Program Meetings Schedule
Programs currently
scheduled
In
case of weather emergencies, check the web index page for announcements.
About
Our Meetings
The
Learning Group was formed to promote shared learning by its members.
Our meetings are based on action learning. Many are presented by a
team of ODLG members. All use experiential methods in an informal,
inviting environment.
Programs
are selected based on their relevance to members learning needs, and
we seek to provide learning on current trends in organizational
development. We present one program meeting per month. In addition,
there may be occasional bonus programs that may be experimental in
design or address a particular constituency in the Group.
We
aim at a mix of cutting edge and perennially important topics, with new
and familiar presenters. All programs also provide options for follow up learning and
opportunities for networking.
Meetings
Format and Fees
Unless
otherwise indicated, meetings are from 5:30 PM to 9:00 PM.
The period from 5:30 to 6:00 is for networking and registration. We
use the period from 6:00 to 6:30 for ODLG business. The presentation
time is 6:30 to 8:30, and 8:30 to 9:00 is for follow up, evaluation
and special purposes.
Meetings
are free for members and $30 for non-members ($20 for non-member
students). Food (not quite a
meal, but more than just snacks) is served. Members of BACAPT,
CCC, ICFNE, IMCNE,
PCC and SPC
receive a $10 discount
on Learning Group meeting fees, and Learning Group member receive a
corresponding discount on program meetings by those organizations.
Meeting
Reservations
Confirmed reservations
and we have recently had to ration spaces since requests have exceeded
room capacity. Requests to attend, whether by members or nonmembers
should be sent to programs@learninggroup.org.
In the interest of fairness, we cannot accept RSVP's except for the
next coming meeting.
Reservations are
confirmed on a first come, first served basis. If spaces are filled,
we will establish a waiting list. However, we have in the past two
years developed large enough meeting space to accommodate our
growing membership and attendance and have not had a program sell
out in over a year.
Our Program
Calendar
Assessment
and Evaluation
When:
February
25,
5:30 PM to 9:00 PM (first 30 minutes networking)
Location: Tufts Health Care, 705
Mt. Auburn Street, Watertown
Directions: Click
here!
Parking: Available free at the location.
Public Transportation: The location is on the route of MBTA
bus 71
(Harvard Square – Watertown), which provides frequent service.
Rides: On request, we will attempt to match those needing and
those able to provide rides.
Cost:
Free for members; $30 for nonmembers ($20 for BACAPT, CCC, ICFNE,
IMCNE, PCC and SPC members and for nonmember students)
Request a reservation: programs@learninggroup.org
Join
is we explore topics of relevance to all organizations and consider
their connection to OD practice. Participants will have their choice
of two of four presentations on organizational assessment, team
assessment, program evaluation, and performance evaluation.
Following, we will have a whole group session to brainstorm on
common themes, best ideas, and how these areas relate to our work.
“Organizational assessment” will be presented by Anne
Litwin, President of Anne
Litwin & Associates. This session will focus on
understanding the basics of organizational assessments. Through
small and large group discussions, and
presentations, participants will discuss the purpose of
organizational assessments and what questions they can answer. They
will learn a process for beginning organizational assessments. And
they will consider the Six-Box and other models for guiding
organizational assessments.
Anne presented at our March 2007
“Learning From Experience” program, co-facilitated the section
on “Should I Be a Consultant?” at our January
2006 “Careers and Work” program, and was a cast member in
our December 2006 “What a Way to Make a
Living” program. Anne was the winner of the OD Network Larry
Porter Award for the best OD
Practitioner article in 2007, “OD:
Dancing in the Global Context”.
Anne helps public and private organizations of all sizes to
plan and manage growth, fine-tune operations, boost morale, and
define the future. She coaches executives, managers, and
entrepreneurs to enable them to build leadership skills, achieve
professional goals and earn promotions.
In addition, she assists clients in building strategic
awareness of human dynamics and the implications for business
excellence, cultivating mutual trust and respect in a diverse
workplace, revitalize boards of directors and leadership team, plan
for a dynamic future, and reveal their strengths and draw on them to
develop new ones. Anne's practice areas include executive coaching,
leadership development, diversity awareness, cross-cultural
competence training and consulting, and change management.
Her clients have included American Management Systems,
Analog Devices, the Association of Women’s Business Centers,
AT&T, Berlex Laboratories, Brown and Company, Carter, Ledyard
& Milburn, Chevron USA, Cornerstone Family Resources, E Ink,
Hewlett-Packard, Johns Hopkins University, Krista Larsen Designs,
Lucent Technologies, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Mt. Tom Mental Health
Center, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the New York City
Office of the Mayor, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Siemens, the U.S.
Department of Justice, and Wheelock College Center for Career
Development. Anne is a member and former board member of NTL and is
co-founder CenterPoint Women's Leadership Programs. She has a
Masters in Community Psychology from Marist College and is currently
a doctoral student in Human and Organization Development at the
Fielding Institute. She has written many articles and co-edited the
book Managing
in an Age of Great Change,
available in our Library.
”Performance Evaluation” will be presented by Jamie
Resker, Principal, Employee
Performance Solutions. It is safe to say that most managers and employees
dread the performance evaluation process.
From the manager’s perspective they either end up with
writer’s block or sometimes put everything but the kitchen sink
into the evaluation document. The most important information may not
find its way into the appraisal form or the ensuing performance
discussion. Most employees agree that the annual performance
evaluation process does little to provide the key insights and
direction they crave. The process typically falls short of the
expectations of managers, employees and human resources
professionals. Those attending this section will learn a simple
approach to the performance evaluation process using tools and
concepts designed to help managers to communicate the most important
information by providing employees with insight into their strengths
and one or two areas for growth and development. They will examine a
case study involving a real life performance scenario and see the
information translated into a two-page performance evaluation
document and then morphed into objectives with milestones designed
to help the employee successfully meet developmental goals.
Jamie co-facilitated the sections on “Starting a
Consulting Business” at our July 2007
“Promoting OD” program, on “OD Consulting” at our November
2007 “Six Ways to Do OD” program, and on “Performance
Management” at our February 2008
“Best Practices and New Ideas” program and was interviewed in
our May
2007 newsletter. She has presented for many organizations,
including the Linkage 2008 Best of Talent Management Summit.
Jamie Resker originator of the Performance Continuum
Feedback Method, which provides a new solution for systematically
diagnosing employee performance issues and development opportunities
and crafting messages about even the most sensitive performance
issues that come across as both honest yet hearable. She teaches
diagnostic and communications skills that through a series of exact
steps, allow managers to provide non-threatening performance
feedback to drive measurable and positive changes in employee
behavior and performance. Prior to starting EPS, Jamie held
senior HR positions in a variety of business sectors. Jamie is
also the Director of the Work Systems Affiliates
Performance Management Practice Group. She
has presented for many organizations, including the 2008 Linkage Best of Talent Management
Summit.
“Program Evaluation” will be presented by Mark
Biddle, Director of Experiential Learning, Babson
College. This session will focus on the learning aspect
of program evaluation and will invite those participating to think
about incorporating learning into an evaluation design, as they
consider what constitutes new learning, how new learning is
recognized and valued, what are some of the ongoing problems
encountered by the participants, and suggestions for “
enrolling” the client in the learning goal.
Mark co-facilitated the section on “OD in the Public
Sector and Education” as our June 2008
“Broadening the Scope of OD Practice” program. He has worked as
an independent consultant and, as Director of Research and
Evaluation for Search
Canada and served on the national executive board of the Canadian
Evaluation Society.
“Team Assessment” will be presented by Andy
Winig, President of Improv
Andy. Participants in this session will learn Experience
Collective Engineering,™ providing a roadmap for mastering
leadership skills at both the individual and team levels. They will
first assess proficiency in the three core leadership skills, then
take it one step further and learn how to use that information to
develop leadership expertise and improve team performance at all
levels of management.
Andy was interviewed in our March
2008 newsletter. He helps individuals improve team performance in a
dynamic and interactive learning environment where they can practice
leadership skills, strategies and techniques. He has been an
engineering manager, worked for an internet startup company, and has
a background in improvisational theater.
Improv Andy developed the
Collective Engineer Leadership model, which provides a
roadmap for helping employees master leadership skills and
techniques at both the individual and team levels. It
incorporates the Three Pillars of Leadership™, in which employees
at all management levels learn how to develop leadership expertise
and improve team performance. Employees practice leadership
skills, techniques and strategies in a dynamic, interactive learning
environment that fosters personal growth and professional
development. Andy has presented for many organizations, including
Boston Business Builders and the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce.
A Visual Language and Framework for Organization Design and
Diagnosis
When:
March 24,
5:30 PM to 9:00 PM (first 30 minutes networking)
Location:
Novartis
Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc. 200 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139
Directions:
sent with
RSVP acknowledgement
Parking:
parking
garage across the street at
600 Technology Square
Public Transportation:
Tech Square is a
short walk (4 minutes) up Main Street from the Kendall Red Line stop
and is on the EZ Ride bus route
Cost: Free for members¹; $30 for nonmembers ($20 for BACAPT, CCC, ICFNE,
IMCNE, PCC and SPC members and for nonmember students)
RSVP to:
programs@learninggroup.org
¹Thank you for helping with the $10 voluntary meeting fee
Paul Kampas will facilitate our understanding and practice
applying a visual diagnostic tool to improve organizational design
and diagnosis. Paul presented on this topic at OD Network
Conference 2008 in Austin TX last October.
Many professionals -- including architects, engineers, physicians,
and scientists -- have a wealth of visual tools to support their
design and/or diagnostic activities. Executives and their OD
consultants, on the other hand, have a dearth 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 and applies a visual language and toolset that Paul
has developed for 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. In the break-out session, participants will have
the opportunity to practice this visual approach by assessing an
organizational system of their choice using a template provided.
For those
seeking to learn more about this approach, Paul’s beautifully
illustrated, full-color book on this topic --
Mastering Organizational Architecture -- will be on sale at the
meeting for 20% off.
Paul Kampas
is a fellow ODLG member, an innovative researcher, consultant, and
educator with an outstanding talent for visualization. As founder
and principal of
Kampas Research,
his practice includes organization design, strategic planning, and
market/brand positioning. He has articles published in Harvard
Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, and has co-authored
a book with Edgar Schein on the rise and fall of Digital Equipment
Corporation (DEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC). He has taught strategy and
management courses in MBA and executive education programs at
Cornell’s Johnson School of Management and at Babson College. He
holds bachelors and masters degrees in computer system design from
Cornell University.
HELPING: How to Offer, Give and Receive Help
When:
April 29,
5:30 PM to 9:00 PM (first 30 minutes networking)
Location:
BBN
Technologies 10 Moulton Street, Cambridge MA 02138
Directions: sent with RSVP acknowledgement
Parking:
Available free at the location.
Public Transportation:
The location is about a ten minute walk from Alewife
Station on the MBTA Red Line. There is also a stop there on MBTA bus
routes 74 (Harvard –
Belmont)
and 78 (Harvard – Arlmont).
Cost:
Free for members¹; $30 for nonmembers ($20 for BACAPT, CCC, ICFNE,
IMCNE, PCC and SPC members and for nonmember students)
RSVP to:
programs@learninggroup.org
¹Thank you for
helping with the $10 voluntary meeting fee
Join us for
an evening with Ed Schein to discuss his new book HELPING: How to
Offer, Give and Receive Help. Ed will discuss how this book evolved
from the earlier Process Consultation books and how it might apply
not only to consultation but also to Education, Medicine, Law,
Social Work and other helping professions. The talk will review the
key points of the book emphasizing how Helping is a complex social
process that requires understanding of social economics and social
theater. The traps and pitfalls of helping and what to do about
them will be discussed and illustrated. Signed copies of the book
will be available for sale.
Description ¹
Helping is a fundamental human activity, but it can also be a
frustrating one. All too often, to our bewilderment, our sincere
offers of help are resented, resisted, or refused—and we often react
the same way when people try to help us. Why is it so difficult to
provide or accept help? How can we make the whole process easier?
Many different words are used for helping: assisting, aiding,
advising, caregiving, coaching, consulting, counseling, guiding,
mentoring, supporting, teaching, and many more. In this seminal book
on the topic, corporate culture and organizational development guru
Ed Schein analyzes the social and psychological dynamics common to
all types of helping relationships, explains why help is often not
helpful, and shows what any would-be helpers must do to ensure that
their assistance is both welcomed and genuinely useful.
¹ Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Creating
and Maintaining
High-Value Relationships
When:
May
21
Location:
Suffolk
Law School, Boston
In
whatever role we work and however experience we may be, a paramount
need is to have the relationships that enable to us to work with
success. Join with us as we share ideas on this important but
neglected topic with “Mr. Business Wisdom” and former Learning
Group presenter Harvy
Simkovits.
Cultivating
Leadership Presence
When:
June
24
Location:
Regis
College, College Hall, Room 202, Weston
Carla
Kimball of Riverways
will lead this highly interactive and experiential program on
developing leadership at all levels. Participants will use small
group discussion to, define leadership presence, consider why it is
important, and identify, obstacles to its development. access their
own presence by experiencing it in within themselves, using simple
body-oriented exercises, and practice speaking together with
presence in small groups.
Four
Views of Leadership
When:
July
Location:
Tentatively
scheduled for downtown location
Join
us as we examine the perhaps most important current organizational
issue, developing, promoting and exercising leadership. Participants will have their choice
of two of four presentations, followed by a whole group review and
discussion session.
Solution-Focused
Organizational Development
When:
August
Location:
Tentatively
scheduled for downtown location
Bob
Faw of Organizational
Growth Consulting, who led our September
2003 “Whole Scale Change” program, returns with new learning
on a Solution-Focus™ approach to creating positive change.
Best
OD Practices in Six Work Environment
When:
September
Location:
Tentatively
scheduled for suburban location
Join
us as we continue to explore best OD practice in different
industries and environments. Participants will have their choice of
discussion groups on doing OD biotech/pharmaceuticals, financial
services, government, health care, nonprofits, and virtual
environments, followed by whole group discussion on lessons learned
and follow-up ideas.
Surfacing
Undiscussables
When:
October
Location:
Tentatively
scheduled for downtown location
Paul
Weisman and Michele
Simos will lead this a learning experience on an issue that is
critical practitioners but is infrequently given the attention it
merits. Participants will learn how much “undiscussables” are
costing their organization, discover tried-and-true methods of
surfacing undiscussables to get the best results, and gain insight
into how they can create a culture of openness and dialogue.
Building
Trust in Organizations
When:
November
Location:
Tentatively
scheduled for suburban location
"It
all depends on trust" is an important, if clichéd, principle.
But how do you get it? In
this program, those attending will have their choice of learning on
tow out of four different explorations on OD practitioners can
obtain the trust in their initiatives, how leaders can build trust,
and related issues. Following there will be a whole group session on
comparisons and commonalities, lessons learned and best ideas, and
possibilities for follow-up learning.
OD
Meets the World
When:
December
Location:
Tentatively
scheduled for downtown location
Using
our six small-group format, this program will offer shared
discussion and learning on how OD practitioners should deal with six
"challenges of our time". Participants will have their
choice of discussion groups on "Building an OD Brand and
Improving Its Image," "Effects of Technology,"
Establishing OD Career Paths," "Globalization and Cultural
Diversity," "Identifying Hot and New Practice Areas,"
and "Marketing Ourselves and Our Practice," followed by a
whole groups synthesizing session.
The
Funny Leader
When:
Postponed
due to January 15 weather
Join us as we get serious about humor in a
program that especially exemplifies the Learning Group principle
that learning should be fun!
Leaders
and managers often realize that humor is an important tool that may
make leadership easier and facilitate success. But many are still
saddled with the idea that either
they are genetically “not-funny” or that humor is inappropriate
given the seriousness of the task or their position in the
organization. Participants will learn a variety of useful tools and
teaching techniques to help leaders be funnier while getting more
accomplished - and perhaps even having fun.
Jonathan
Mirin, Artistic Directory, Piti
Theatre Company, will present the unique fusion of the
performing arts and OD that he showed in presenting at our August
2007 "OD Meets the Arts" and January
2007 "Riding the Wave" programs. Jonathan
integrated his arts background with consulting for companies like
Lehman Brothers, Power and Systems, World Education, and Dramaworks.
Participants
in this highly interactive program will learn tools for
interpersonal interaction that can be applied in work and life
situations and that they will be able to teach to others. They will
gain insight into the theory and practice of human dynamics in a
unique and entertaining way. As a result, they will become more
effective in their work and better equipped for life situations.
In
the first part, we will learn tools for using the comic point of
view, structuring the use of humor, practicing important
presentations, interpreting physical cues, and guiding our own
responses in interpersonal situations. We will then cover the
applications of these principles and tools in organizational
interventions and in life coaching.
Dealing with
difficult customers, employees and projects are perennial issues for
managers and OD practitioners and in these troubled times such
problems are more frequent and the need for being able to see the
funny side of difficulties is more salient.
Barry
Oshry, President of Power + Systems and leader of our August
2005 “Organization Workshop” and December
2006 “What a Way to Make a Living” programs, says that
“Jonathan has
a rare combination of theater expertise - playwriting, directing -
and organization expertise. He has written and directed high quality
videos - very funny and very informative - for Power + Systems. He
has also directed our organization theater play What a Way to
Make a Living.”
Following
its following its world premiere at the New York International
Fringe Festival, Jonathan’s
Riding the
Wave has received performances at Boston Playwrights
Theatre, Harvard Business School, and NYU's Stern School of
Management. For a video clip of
the play, see http://tinyurl.com/66kx7o.
The
Coordinating Committee has approved other programs, which remain to
be scheduled, for the 2009 calendar and for future production as
available. These include programs on OD
interventions, on OD books, and on comparative
methods of problem solving.
We
welcome program proposals, program ideas, and program suggestions,
which may be sent to programs@learninggroup.com.
We also urge you to give your input on proposed programs on our
"ballot page".
Volunteers
are always needed to work on program production. If you would like
to be involved, write to programs@learninggroup.org.
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