PARALLEL TRACK SESSIONS

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 2007 10:30 - 14:00

Track A: CONVERSATIONS FOR POSSIBILITY

Track B: STORIES OF HOPE

Track A: CONVERSATIONS FOR POSSIBILITY

When you are in a forest, you can never have a holistic perspective of the forest in terms of its real size, shape, temperature, humidity, degrees of connectivity, relativity, and magnitude. This is not because we don't want to, but rather that the forest is physically designed this way to provide niche areas for its diverse inhabitants. In IODA, we have a collective capability and intelligence to shape the world, yet we need to include other parts of the forest in the making of our models so that people working on the forest floor, or the canopy, or with communities in the forest are not only welcomed, but feel drawn to participate.

In this conversation you will be invited to build on and play with several conceptual frameworks that might enable us to better "see" the forest of interconnections in our world, and to move toward determining who we are and what we stand for, individually and collectively.

Laksana Watthanakul, holds a Bachelor Degree in Psychology, minor in Economics, Bangkok, Thailand. She is currently a PhD Student in Organization and Management Theories, at Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary. Laksana has ten years experience in business areas of front-line hospitality operations in Switzerland, Argentina, Australia and Thailand and 5 years in HRM in multinationals such as Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Thailand. Currently, she teaches part-time in Budapest, Hungary.

Almost a decade of collaboration has resulted in deeper understanding of the universality of OD, and in this session we will explore the global applicability of OD principles and practices, and how an exciting program is developing a whole new generation of African OD practitioners to deliver services, not only in Africa, but anywhere in the world. Noble Kumawu and Bill Kraus will describe the fundamentals of OD, the OD Cycle which has become the basis for their work, and how they apply across cultures in their practice, and that of their colleagues around the globe.

A full description of the model and cases are included in Bill & Noble's book entitled Organizational Development: A Model for Africa and the World (to be published spring, 2007). This model is also the core for the Organizational Capacity Improvement Consultants (OCIC)/ University of Cape Coast curriculum for the first African Master's and Doctoral program in OD.

Noble Kumawu , is the CEO of OCIC, based in Accra Ghana. He has been consulting and teaching OD for 30 years in England and Africa, and has published several papers.William Kraus is based in Connecticut. He has been consulting in OD for 30 years. Prior to his own consulting business he taught at several universities and worked at General Electric. He is the author of Collaboration in Organizations, as well as several papers.

When a Tree Falls in the Organizational Forest Does Anyone Hear? In this session I invite participants to identify the silos, stovepipes and solitudes that prevent wellbeing, integration and adaptive change. What are the barriers that exist inside their organizations; between the sectors: private, public, NGO; and across cultures? These barriers challenge effective change within most organizational environments.

The main focus for this session is an invitation to participants to identify their own silos, stovepipes and solitudes and use an action learning process (Discovery Listening) to disclose how they can be empowered and empower others, to make a change that shifts the cacophonies of individual notes and instruments into a new melody. Specific examples from current practice will also be introduced and explored.

Dr. Marilyn Hamilton, is a dynamic and multi-faceted facilitator for urban change who promotes local well-being by creating conditions for global intelligences to emerge in leaders, teams, organizations, sectors, communities and cities. She is President of the Abbotsford Community Foundation and Founder of Integral City.

In an open systems perspective, change in organizational life, including how leadership is understood and practiced, requires change in the wider social field simultaneously. In Canada, new qualities of leadership are being generated through stories of outstanding leadership. Recent research suggests, on a national scale, that Canadians' views and values about leadership have already shifted significantly in direction that the OD field has fostered for decades.

This session is designed as a weave of research findings, participation in the survey and narrative inquiry approaches, consideration of the opportunities to influence the wider culture, and dialogue about the possibilities for eco-leadership and its potential to positively impact our sustainability challenges. Our intent is for participants, both fellow citizens and international colleagues, to take away useful information, ideas, methods, reflections and provocative questions from this Canadian case.

Dr. Marilyn Taylor , is appointed Professor in the School of Leadership Studies at Royal Roads University in Victoria. Her research and publications are focused on transformational learning, new forms of work organization and leadership Dr. David Jamieson is Chief Scientist and Director of Advanced Analytics at Environics Research Group, one of Canada's most long-standing and respected public polling and marketing research firms. Trained as an experimental social psychologist, Dr. Jamieson heads the analytical team that supports our unique cross-national social values research.

What would happen if you considered an organization more like a tree than a sewing-machine or if you viewed it in human terms? What would be the result of seeing an organization as a living, breathing, evolving, natural force where change is a constant and crises are normal? In 2006, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in British Columbia undertook a major challenge. How could this complex organization of 8,000 employees improve its service, collaborate with partner agencies and enhance its own internal development? .

This session will explore the continuing successes of this journey, the lessons learned and specifically outlines how the Organizational Family Tree construct can help all organizations create healthy environments. This model portrays organizations as having an influential "family tree" much like people do.

Eli Sopow,uses the lessons of complexity science to create healthy workplace environments and relationships. He is head of organizational development and research at the RCMP Pacific Region headquarters; is a partner with the consulting and coaching firm Sopow & Wilde; and is an Associate Faculty member at the Royal Roads University School of Leadership.
Lindsay Wilde is a partner with the consulting and coaching firm Sopow & Wilde where she specializes in the emotional dimension of change processes. As a trained counsellor, Lindsay looks at today's organizations not from a mechanistic but a humanistic perspective.

Western educational organizations are becoming more and more international and must become globally minded. Although Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, had successfully established an International Department and had become home to students over 900 international students and 800 aboriginal students, stresses emerged regarding the challenges of integrating wide ranging diversity into classrooms. The challenges were met through a project that addressed larger institutional directives and gave voice to individuals facing issues in their daily routines - both faculty and students.

In this session, participants will be invited to engage in intercultural activities typical of our workshops and consider the application of this kind of learning to large organizations. We will consider the role of discontent in motivating change, the need for an inclusive approach necessary to foster real and lasting change and the process of creating initiatives to address both organizational and individual needs.

Vera Wojna, Associate Director, International Student Services, Thompson Rivers University, TRU World Centre. She manages a network of support services provided to all international students from over 60 countries. In February 2006, TRU World was recognized by the Canada Language Council with the Lyn Howes Award presented for innovation and quality support services for international students.
Kyra Garson, Intercultural Consultant has always been interested in culture and diversity. She has traveled, lived, and worked around the globe. Prior to this project with TRU, Kyra spent two years working in South America for the ICPNA, the Peruvian Cultural Institute, on language and civic education projects with CIVITAS, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society.

People are drawn to the field of OD from all walks of life and for varying reasons. One common thread is a heartfelt commitment to caring for organizations and engaging others to accomplish their unique purposes. However, some organizations doing the most vital work in our world are the not-for-profits (NFPs) that lack resources for consulting services. Seattle's Community Consulting Partnership (CCP) provides a possible answer and was created to answer questions such as: How might organizational development consultants better serve the not-for-profit world? How could we build consulting skills in more people in our communities? How could we do this in an economical way?

Building on the spirit of learning and service, CCP inspires people to join in learning about the organizational development process while working as a volunteer consultant with local not-for-profit organizations. Since 1995, CCP has consulted with over 70 NFPs that could not otherwise pay for consulting. Over 350 volunteers have participated in consulting teams where they learn from one another, build community connections, and polish their consulting skills along the way. In this interactive session we will share the origins of CCP and how it works. We will examine how the twin elements of service and learning provide a hospitable place for growth for consultants and clients.

Steve Cato, B.S.,University of California, Berkeley; M.B.A., University of New Hampshire; Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University, has had a long and diverse career in organization change. He designed and founded a graduate program in organization development and has his own consulting practice, now in its 35th year.
Kathleen Ryan, B.A., University of California at Berkeley, M.P.A., University of Southern California. She has been active as an organization development consultant for over 25 years. She is known for her work in turning fear-based organizations into ones characterized by trust and collaboration.
George Orr, B.A., St. Lawrence University, M.P.H., University of Hawaii School of Public Health. Prior to becoming a full-time consultant in 1985, Mr. Orr held management positions in healthcare, human service and manufacturing organizations. As a consultant, he has worked with both public and private sector clients, primarily in the service sector.

In the City of Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada there are a number of non-profit and social based organizations that serve the City and surrounding communities. Many of these groups work with similar clientele but their organizations are scattered throughout the City. Barriers exist to link clients to other services including transportation, in-depth knowledge of other programs and resources, and the bureaucracy of moving people between agencies. In an attempt to bring communities together, The Community Village is being created.

In this story, we will share the vision and process creating a strategic co-location of non-profit organizations and social enterprise in order to reach and serve target populations with quality and complete programs. We are building a community that supports one another in order to serve our clients better. We are creating a safe and welcoming place for people within our community through a harm reduction approach for those who often find it difficult to access resources and services through mainstream mechanisms. We are providing anonymity to clients to resource a variety of services without the watch full eye of others that individual offices would create.

Brenda Moore , has been the Executive Director of an AIDS service organization for over seven years. She has participated in international AIDS work in South America through Canadian Crossroads International. Brenda is the creative force behind the Community Village concept and founding board member of The Community Village Society of the Peace Country. She brings to the project a vision of accessibility, collaboration, partnership, responsible participation, and a harm reduction philosophy that have become the guiding principles of the project.

This is the story of how one of Canada's biggest and most successful credit unions (Coast Capital Savings) responded to the challenges of heightened competition for customers, shrinking margins, market space congestion and a struggle for talent recruitment and retention. The story specifically explores the process and impact of strategically combining learning and application to increase social, intellectual and organizational capital in the implementation of the organization's business strategy.

The question we will explore is: "How can Relational Systems Learning during organizational redesign help increase Coast Capital Savings success internally among cluster leaders, externally with clients, and as a business a very competitive industry"

Tony Williams BSC, MSc, PhD., is VP Corporate Learning and head of Coast University, Coast Capital Savings, Surrey BC.

Phil Cady CD BSW MA, is President, founding partner in CLSWEST Incorporated.

What if rational approaches do not lead to results and if power balances keep things in place? Issues sometimes suffer from both content complexity (ambiguous, hard to pin down) and process complexity (many actors having different ideas about the way to solve the problems). Could it be that the content and the process can not be separated as we often try to do? It is the challenge of OD to come forward with ways of thinking, ways of approaching change processes that take both into account.

Waterboards, the oldest democratic governments in the Netherlands, and ProRail, who manages the rail infrastructure in The Netherlands, work with other regional and local governments and with the people, farmers and businesses located in their region. In this Story of Hope, I will share how we have done the diagnoses, created change strategy and provided implementation with all the people involved. I will also offer some questions: would this approach be helpful in other complex settings? What are the risks of the chosen approach and the benefits? What kind of competences do you need for this kind of approach?

Carla Vliex , studied psychology and business administration (cum laude) and is one of the co-founders of the community for Change Management in The Netherlands. A consultant with Twynstra Gudde, she devises and develops interventions that are aimed at getting everyone to contribute as much as they can to a development or change process.

A Canadian subsidiary of a multi-national firm is driven by its capacity to win large projects, often in the order of .5 to 1 billion dollars. After decades of success, a stalwart culture, and recent explosive growth, the company became blinded by its own success. It is trapped in old relationships and old expectations that have led to single digit growth, rather than the double digit growth expected by its parent firm

This is the story of how we brought new leadership perspectives and engagement techniques to the firm to transform leadership. Our presentation will focus on perspectives, methods and tools for organizational change. It will be interactive, asking session participants to reflect on and discuss their current experiences as a way of learning.

Alan Sobel , holds a Master's degree in Political Studies from Queen's University and an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Economy from the University of Toronto. He is a Queen's Fellow, a U.S. State Department Grantee and possesses many advanced certificates.