CBODN: 2006 Conference!

Session Details

“Coaching Leaders: Foundations, Challenges, and Distinctions” presented by Chris Wahl, MCC, and Neil Stroul, Ph.D., with Georgetown University.
Chris Wahl and Neil Stroul have presented key coaching concepts at various conferences, including the Center for Creative Leadership. In addition, they have written about coaching leaders and have been featured in Choice Magazine. Both are frequent interviewees for newspaper articles and radio programs.

Their workshops are interactive and thought provoking, and reflect the transformational aspects of coaching leaders. All leaders have mandated tasks and goals they must fulfill; all leaders are in the spotlight in one way or another; and all leaders have sweet spots and blind spots that affect the way they lead. Chris and Neil focus their coaching on ways of thinking that promote sustainable change as well as greater well-being.

Both presenters have active coaching practices, and coach leaders in organizations that include Capital One, Booz Allen & Hamilton, World Bank, Anne Arundel Medical Center, and various federal agencies.

About the presenters:

Chris Wahl, M.A. Ed, CPEC, MCC. Created and directs the Leadership Coaching Program at Georgetown University. Former director of the OD program at Georgetown University. Coaches, teaches, writes and speaks about coaching, and coaches teams in large scale change efforts. She is currently working on two books about coaching.
Neil Stroul, Ph.D. President of Management and Training Innovations, a northern Virginia based coaching, consulting, and training organization. Coaches, teaches, writes and speaks about coaching, and coaches executives in diverse industries. He is currently working on a book and an article about coaching leaders.

Afternoon Plenary Session: "Make Your Contacts Count" presented by Lynn Waymon with Contacts Count

Learn the rules and tools for creating, cultivating, and capitalizing on networking relationships and opportunities in a variety of business, professional, and social settings. Make strategic use of your networking time, get more visible, attract clients and referrals, gain support for your ideas and initiatives, and connect with people at conferences and meetings, trade shows and at professional organizations. Get a better ROI for the time and money you spend “networking.”

In this presentation, you’ll learn how to move through the 6 stages of relationship building, how to handle the 3 key moments in networking, and how to show the character and competence that makes people want to do business with you, hire you, and refer you.

Whether you’re a master networker or someone who says, “I’m too busy,” “I’m too bashful,” “I’m too broke!” the confidence and competence you’ll feel knowing these skills will help you make networking an art . . . not an accident! You’ll learn how to:

Master the 3 key moments in every relationship
Advance through the 6 stages in any relationship
Remember names - - and teach them yours
Answer "What do you do?" in a way that shows your character & competence
Steer small talk to uncover resources and opportunities
Make the most of memberships, associations, and conferences
Become the natural and only choice when opportunity arises
Teach people how to use your expertise, what to count on you for
Know what to do and say in a variety of professional situations
Penetrate the "inner circle" in the groups you join
End conversations with the future in mind

About the presenter:

Lynne is the founder and President of Contacts Count, the nationwide firm specializing in networking skills training and consulting. She’s the co-author of Make Your Contacts Count (AMACOM, New York). Clients include organizations such as the U.S. Dept. of State, Lockheed Martin, Deloitte Touche, Georgetown University and National Geographic Society.

"Cultural Competence a Complex Challenge in International Change and Transformation Work" presented by Karen Trader-Leigh of KTA Global Partners

The cross cultural challenge of change in international organizations: Cross-cultural forces impact our approaches to change and transformation in global work. This session explores the challenge of managing a global diversity perspective in the people strategy and examines a cross-cultural change framework for assessing the cultural impact of program issues and strategies.

About the presenter:

Dr. Karyn Trader-Leigh is President & CEO of KTA Global Partners. Doctorate in Organization Change (Pepperdine University), a Masters in International Transactions (George Mason University), masters work OD (Pepperdine). She has studied at the United Nations, Vienna, Austria and studied and lectured in China and lectured in the Middle East and Europe and led several global diversity and change initiatives.

“Leveraging Marginality: Making The Business Case For OD” presented by Katherine Farquhar, Director of the AU/NTL M.S.O.D. program

How do we move OD from the margins to the core of business transformation? Too often, we’re the first to be cut back, the last to be consulted when problems emerge… and sometimes while we’re training strategies for “running effective meetings,” key players upstairs in the boardroom are using ineffective meetings to set strategy. This session examines the power of marginality and develops logic and strategies for playing a central role in transformation processes. You will leave the session with a clearer understanding of the classic and emerging roles that OD practitioners play in organizational transformation and a set of ideas about how to gain a place at the table when transformation is contemplated. The workshop has four sections:

Identity: If OD is as central to organizational transformation as OD practitioners want to believe we are, then why do we have to work so hard to identify and market our “role in business transformation”? And why do so many organizations barrel ahead in transformation without input from OD practitioners, leaving a messy after-market of failed change programs for OD consultants to help repair? Is the appeal of “change management” stronger than the practices of classic Organization Development?

Marginality: Founders of the field advocated a clinical distance from our clients so as not to intermingle our own issues with those of the organizations we’re helping. In honoring this distance, have we walled ourselves off? In this experiential forum, we’ll test the proposition: “The field of OD is marginal to the core work of business transformation.” Is it our roots, our values, our words, our reputation, our techniques, our attitudes, our place in the hierarchy, our history in an organization or as a field?

Or… perhaps we are closer to the center than we think? Let’s plot ourselves on a map and talk about what we see.

Data: We’ll begin by discussing the opinions of several leading scholars about the current relevance of OD to business transformation. We’ll also look at research on the success/failure rate of organization transformation projects. Then we’ll poll the audience about organization transformations that have – or have not – relied on guidance from OD professionals. What does OD bring to the table?

Strategies: We will use several classic and cutting edge techniques to examine this issue. We will identify broad-range, middle-range, and tiny approaches to leveraging, overcoming, or moving beyond “marginality.” How do we play a more central role that relies on OD practices and principles that add value during a transformation process?

Must we start by making a better “business case” for OD?

About the Presenter:

Dr. Katherine Farquhar is the new Director of the AU/NTL Master’s in Organization Development Program at American University. A tenured member of AU’s faculty, she has taught in the MSOD program since 1989. Her consulting and writing have focused on leadership and governance issues in not for profit organizations. She is a member of the NTL Institute.

“Taking the Leap: Building a Successful OD Practice” presented by Lisa Silverberg of Process Matters, LLC and Brian Emerson of Riverstone Endeavors LLC.

This interactive session is for people who are thinking of starting an OD practice either now or in the future, and for those who are currently in the process of getting a practice off the ground. The session will be filled with practical tips and strategies as well as the opportunity to think through some of the key questions with which one must grapple in order to be successful.

Some of the topics will include:

Starting out

What it takes to hang out a shingle
Strategies for keeping the shingle hanging
Defining what value you add
Finding clients
Getting-by strategies you’ll regret later
Creating support systems and coping strategies

Stepping into your own

Actually “choosing” clients
Telling clients the truth
Managing client expectations
Managing boundaries with clients
Nurturing collaborations
Growing, Learning, and even having fun!

The presenters, who have their own practices but work collaboratively on many projects, will share invaluable advice they received from mentors, stories of their start-up growing pangs, and thoughts on reaching subsequent milestones (amusing and otherwise). This session will also address the joys and challenges of working with colleagues and will include plenty of time for questions and exchange of ideas.

About the Speakers:

Lisa Silverberg builds capacity of nonprofits by helping align people with purpose. She works with advocacy groups and service providers, unions and foundations. She specializes in strategic and project planning, leadership and team development, and supporting multi-agency work (partnerships, coalitions, etc.). Lisa has been teaching, training, and facilitating for over 12 years, the last 6 as principal of Process Matters, LLC.
Brian Emerson partners with organizations to unleash the potential of their leaders and teams. He works with a diverse range of clients in both the profit and non-profit sectors. His focus is on team effectiveness and leadership development. He has been practicing OD for over 10 years, the last 5 of which have been as the principal of Riverstone Endeavors LLC.

“Wicked Problems - Dialogue Mapping and Organizational Transformation” presented by Alexander T. Knapp with SRA Touchstone Consulting Group.

The pace of change is speeding up, and Wicked Problems challenge all groups seeking to survive, transform and grow. Classical forms of organization and management are sorely tested by quantum change, and collective efforts to find a way forward too often fall short of hopes, expectations and needs. This session explores complexity in groups and business transformation, drawing upon simple models of biology, environmental science and quantum mechanics to explain powerful trends in organizations.

The typical (and oft dreaded) meeting is woefully inadequate to the tackling of Wicked Problems. A linear agenda doesn’t solve networked dilemmas, executive management can’t be expected to have all the answers, words in meeting notes can’t capture inter-relationships of questions, ideas, advantages and disadvantages - and communication too often fails to become production.

Issue-Based Information Systems (IBIS) allow groups to face Wicked Problems realistically, and map the richness of dialogue. One of these tools, called “Compendium” is a free piece of software designed by professional facilitators and social scientists to allow groups to meet and exceed their potential for dynamic, creative effectiveness. Using an easy-to-learn grammar of icons, a Compendium facilitator captures complexity in a way that builds a group working space, encourages dialogue among all participants, and identifies the best of often-imperfect solutions.

Read about complexity in groups and social change at:
http://www.cognexus.org/wpf/wickedproblems.pdf

Download your own free copy of Compendium (for Mac or PC) at:
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/compendium/download/

And attend “Wicked Problems - Dialogue Mapping and Organizational Transformation” for an unsettling satisfying look at the order in today’s daily chaos, and how it might help groups to new levels of change.

About the presenter:

Alexander specializes in creating, designing and driving change in complex systems and environments, particularly in the international and post-conflict sector. In addition to his corporate and non-profit clients, he has worked with the UN, World Bank, European Union and in Bosnia, Iraq, Liberia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Afghanistan and East Timor.

“The Transformative Power of Action Learning” presented by Dr. Bea Carson with Carson Consultants

Action Learning goes far beyond its problem solving benefits. It shows the way for:

strong teams to process more efficiently,
stagnated teams to revolutionize,
floundering teams to swim,
anxious teams to calmly find solutions,
dysfunctional teams to perform effectively.

A key component of the Action Learning process – it forces the group to fully understand the problem before moving toward defining solutions. This dissection can lead either to resolution, or to realizing that the dilemma presented is merely a symptom of multiple problems.

Action Learning synthesizes thinking. Not only does it clearly show participants these skills in the Action Learning environment, but also it molds participants’ attitude in their daily interactions with each other. It changes communication tactics from making statements to asking questions.

This shift converts talking at each other, to hearing, comprehending, and caring what the other person has to say. It forces individuals to listen to each other – significantly increasing the comprehension experienced during the discussion.

Organizations that embrace Action Learning - making it a part of their corporate values - experience a transformation in their culture. They shift from being solely performance driven to a learning culture. These organizations come to realize that by focusing on the learning the performing will follow. These organizations have come to accept the notion – if it is benchmarkable someone else can do it better. Therefore, to remain ahead of the change that is happening all around us, employees must be in constant learning mode. By virtue of being in a learning mode, employees look for better ways to implement processes, rather than simply trying to discover a way of improving on the current benchmark.

To fully appreciate and comprehend the power of Action Learning it is necessary to participate in an Action Learning set. This session will consist of a brief lecture, a demonstration, and hands on practice. The bulk of the session being dedicated to hands on practice.

Two articles are available for download from www.carson-consultants.com. The first describes how Action Learning coaching compares to other forms of coaching - http://carson-consultants.com/Coaching.PDF.

The second describes the benefits an organization realizes through the use of Action Learning programs - http://carson-consultants.com/Power.PDF.

This workshop will run for 3-hours to include a working lunch.

About the presenter:

Dr. Bea Carson is an author, speaker, and expert in the field of Action Learning. As a certified Action Learning coach, she has advised and trained all level managers and executives. In addition to her consulting practice, Dr. Bea is a member of the Board of Directors for Maryland Special Olympics and co-chair of the sponsorship committee for the Anne Arundel Medical Center Annual Gala.

“Leadership, Trust, and Collaboration in Action” presented by Matt Minahan, Ed. D., MM & Associates; and Kenya Crawford, Johns Hopkins University

Using the highly interactive "Win As Much As You Can" simulation, we will examine the factors that create trust and collaboration, versus competition in an intergroup exercise.

Trust is one of the most difficult and elusive organizational variables; it's difficult to build, and easy to destroy. Yet in our organizational lives, there are opportunities to collaborate, and opportunities to compete. The win/lose challenge shows up every day in budget decisions, priority setting, collective bargaining, military strategies, war, and even for some, in driving!

IF we really were to commit to lives of collaboration and trust, could we really hope not to be taken advantage of? Would we be hopelessly naïve to assume that our counterparts are as interested in our well being as we are in theirs?

The "Win As Much As You Can" simulation was adapted by my colleague, Dr. Bill Gellermann, from the original "Prisoners' Dilemma," which challenges negotiators to decide between maximizing their own gain, or the gain of both parties. It confronts us with the basic dilemma of human nature: am I willing to put my faith, and trust, in the hands of another person or group? Can I truly assume that they will act in my best interests? Or is the human condition such that we must always advocate aggressively for our own interests, even at the expense of the other's interest, or, worse yet, at the expense of the common good?

The "Win As Much As You Can" simulation takes 30 to 45 minutes to run, after which we will examine the results and debrief the events, focusing on leadership, communication, and other factors that contributed to the results, and how to apply them to our work and practices.

About the presenters:

Matt Minahan is president of MM & Associates, specializing in strategic planning, organization design and development, leadership development, and implementing enterprise-wide change programs. He is a member of NTL Institute, and teaches OD in the business school at Johns Hopkins University
Kenya Crawford is Senior Academic Coordinator for the MBA program in the business school at Johns Hopkins University. She is responsible for overseeing the budget, admissions, recruitment, retention, managing corporate partnerships, and is, herself, graduating soon from the ODSHR master program at JHU.

“OD is Diversity: Differences are at the Heart of the Profession” presented by Heather Berthoud and Bob Greene of Berthoud/Greene Consultants LLC

Diversity work is often seen as a specialty within OD or as a separate though related discipline. However, the principles of diversity—broad and meaningful participation by all members of a system in order to maximize available creativity and energy for organizational learning and effectiveness—are fundamental to OD. Failing to consider diversity may lead to a limited assessment and weak intervention. Too often, practitioners are “surprised” when issues related to diversity arise in assessments, workshops, and other interventions. This workshop is for practitioners who “don’t do” diversity, as well as those who make it an intentional part of their practice. As a guide and framework, we will introduce the Diversity Diamond©, which makes clear the connection between organizational change and diversity. Participants will explore their common responses and consider helpful ways to approach potentially unexpected situations. Resources for further learning and next steps will be shared. Here’s a way to be sure not to leave out diversity as something “I don’t do.”

About the presenters:

Heather Berthoud, of Berthoud/Greene Consultants LLC, supports organizations making a positive difference. She blends a results-orientation with compassion. She and Bob Greene developed the Diversity Diamond© model, which helps managers and consultants navigate diversity change processes for themselves and organizations.
Bob Greene brings wide-ranging skills and experience to his work with national and local clients. He and Heather Berthoud are co-authors of "A Multi-Faceted Look at Diversity: Why Outreach is Not Enough" (Journal of Volunteer Administration, Spring 2001) and the League of Women Voters Diversity Toolkit.

“Power” presented by Dr. George Peabody

There are three kinds of people:

Those who make things happen.
Those who wait for things to happen.
Those who wonder what happened.

Most people don’t really know there own power.

They think it is a superior force. It isn’t. The measure of power is the results, and the more you achieve with less effort in less time, the greater the power. Through understanding and appreciating the nature of power leaders gain the ability to transform their organizations.

Since it is the business of leaders and managers to make things happen, an essential characteristic of their work is power. And yet… it is a myth that organizations can authorize managers with enough power to do their jobs well. As Henry Mintzberg said, “Most management theory assumes managerial power that just isn’t there.” Therefore managers have two jobs. The first is evident in their job description, and the second is to generate enough internal power to do their first job well.

About the presenter:

Dr. Peabody has been training managers for 50 years, first with corporations and then with the federal government since 1980. One of his major interests has been in training managers to accept, build, and use the power necessary to do their jobs.