaders to address the transformation. Hear how Dell is building and delivering a comprehensive and global intervention to increase OD capability within its organization using a consistent methodology and framework in four practice areas: Consulting, Org Diagnostics, Org Design and Change Leadership. We'll share how mentoring and communities of practice are used to facilitate learning, dialogue and application–and how web technology is used to share common tools, information and learning! Limit: 50

Maya Townsend, Partnering Resources
Michael Ray, University of Arizona
Deb Peck, Seity, Inc
Stephanie Sobczak, Physicians Plus Insurance Corporation
Michael Thiel, cinco.systems

Organization charts and process maps only tell half the story. Every organization has an informal network of relationships that employees activate to complete routine transactions, innovate, strategize, improve, and make decisions. These networks have the power to help facilitate change–or resist it. In this interactive session, participants will learn about some essential network characteristics and ways to interpret them. You will also look into your own practice: where could my organization or client benefit from network analysis and subsequent interventions? How could my own repertoire of network related interventions benefit from professional social network analysis?

Linda Likar, Independent consultant
Robert Clement-Jones, Independent consultant

OD practitioners are faced daily with the challenge of preparing organizations for the uncertainties of a rapidly changing global world. Helping organizations think through these challenges is a critical OD role. Balancing economic development with social and environmental considerations represents the key challenge facing the world in the 21st Century. This session explores the ways that OD can be instrumental in helping organizations and societies follow sustainable paths of development. This session is based on work completed in Asia and Africa and now being conducted in China. We'll demonstrate how OD can play a critical role in promoting good institutions that are able to solve peoples' problems, balance conflicting interests, and promote consensus to implement agreed actions. We'll also introduce a model of "competent institutions."

Glenda Eoyang, Human Systems Dynamics Institute
Beverly Parsons, InSites

This engaging session presents tools and theories for combining self-organizing and planned evaluative inquiry processes to bring about sustainable change. The approach uses a type of self-organizing group called CLIPS (Communities of Learning, Inquiry, and Practice) to conduct evaluative inquiries, and its relationship to evaluation processes is based on controlled/planned change efforts in complex organizations. The work is based on three years of research in a community college setting funded by a National Science Foundation grant and draws on theories of complex adaptive systems. You'll work in small groups to assess how to adapt the approach to other settings and leave with access to online tools to establish and position CLIPs to enhance sustainable, healthy organizations.

Jeremy S Lurey, Plus Delta Consulting, LLC
Samantha Lurey, Plus Delta Consulting, LLC

Running your own OD consulting practice can be an exciting and exhilarating experience. It can offer greater flexibility and freedom to anyone who has always worked for another employer while also providing tremendous opportunities for personal development and growth. Far too often, OD practitioners try to launch their consulting practices without completely considering the challenges that await them and are not fully prepared to manage on their own. Often, this struggle ultimately causes OD practitioners to hang up their shingle in search of another internal role. This session provides OD practitioners with a framework for understanding how to launch an OD consulting practice as well as the tools and techniques they will need to successfully operate and grow their firms once established.

Tom Devane, Tom Devane & Associates

Many organizations–both large and small–have a considerable gap between their articulated strategy and its execution. One contributing problem is the notion that valuable strategic thinking capabilities are concentrated only in a few minds. Systematic, well-thought-out, high-participation events can greatly increase the quality of the strategy as well as its implementation likelihood. OD practitioners are in a unique position to include high-participation events throughout the strategy-execution cycle, thus increasing understanding and commitment. In this interactive session you'll get a framework and best practices for effective strategy-execution.

Judy O'Neil, Partners for Learning and Leadership, Inc
Holly O'Grady, American Express
Bob Ward, Inroads Consulting Group, LLC

Leadership development has taken front-and-center stage in organizations today and Action Learning (AL) has become a preferred approach to developing leaders in many organizations. Despite its growing popularity, AL by its very definition–learning by doing real work–means many things to many people, and there are many approaches to implementation. Action Learning must be adapted to suit the business needs, culture, and context of each organization. This session helps practitioners make sense of the more frequently-used versions of AL so that you can choose among them. We do not assume that a particular version of AL is optimal or that it's the only way to use it. Instead, we provide a framework for understanding its essence and decision tools for implementation.

Dick Axelrod, The Axelrod Group
Emily Axelrod, The Axelrod Group

Everyone knows engagement is important, but many complain that they don't have time to do it. This workshop takes the –no time– issue head on. Many leaders think employee engagement requires some big complex change program. The more we thought about this issue, the more we realized that meaningful employee engagement doesn't require months or years; in fact, it can often occur in minutes. What we teach in our workshop is everyday engagement: things you can do to engage others in very brief periods of time. We also take on the most overlooked fast-track engagement opportunity of all: energy-sapping meetings. You'll leave this workshop having developed engagement skills you can use immediately.

Mercedes Martin, Ernst & Young
Deborah Fortney, Ernst & Young

Within a few sessions, it was apparent that Ernst and Young's Team Acceleration process moved teams to a new level of connection, understanding, and effectiveness. As described by one participant: "These are the conversations we have been wanting to have to know that our opinions are heard and our contributions matter." Follow one professional service's firm journey in using real conversation to build a more authentic culture within their increasingly diverse population. Learn the process through which these focused conversations move teams to different levels of performance and connection with each other and their clients. Learn how you can implement a consulting process and facilitate an authentic and honest conversation which stimulates increased performance and enhances individual and team learning. Limit: 50

Michael Williams, Capella University/Strategic HRM

Both quantitative and qualitative data collection, data analysis, and results reporting are indispensable competencies for OD practitioners. However, many practitioners do not possess a clear understanding or mastery of the foundational concepts, methods, and tools used in either research discipline. Today, in many client engagements, qualitative research methods are used as the primary research method. This session will help OD practitioners understand and master key elements of a qualitative research process so that they will be able to collect viable data, analyze it, and report clear results. With this understanding, practitioners will be more competitive and, in turn, more employable in 21st century knowledge-age organizations.

Herb Stevenson, Cleveland Consulting Group
Rick Maurer, Maurer & Associates

The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland offers a sound foundation for people who work in change management. We will cover two core Gestalt models–the cycle of experience and the paradoxical theory of change–that will increase your ability to plan, monitor, and implement change in organizations by helping you anticipate potential resistance and develop strategies to create support rather than opposition. Although the Gestalt approach is paradoxical, it enables clients to address unfinished business that blocks their ability to move forward. We'll show how to help your clients fully see and embrace the current situation–to truly understand the forces at play that support or inhibit movement. Through attention to the here and now, the organization can become more fully what it intends to be.

Bev Scott, Bev Scott Consulting
Pien van den Herik

Internals walk a tight rope as they fulfill their roles as consultants while operating from a subordinate position in the hierarchy. As a result of this status dilemma, internals often take the subordinate and less powerful position typical of traditional patriarchal politics. This session explores the issues of power and authenticity for internal consultants. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their own use of power, explore a new model for the authentic use of power in organizations, and consider ways to apply the model in back home situations. Limit: 50

Kenny Moore, KeySpan Corporation

Kenny Moore discusses the changing role of leadership in a turbulent and unforgiving business environment. This interactive, insightful and entertaining session will focus on OD. theory, case studies, and various business interventions in a New York City Fortune 500 company. You'll learn: why 'managing' change is a self-contradiction, perpetuating the false belief that we could be in charge of making someone else actually change; how getting out of the way and letting employees use their talents makes them want to stay and contribute to the bottom-line; and how rekindling the lost art of 'intrinsic' motivation can be fun, inexpensive, and rewarding (personally, professionally and commercially).

Dona Witten, DJW Consultancy

The theory and practice of Organization Relationship Optimization (ORO) is based on applying Attachment Theory to the assessment and improvement of organizational effectiveness. Attachment theory states that individuals form either secure/healthy relationships with others or insecure/conflictual relationships depending on their largely unconscious emotional perceptions. ORO posits that organizations have predominant relationship patterns that operate as a field effect, requiring that assessment and intervention be addressed at the group, organizational, and societal levels. Individual attitudes, values, and behaviors are unconsciously influenced by the predominant organizational relationship patterns. This session examines the four primary organizational relationship patterns and proposes assessment and intervention methods.

Edith Seashore, Edith Seashore & Associates
Peter Sorensen and Therese Yaeger, Benedictine University
Richard Woodman, Texas A&M University
Charles Seashore, Fielding Graduate Institute

"With every passing year, McGregor's message becomes ever more relevant, more timely, and more important." (Peter Drucker, 2000). Fifty years ago, McGregor wrote his early works for "Human Side of Enterprise" and published "An Uneasy Look at Performance Appraisals." But his passing in 1964 left an undiscussed legacy for OD and management, and scholars still view his theories as incomplete. This panel will describe the history and importance of McGregor's work for OD consulting today. Major scholars and practitioners who worked with McGregor, or were significantly influenced by him, will discuss how McGregor's work applies to OD.

Elaine Jennerich, University of Washington Libraries
M. Sue Baughman, University of Maryland Libraries

For OD practitioners, Appreciative Inquiry is a familiar approach that is often underused because it is not fully understood. AI engages people in positive conversations that build idea alignment and bring about sustainable change. You will discover the power of the 4-D Cycle and the 8 principles of AI. Learn to create and ask the right questions when conducting AI interviews one-on-one or in groups. Gain insight into situations when AI may be most effective. Here is a chance to gain or refresh the skills that can help your clients build the reality they desire. Limit: 60

Michael Taylor, SchellingPoint

Alignment is at the heart of all group activities, but it remains one of the most poorly managed of the key performance drivers. People know the value of being aligned, and what it feels like when they are, but they often do not possess the repeatable, consistent, scalable tools and methods to cultivate it. Learn the underlying dynamics driving behavior in collaborative activities and why groups are never aligned. Hear how the primary tool for managing alignment–conversation–is fatally flawed. And understand why legacy approaches to alignment do not enable strategy, change, acquisition, outsourcing, process improvement, organizational redesign, or other multi-person activities to achieve their full potential. You'll get the single technology-based process for measuring, maximizing and sustaining alignment in your client's new and existing collaborations.

Carla Dancy Smith, Booz Allen Hamilton
Amanpreet (Aman) Gohal, Integral Facilitation LLC

OD practitioners can convene more effective meetings by selectively integrating classic World Cafe technology into the meeting agenda. In this session, we share how the Department of Defense and other government and non-profit clients are creating action plans and receiving tangible measurable results from their meetings. Practice this new design, learn to facilitate more powerful meetings, and discover how to capture previously unrealized gains. Distinguish your meetings from others by increasing stakeholder engagement and making your meetings more productive. Take your next meeting to a higher level of excellence by integrating your design with the World Cafe technology. Limit: 40

Courtney Abraham, The Hanover Insurance Group

The face of organizational design is changing. Or is just the person who performs the design function changing? As Talent Management principles alter how HR and OD professionals perform their jobs, being able to stop what you are doing, reflect on a client request, and check with your colleagues to determine broader implications is paramount to long term success. It's essential that we partner effectively with our extended constituent groups and colleagues and collaborate for success. This session presents a case study of a 4,500 person firm that instituted an organizational design forum and collaboratively adhered to the "stop, reflect and check" principles. Join us to learn if this approach can benefit your Talent Management, HR and OD teams.

Maren Showkeir, Henning-Showkeir & Associates, Inc.
James Showkeir, Henning-Showkeir & Associates, Inc.

Parent-child cultures are established and reinforced through the myth of "holding others accountable," encounters with caretaking and betrayal, and dealing with disappointment and cynicism. New conversations are necessary to create a culture that views people as adults capable of making decisions in the best interest in the business. The heart of most leadership training and "motivational" material today consists of helping people become better at manipulating others. The backbone of authentic conversations is honesty, confronting true commitment, and choosing personal accountability. New conversations require personal transformation, skill development, language used for engagement and disclosure (rather than manipulation and effect), and great personal courage. The authors of Authentic Conversations: Creating Cultures of Trust and Commitment explore these issues.

Robert Barner, Acccredo Health Group
and Southern Methodist University

OD Practitioners are increasingly asked to be talent managers and brokers by providing or managing executive coaching, yet many coaching models treat transitional, developmental, and performance coaching issues through the same methodology. This session explores how to adapt executive coaching practices to the unique needs of high-potential, 'fast-track' leaders. It provides an overview of the unique challenges and issues when coaching such leaders, as well as guidelines and tools for ensuring success. You'll get methods for maximizing coaching gains and walk away with an ability to function as a consultant to high-potential leaders–high impact skills for anyone working in the area of talent management.

Steve Hardesty, ASSESS Systems
Andrea Mayfield, The Bordley Development Group
Donna Kimmel, Sensata Technologies

The culture of a 90-year-old company is difficult to change. Come hear our story of organizational culture change. Sensata Technologies turned 90 in 2006, the same year it became a private start-up. Learn about the culture change that has taken place in our company over the past five years and how we used leadership development as an instrument of that change. Through the use of focused dialogue on current/future norms, technology tools for inclusive competency modeling, and senior level support, Sensata initiated a change process that is still alive and growing. You'll get an action-oriented presentation with a clearly defined process and available tools for an inclusive culture change that gains momentum over time and is based on the current business climate.

Jeanne Hartley, Jeanne Hartley Consulting
Cynthia S. Miller, Cynthia S. Miller Consulting

This session offers a case study of the integration of OD theory and practice in a large scale systems change within a rapidly growing dynamic organization. We'll use the global implementation of a front-line manager training program to illustrate the many disciplines required to create the organizational conditions required for the success of any large scale culture change. Learn how to read the existing cultural environment, convert a training request into a real mandate for culture change, involve stakeholders at all levels of the organization, and achieve a successful outcome. We'll link best practices and lessons learned to relevant OD theory, and explore training as a method of culture change; consulting; engagement; change management; and project management. You'll gain practical ideas for immediate application.

Stephen Pile, Two Hawks Farm, LTD

Leadership development requires operating at the level of identity. When we interview or observe great leaders, similar lists of traits emerge that attempt to describe that identity. But is leadership really learnable? Are we asking our clients to become Baron Munchausen, able to lift himself out of the swamp by pulling on his own pigtail? This session explores how to use survey and interview feedback to co-create a personal model of leadership, identify the single most important leverage point for development, and create positive action through reframing. Bateson's logical levels of learning will be adapted as a way to explore identity, and we'll describe full-range leadership from a transformational-transactional model based on the work of Bass and Avolio. The original framework for this work is drawn from a longitudinal study of 40 managers begun nearly 20 years ago.

Nuala Campany, Qualcomm Inc.

In today's globally connected, competitive economy, teams are an essential management tool for dealing with complex problems that frequently require a multi-disciplinary approach for their solution. The organizational development and business literature suggests that teams have the potential to make significant contributions to the achievement of organizational goals. Yet, despite the considerable literature on high performance teams, the achievement of high performance is anything but a given. While some teams achieve outstanding results, others struggle with unresolved conflict, ineffective decision-making, or unproductive meetings. This session presents a practical, research-based model for understanding the group processes that account for these differences in outcomes. Our focus is on the practical application of the model for diagnosis and intervention in team decision-making.

Cseffalvay Gabor and Imre Lovey, 2010 OD World Summit
Planning Group, Budapest, Hungary

Planning for the 2010 OD World Summit is gathering momentum, and a group of our Hungarian colleagues has invited us to join the conversation. Help create a global gathering that truly connects OD practitioners around the world. Please join Cseffalvay Gabor and Imre Lovey, members of the planning group, to think together about opportunities for cross-cultural dialogue, international collaboration, global practice innovation, and networking across hemispheres. Ensuring the future of our field depends on our willingness to practice the same skills we seek to build: engaging deeply across differences, reflecting before acting, taking the "long view," and finding the "pattern that connects." So bring yourself, your thinking about the future of OD, and your optimism to this extraordinary opportunity to plan for our collective professional future.

Julie Stein, The North Highland Company
Amy Lynch, Bottom Line Conversations, LLC

Explore the reasons for and solutions to the organizational paralysis that results when Baby Boomers don't trust Generation Xers to move into leadership positions. What keeps Baby Boomers from grooming Gen Xers for top positions? And why do Generation Xers fail to demonstrate their readiness and abilities? Based on actual case studies, this session provides a step-by-step program for building awareness about this critical leadership barrier, addressing the needs of both Boomers and Xers, and preparing the organization for fluid leadership transitions.

Merrill Anderson, Cylient
Dianna Anderson, Cylient

Many of the same coaching principles that promote deep-seated change in individuals can be applied to leadership teams in order to attain higher levels of performance and breakthrough results. Team coaching enables teams to better prepare for change, create new, more effective ways of working together, and translate strategy into action. The co-authors of Coaching that Counts discuss how a research-based developmental model can be used to focus team coaching efforts at the highest leverage areas of change for leadership teams. Explore the principles for successful team coaching and how team coaching differs from other team-based interventions. Learn options for customizing team coaching to meet the needs of teams and how to weave individual and team development together to realize shared goals.

Pamela Moskowitz, The Labor Management Project, 1199SEIU/League Training and Employment Funds
Patrice Murphy, Robert H. Schaffer & Associates

This session explores how rapid-cycle change methods have been used in unionized healthcare settings to co-create extraordinary bottom-up results. For almost 10 years, a joint Labor Management Project has helped sometime industrial adversaries engage in multidisciplinary projects to improve processes in patient-care delivery. Management and front-line employees have worked together to push boundaries and test new ideas as they leave their titles at the door to improve work processes and create an environment conducive to effective, patient-focused care. Learn about the rapid-results methods used and OD issues, including assessing and developing readiness; creating conditions for trust to develop; and assessing the impact on employee satisfaction and patient outcomes. Practitioners in both unionized and non-unionized environments will benefit.

Gwen Kennedy, Kennedy & Associates

Today's funding environment and growing social challenges demand more of non-profit leaders. In addition to being advocates and problem solvers they are being asked to participate in and facilitate community-wide collaborations. Building consensus across differences, leading meetings that matter within time constraints, asking good questions, and managing the group dynamics in and out of the meeting times are some of the aspects of the art of facilitation. This session shares lessons learned from developing leaders as facilitators, reviews a continuum of skills, and provides opportunities to practice techniques focused on developing the leader as facilitator.

Peter Norlin, OD Network

It's home to the largest public university in the U.S. and fertile ground for high tech companies from coffeehouse start-ups to Dell. Ideas from Austin are powering a growing advertising movement and sparking creativity for the production of diverse music and film. It's also emerging as a healthcare center. With so much going on in Austin, you'd expect a vibrant community of OD practitioners supporting it all. Come join independent and internal OD professionals in an open space forum to hear about projects and practices reflecting the best of Austin. Space is limited to eight presentations by Central Texas OD professionals only. Please contact pfnorlin@odnetwork.org to register.

Frederick A. Miller, The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc.
Judith H. Katz, The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc.

Most organizational cultures do not have the structures in place to support, encourage and reward people to fully give their primary and discretionary energy. But today, and even more so in the future, organizations need every person to give all they know and can contribute to be successful. They need people to be BIG–to show up fully and to do their best work. This session will discuss how OD practitioners can assist organizations to create work environments that enable people to stand tall–to be Giants–in order to address the challenges that put the very existence of some organizations on the line.

Kittie Watson, Innolect, Inc
Rich Smith, Pfizer, Inc.

"The ART of Diversity" experience, designed as a change process, provides a unique and provocative way to address stereotypes and to stimulate dialogue concerning hidden diversity issues many organizations face. Selected artists, employing various approaches and media, used stereotypes as tools for personal exploration and to stimulate awareness and tolerance in the viewer. Come hear how one client used a "stereotypes exhibit" and a contemporary artist as a method to re-enlist team member commitment, while addressing complex issues inherent in stereotypes. In addition to viewing contemporary art images, participants will have an opportunity to examine current trends facing ongoing diversity initiatives, observe a facilitated live client discussion, and learn how A.R.T. and Innovative Intelligence methodologies can create breakthroughs that foster fresh perspective-taking, increased understanding, and a move toward systemic behavioral change.

Mark Keen, IOD Ltd

This session focuses on drawing out learning from a year-long change management intervention in a British Government department in East Africa. It looks at the role of OD consultants working in a complex institutional environment, where a decentralized unit in a large bureaucracy aims to change its structure and culture to become a leaner, more responsive "fit for purpose" organization in a different cultural context. The session will focus on the specific challenges these consultants faced; the OD technologies they used; and what OD practitioners can do to work successfully in an environment which simultaneously requires "expert," "pair of hands," and "process" consulting approaches.

Margaret Casarez, Phoenix Place
Joyce Steffan, The Ohio State University

Cross pollinating employees' ideas, values, and perspectives is a never-ending challenge for organizational leaders, and strategy needs to escalate as organizations expand global efforts. It just isn't that easy for people to overcome their differences and work together effectively–or is it? Learn how several organizations have used cultural audits to gauge levels of diversity awareness and, as a result, how they have created norms and behaviors expected of team members. We'll highlight current diversity initiatives, and in particular, diversity challenges faced by these dynamic organizations. While homogeneous teams may develop quick, easy solutions because members think alike, the question remains whether innovative solutions that drive success in the global workforce can only come from diverse teams in which members truly view things differently.

Mai Moua, Leadership Paradigms, Inc.

Diversity demands that individuals, organizations, and communities pay attention to the unique knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes, and ways of being that exist in different populations. An increasingly diverse population is challenging the ways that OD practitioners think about and facilitate change. How can OD practitioners prepare to facilitate change in diverse communities? What do OD practitioners need to help them understand different world views, communication styles, and ways of being? What cultural paradigms do practitioners bring to facilitating change that can hinder the organization's success and adaptability to change? This session addresses strategies for OD cultural competency and the practitioner's personal commitment to embracing diverse facilitative methods.

Rohby Mitchell, Spectra Energy, Inc.
Mary Harlan, Harlan Consulting Services, Inc.

Diversity Action Learning Teams capitalize on diversity to drive business results and capture business opportunities. They have been used to address retention challenges, support mergers and acquisitions, refine performance management processes, develop work/life balance practices, develop safety protocols for plant environments, and improve trust. Diversity Action Learning Teams are developmental: they give experienced leaders the opportunity to understand and champion diversity, and they allow the organization to identify employees with leadership potential who might not have surfaced in traditional succession planning processes. This interactive session shows how and why they work so well.

Selena Rezvani, Management Concepts

Staying attuned to the shifting labor market is more vital than ever when developing a business strategy. Retaining younger generations creates a clear competitive advantage, but as we all know, it's particularly difficult to achieve. This session will outline strategies for keeping younger generations engaged and methods for fully leveraging their strengths. We'll raise awareness about generational values and examine how viewing these values from a strengths-based perspective rather than a "negative stereotype" can leverage opportunities for transformation. Find out how you can create successful cross-generational teaming in your organization and learn to break out of stereotypes and barriers that keep organizations rooted in conflict and impede progress.

Ori Brafman

Based on his latest best-selling book, Ori Brafman's session draws on his research in the fields of business, psychology, and economics to pinpoint the forces underlying irrational decision making. This session focuses on effective management techniques for making optimal decisions. Ori weaves together anecdotes from diverse fields (military, sports, aviation, jurisprudence, politics, and dating) to reveal unlikely connections and draw important lessons about organizational strategy and performance. Research conducted on college freshmen falling in love, for example, sheds light on mistakes managers make when selecting employees. Likewise, an unlikely mistake made by Israeli army commando trainers teaches us how our attitudes and beliefs influence organizations.

Warner Woodworth, Marriott School, Brigham Young University
Peter Sorenson, GINKGO Enterprises

We issue a call for OD practitioners to join us in empowering the world's poor by using Participatory Action Research models in fighting hunger and joblessness in Africa. Our methodology is a reinterpretation of Kurt Lewin's Force Field Analysis that seeks to integrate his theories with those of other social science leaders and practitioners of change. Together, these sources and change models can be used to enable impoverished villagers to articulate a critique of their society "from within." This, in turn, lays the foundation for the radical use of OD tools on behalf of Africa's have-nots as they move toward democracy, self-determination, and economic sustainability.

June Delano, Monitor Executive Development
Kathy Spitz, Spitz Consulting
Ronald Clouse, Harvard University

OD draws from a variety of disciplines from psychology and sociology to political science. These source theories and models energize the field. New insights into organizations and new ideas may well come from reaching into less obviously relevant disciplines, Two veteran OD practitioners join a Harvard scientist to explore biological metaphors for human organizations. Participants will learn surprising facts about bees, ants, bats and humans, at the same time examining the potential influence of different biological metaphors on organization structure and culture. This interactive discovery workshop will draw on several disciplines and worldviews. Participants should come with an open mind, prepared to experiment and play with ideas. Limit: 40

Peter Norlin, OD Network

Too often during difficult financial times, programs perceived as "soft"–such as OD initiatives–are cut first, despite their potential to have a major impact on the organization's continued capability for survival and growth. For this reason, articulating the value proposition for OD is particularly critical during times of economic instability. Join this active forum to hear how others have successfully tackled this issue and won continued support for their work, and to brainstorm solutions to this dilemma with other practitioners.

Andreas Forsberg, Nokia Corp
Johanna Komonen, Nokia Corp

In 2007, Nokia made public statements about becoming an internet company. This raised questions about the values that would be integral to an internet company and how Nokia would need to change to achieve this. The OD team and Internal Communications were challenged to come up with an approach that would model internet and Web 2.0 ways of working. We developed a unique 'High Touch/High Tech' approach that would ultimately connect all 45,000 employees around the globe with this initiative and lead to a remarkable set of outcomes which continue today. You will learn about the use of social networking, viral approaches, and tools and techniques associated with Enterprise 2.0 as a means of delivering OD interventions.

Doug Silsbee, Coach

Self-awareness and presence are key elements of practitioner success. Given this, it is surprising that so many competency-based development programs focus on techniques (the Doing) rather than on presence (the Being). This experiential and cutting-edge workshop features new material from Doug's forthcoming book. Experience how presence can be developed through mind, body, and heart. Explore orienting, holding a relational field, and presence-based moves as means to invite clients to produce generative new actions. Lastly, you will learn specific practices to develop signature presence as the grounding for our own professional efficacy.

OD Network is pleased to present the winners of our annual Student Paper and Presentation Award. Meet the students who contributed their outstanding work and hear their winning presentations. Find out what's on the minds of the newest OD practitioners and where they'll be leading the field in coming years.

If you're a new or emerging practitioner (and you know who you are!), here's a chance to tell your colleagues about a project, initiative, approach, or practice that you're especially proud of. As a format for this session, we'll use a new presentation approach launched in Japan called pecha kucha (Japanese for "chatter"). Each presenter will be limited to only 20 slides, with only 20 seconds per slide, for a total presentation length of 6 minutes, 40 seconds. Read more about this format at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_Kucha. The session is limited to 10 presenters, on a first-come, first-served basis. Contact Linda Sherman to reserve a presentation slot: lsherman@odnetwork.org. Showcase your new thinking on a new platform!

Carlos Arce, Billings Clinic
Cathi Balboa, Balboa & Associates, LLC
Sharon Benjamin, Alchemy

All organizations struggle to solve intractable problems. Positive Deviance is a powerful, proven change methodology that uncovers existing, but uncommon, behavior(s) in organizations. When replicated, these behaviors can ignite, and sustain, successful change. During this practical 'lessons from the field' session we will review learning from successful PD projects, explore how to position a PD Initiative with leadership to gain approval and set appropriate expectations, and examine qualitative data from 40+ healthcare organizations and quantitative data from these sites and CDC. You'll get tools and tips on how to identify projects appropriate for a PD approach, support bottom-up discovery and action in PD projects, maintain and accelerate momentum, and coach leaders to elicit staff ownership.

Linda Kohanov, The Epona International Study Center/Eponaquest, LLC

This interactive session will take you into the world of Equine Facilitated Human Development (EFHD), where horses assist humans to be more self aware, authentic leaders. Linda Kohanov, leadership consultant and one of the foremost practitioners of EFHD, guides you through this cutting-edge method, showing how horse-human interactions can foster leadership and team development. OD practitioners, coaches, change agents, and leadership development professionals will benefit by learning about this new way of deepening leadership presence, personal awareness, emotional intelligence, team cohesion, and interpersonal communication.

Robert Horn, Stanford University

A new facilitated process built around mapping "social messes" helps multidisciplinary task forces develop a better understanding of the complexity, or "wickedness," of the issues they confront. Participants will learn how visual language helps groups make sense of problems that are complex and highly constrained; illogical; extremely uncertain in causes, boundaries, worldview and outcomes; and tightly interconnected economically, socially, and politically. Visual language thought leader Bob Horn will demonstrate how the process has been used successfully with groups working on the delivery of public mental health, long term care of the elderly, planning for the avian flu epidemic, and other social challenges.

Paul Kampas, Kampas Research

Many professionals, from architects and engineers to physicians and scientists, have a wealth of visual tools to support their oft-complex design and/or diagnostic activities. Executives and their OD consultants, on the other hand, have a paucity of such visual tools, with the venerable "org chart" the only tool for many. What would such visual tools look like, and how could they contribute to improving organization design and diagnosis? This session explores, describes, and discusses a visual language and toolset that facilitates seeing, understanding, diagnosing, and designing organizations as whole systems, including culture, strategy, brand, leadership, structure, processes, and more. A variety of examples will be provided and visualized, including Toyota, IKEA, and a community hospital.

Arthur Jue, Oracle
Jackie Alcalde Marr, Oracle
Mary Ellen Kassotakis, Oracle

Technology enablers, coupled with a trend toward fostering more social connections, are giving relationship-building new character and inspiring the development of vogue idioms such as "social networking." This session presents applied insights and practical advice that can help OD professionals leverage the power of social networking to improve business results and assist leaders to build high performance organizations that harness the energy and passion of employees. Attendees will engage in interactive Open Space and Action Learning that collectively yield new insights about the value of social networking within OD and solutions that can inform current and future practice.