WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2007

EARLY AFTERNOON SESSIONS 1330 - 1530

The Canadian Organization Development Institute (CODI) is in the process of "growing" a new learning program in OD Fundamentals for the Canadian context. This conversation is an invitation to experienced OD professionals to reflect on what you wish you had learned in the early stages of your practice, and for new practitioners to share what you are most anxious about, or eager to begin learning, in preparing for practice. We will outline our work so far, explore a number of questions related to building an OD curriculum, and invite your insights and feedback.

Marilyn Laiken, PhD, is Chair of the OISE/University of Toronto Department of Adult Education & Counselling Psychology and an experienced OD practitioner; Jeff Solway, MES,is a seasoned entrepreneur, business owner and communications professional;Ingrid Richter, PhD, has 20 years experience working with public, private and not-for-profit organizations on leadership development, organizational learning and change.

We often go around with blinders on, following a predetermined path and missing potential opportunities. An alternative, bumbling with intentionality, is about setting high level aspiration(s) and being deliberate in direction without being attached to specific outcomes. When we become intentional we begin to see the world through a different lens; notice new things that we might have missed, and they begin to become possibilities or opportunities to help us get to an end state that is better than what we could have envisioned.

We can't plan for most future opportunities. Bumbling is a belief that we accept the uncertainty in life and work and, in fact, embrace the uncertainty as it brings us exciting possibilities and new experiences. Intentionality is ensuring that whatever direction we pursue aligns with our core values and aspirations.

In this Greenhouse Dialogue we will explore how we can stay focused and yet be open to new opportunities; how we can set goals without limiting ourselves; and how we develop criteria to filter opportunities.

Tom Dent, MBA Ivey School of Business, is an Associate Consultant with Tekara Organizational Effectiveness Inc., a consulting firm focused on leadership and organizational development. He has over 13 years experience coaching senior executives and management teams around organizational effectiveness in public, private and crown organizations ranging in size from start ups to multi-billion dollar organizations.

On the office walls, and in the brochures and Annual Reports of organizations around many parts of Europe and North America, the word "Integrity" regularly appears. Yet, in literature and in practice, the conceptualization of "integrity" is unclear, underdeveloped and confused since the same term is used often with different meanings, perspectives and scope. We imagine the conceptualization is further blurred when we look at multiple cultures/countries outside Europe and North America. In this greenhouse session, we wish to take advantage of the multi-national representation at the IODA conference to collectively explore a number of questions related to the idea and application of integrity in various cultures, and to describe a model of organizational and leadership integrity we have been building through observation, reflection and literature review over the past 4 years.

Jude Fairweather , has over 25 years experience as a business leader and executive, facilitator, strategist, leadership coach and management consultant.
Jill Malleck , in addition to being an experienced facilitator, organizational development consultant, trainer and coach, has 20-plus years experience as a leader in Marketing & Employee Communications, and as a senior Human Resources consultant to business leaders and their teams.

The five AI principles® and especially the Simultaneity, Poetic, and Anticipatory Principles® focus on the unfolding of possibilities. We see this focus as warranted because of a fundamental shift from a Newtonian view of time to a more holistic one.

The holistic view of time offers interesting possibilities for change:

• The past is no longer the only influencer of action and change; the present and future are equally valid,
• The past becomes as dynamic as the present and future,
• The past no longer need determine the present and future,
• Our understanding of time can vary from context to context, and
• Later events can lend meaning to earlier events.

In this session we invite participants to join us in a dialogue about how the AI principles are founded on a holistic view of time and how this perspective can help create exciting possibilities for change in their client systems.

Jacqueline Binkert, Ph.D., president of Organizational Enterprises. She works as an executive coach and organizational development consultant, focusing on strategic planning, leadership excellence, personal development, and culture change. Her particular research interest is in the relationship between the beliefs people have and the results they want.

Ann L. Clancy, Ph.D.,president of Clancy Consultants, is an executive coach, organizational development consultant, professional facilitator, and qualitative researcher. She specializes in offering an appreciative approach to strategic planning with clients ranging from corporations and governmental agencies to community groups.

Jacqueline Binkert and Ann Clancy are co-authors with Sara Orem of Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change published by Jossey-Bass in February 2007.

I believe this question is more or less on all our minds when involved in Development/ change processes. In this session we will "open the space" for us to learn from each other's models and approaches for dealing with the very concrete situations we encounter while accompanying our clients into the future.

A range of models will be offered as a starting point for conversation (eg. structure versus people/ the basic fear currents from depth psychology/ awareness of communication processes and the "effect" consciousness/our personality and our energy-field what role does it play?)

Frank Rambaek , has been an OD practitioner since 1978, conducting seminars with the emphasis on leadership processes and dealing with tensions and conflicts. He is often called for mediation processes when conflicts are "cooking".

This greenhouse session will explore risk-taking and uncertainty: what they mean, and how they apply to the lives of consultants and managers. Participants will engage in exercises concerning the theme, and will have the opportunity to identify and discuss cultural differences in the room as they relate to feelings and behaviours associated with uncertainty and risk-taking. Questionnaires for identifying personal inclinations will be offered, along with data from cultural research. Additional questions to be explored include: "Can risk -taking be acquired? Are some people addicted to risk-taking while others run away from it?"

Dr. Rita Aloni , has been an OD consultant for many years, mainly in Change Processes, and a coach to managers and OD consultants. She is President of IODA, and Senior lecturer, Department of Business Administration, Ruppin Academic Center, Israel

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2007

LATE AFTERNOON SESSIONS 1600 - 1730

Many of us travel back and forth from our homes to the workplace each day and road transportation represents a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Commuting also contributes to workers' psychological stress and accounts for hours of lost productivity. Telework and other flexible work options benefit both employees and employers in a number of ways.

How can we, as organizational development practitioners, encourage reluctant employers to embrace telework which has the potential to address one of our key environmental challenges ~ the impact of greenhouse gas emissions in global warming - and increase productivity at the same time?

Charlene Levis, MA, Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP), is the principal of WorkLife® HR Solutions, established in 1998. As a public sector Manager, Charlene designed and implemented the first Employment Equity program in the public sector of British Columbia and was responsible for all related aspects of program management. WorkLife Associates www.worklife.ca collaborate with clients to develop innovative and economical human resource and work/life solutions that promote flexibility, respect and results.

How can we use our various lenses of profession, cultural orientation, and individuality to have the greatest and most sustainable impact with our clients in cross-cultural settings while at the same time respecting both our way of being and that of the other? The growing field of coaching offers new and essential tools to support sustained implementation.

In this session, we will discuss coaching as a profession and practice as well as the challenges and opportunities of coaching across cultures. Participants will explore how coaching can enhance their own growth as well as that of their clients in several cultural contexts and value systems such as hierarchy-equality, indirect-direct communication, and monochronic-polychronic views of time.

Kathy Trickey, MSEd,is a Professional Certified Coach (by the International Coach Federation), a former Foreign Service Officer with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and a skilled consultant, trainer and coach to individuals and teams. Besides the US, she has worked in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and The Netherlands. While with USDA, she participated in activities related to then Vice President Al Gore's Partnership for Reinventing Government.

The Gestalt Cycle of Experience offers a rich opportunity to explore and connect our "inside self" with the "outside world". Use of self is one of the ways that we can further ground ourselves in an increasingly complex and global environment. By engaging others on this topic, I hope to build on the conversations in the field about a) how we sustain ourselves through intentional use-of-self, b) how we support and better understand others and our environment through use of self, and c) how we use our knowledge/awareness of Ourselves to make conscious & intentional choices to intervene. Engaging beyond theory and emphasizing the diverse backgrounds & experience in the room, we will identity specific and concrete ways that we employ use of self to ground & support our efforts to influence.

In this dialogue we will consider:

• How do we use ourselves and what does that look like?
• How and when do others use themselves? What does that look like?
• What conclusions can be drawn about similarities? Differences?
• How can we own our personal power?
• How can we influence metrics-oriented goals that many of our clients call upon us to help them with?

Kendra Coleman, President, Kindred Organizational Consulting, has consulted over the past ten years with myriad organizations including private, public, start-ups, not-for-profit, & established organizations. Industry experience includes education, IT, sales, higher education, visual arts, and manufacturing.. Kendra has a bachelor's degree in Sociology from U.C. Berkeley and a MS in Organization Development & Change from American University.

The need for knowledge transfer and knowledge management is creating new worries for organizations. With more than 45% of North American workers eligible for retirement over the next 10 years, those worries are well founded. Explicit knowledge can be easily transferred to others by stated processes and policies captured in manuals or stored in a variety of other media. Tacit knowledge is an individual's expertise, habits and culture, and is context specific.

Our conversation will address two aspects of effective knowledge transfer: 1) discussion on how we can bring awareness for ourselves as to the tacit knowledge we hold and ways to intentionally share it with colleagues in the spirit of abundance, and 2) how we can create that same level of tacit knowledge awareness in our clients and provide recommendations to them in order to share what they know with others in their organization.

Kathi Irvine , is a core consultant with Sundance Consulting Inc., and has over 15 years of corporate leadership experience in the financial services sector, with extensive background in facilitating leadership and communication programs, leading change, improving employee effectiveness and leadership practices.

The Southern African region is in a phase of rapid economic development, which is associated with a wave of economic strategy development and implementation. Managing strategy implementation involving multiple stakeholders, when they differ in their objectives, capacity, and ideologies, can be complex and difficult, particularly when pressures to implement quickly are great. This greenhouse conversation will explore a range of questions related to these challenges, including the role of the facilitator and insights that can be shared between OD and other disciplines.

Michelle de Bruyn , serves as Managing Director of the South African office of Kaiser Associates Economic Development Practice. She has extensive experience in stakeholder consultation, economic policy and leadership development. She has worked on over 30 strategy and policy projects in the Southern African region, most of which have involved multi-stakeholder decision-making.

There are many traditional stories in every community that carry strong messages to organizations. They are effective tools organizations can use to diagnose their problems. They can also be used to bring out positive information that had been dormant for so long. Every year for a long time, there have been complaints about the quality of the "Probationer Training Programme" in the Methodist Church. As Director of the Methodist Training Centre in Sierra Leone, I used storytelling to address the long standing issues. Ministers are change agents. If they cannot change their own community how can they change others? In November 2006 I facilitated the course "Church Development," where we looked at many issues affecting the development of the Church and community.

In this workshop, I will share the situation and the story telling process and work with participants to see how they can apply this work to their organizations. I will also share a model for OD planning called Six Phases of Life which is based on rich experiences in their daily life.

Reverend Musa Jambawai , is Director of the Methodist Training Centre in Sierra Leone. He uses powerful stories as ways to engage communities to see themselves more clearly, understand their problems and create new opportunities. He is also a farmer and "Ox Traction Technologist." He raises funds to purchase oxen, fabricates ox traction equipment and gives them out as loans to farmers.

"Words make worlds," and the language we use as OD practitioners, teachers, scholars both opens and closes possibilities. Our own meetings sometimes contain a poverty of language, a sense of dryness in the way we speak and the words we use. The deep music of conversation draws upon what we experience in the moment. While one's mind may attach itself to specific ideas and concepts, the inner experience is a constant flow of sensations that are the ground of multi-layered meaning and creativity. This inner experience is what a poet draws on as s/he writes and what a musician does as s/he composes and plays.

Ray Gordezky , MPH (Community Development and Health Education) has spent twenty years designing and facilitating change processes that have helped diverse groups in many countries collaborate on complex challenges and opened up new futures. In recent years he has turned his hand and heart to writing poetry.