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Synergy at Work: Gathering Momentum for Meaningful Performance
Boston, Massachusetts • November 17–19, 2008
Pegasus Communications

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Accelerating Performance: Leaping Tall Buildings Together
Victoria Castle and Yvonne Zick, Castle Enterprising

As long as humans are involved, there will be turf wars, competing agendas, and self-protection. Likewise, there will also be creativity, care, and collective wisdom just waiting to be tapped. How do we tilt the scales toward the latter? How can we move through life in a way that allows genuine connection with others, our inner core, and the environment? This experiential workshop uses the inner technology of Somatics—the recognition that the self is indistinguishable from the body or lived experience—to close the gap between what we want to be/do/say and how we operate.

In this session, participate in body-centered practices that increase your capacity to:

Victoria CastleVictoria Castle, Master Somatic Coach, coaches Fortune 500 organizations and social entrepreneurs. She is the author of The Trance of Scarcity and the co-founder of Hot Women for a Cool Planet, a grassroots initiative that leverages the power of connection to create a future where all can thrive. Victoria teaches at post-graduate and professional programs internationally and was named among the 100 top thought leaders by Personal Excellence magazine.

Yvonne Zick is a parent educator specializing in helping parents move from historical patterns to intentional actions. She is trained in somatics with an emphasis on trauma and chemical prevention methodologies for parents of teens. Yvonne is a writer, motivational speaker, and mother.

 

 

Taking Social Innovation to Scale: Working with the Lifecycle of Emergence
Deborah Frieze, Berkana; Tim Merry, The Shire

Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible. When separate, local efforts connect with each other as networks, then strengthen as communities of practice, a new system emerges at a greater level of scale. This system always possesses greater power and influence than is possible through planned, incremental change. Debbie and Tim will share stories and lessons from the Berkana Exchange, a “trans-local” learning community of places around the world where this model for change has become a lived experience.

Debbie FriezeDeborah Frieze is co-president of the Berkana Institute, a global non-profit leadership organization started by Margaret Wheatley. She arrived at Berkana to launch the Berkana Exchange, which connects leadership learning centers around their shared commitment to making a difference in and beyond their communities. Debbie has an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Tim MerryTim Merry supports organizations and communities to reach collective clarity and take wise action to improve their lives and the lives of people in their sphere of influence. He developed his craft as founder and partner in Engage! Interact in the Netherlands and currently works as a facilitator and free agent in Canada. Tim is director of a community leadership and social entrepreneurship training center in Canada called the Shire.

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To Understand Performance, Follow the Joy
Anne Murray Allen, Allen and Associates; Dennis Sandow, Reflexus Company; Nick Zeniuk, Retired Executive, Ford Motor Company

Today, there are many tools and approaches on the market to understand and map social networks. These tools, if used properly, are important because they show that social collaboration is the source of optimum performance. But if social networks are the answer, what’s the question? Research from around the world has shown that, when we study performance in social systems, we also study well-being. Because they generally promote higher levels of well-being, self-organizing social systems tend to outperform traditional hierarchical organizations and create social well-being at the same time.

In this session, you will:

Anne Murray-AllenAnne Murray Allen is founder and principal in her own consulting firm, AMA Associates, a practice dedicated to working with clients in building healthy performance-based organizations. Prior to launching this practice, Anne retired from Hewlett-Packard Company, where she held various management and executive positions. She has co-authored an article on “The Nature of Social Collaboration” and is currently engaged with her co-presenters in writing a book. Anne holds an MBA from the University of Denver.

Dennis SandowDennis Sandow is the president of Reflexus Company and, using social action research, studies how social, biological and financial well-being are interdependent components in social systems. In 1985, he joined the University of Oregon managing federally funded research grants that studied social and financial phenomena in business using qualitative research, quantitative research, social network analysis, and human capital measurement. He is the author of Integration at Work: Multiple Methodologies in Research, “Extending systems thinking to social systems,” and co-author of “The Nature of Social Collaboration.”

Nick ZeniukNick Zeniuk is an internationally recognized consultant, lecturer, and executive coach on organizational performance and learning, focusing on strategy, leadership, and organizational development. As a senior executive of Ford Motor Company, he directed up to $5 billion of luxury car business and investment worldwide. Nick is also the co-author of Project Based Learning and contributor to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and The Dance of Change.

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Enhancing Continuous Improvement Through Organizational Learning
Jason Schulist, DTE Energy; George Roth, MIT Sloan School of Management

Continuous improvement efforts such as Lean Six Sigma have become standard in most organizations. These methods are practiced by technical experts and industrial engineers, so few organizations have explored their organizational learning foundation. Jason and George discuss the basis of lean and continuous improvement programs in organizational learning, and show that desired improvements require learning to extend beyond the focal organization into its value stream and community. As DTE’s Director of Continuous Improvement, Jason illustrates these ideas with examples of his efforts to initiate collective action within DTE and the wider community in which DTE operates.

Jason SchulistJason Schulist is the director of continuous improvement for DTE Energy. He focuses on improving DTE’s business processes to create measurable results. Jason works at the intersection between lean, six sigma, organizational learning, and sustainability issues. A liaison officer for the Society of Organizational Learning and founding member of Menlo Lab Detroit, Jason is especially interested in developing models for sustainable local community.

George RothGeorge Roth, principle research associate, MIT Sloan School of Management, leads the Enterprise Change Research area of the Lean Aerospace Initiative program, a joint MIT Management and School of Engineering initiative aimed at transforming aerospace companies and government. His recent studies examine learning initiatives across multiple organizations, building upon his ongoing research in organizational culture, leadership, learning, and change. George is a coauthor of The Dance of Change.

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Flexing Our Systems Thinking Muscles
George Richardson, State University of New York at Albany

Whether reading today’s headlines or reflecting on a classic problem that persists despite our determination to conquer it, there is no shortage of complex challenges whose ultimate solution lies in a systems approach. In this session, you will address a universally relevant problem interactively as you move back and forth between small group work and whole-group discussion. Whatever your level of experience, the session format will allow you to exercise and strengthen your skills for working with others on dynamic problems, translating them into systems terms, perceiving stocks and flows and understanding their roles in problem dynamics, and drawing insights from complex causal structures.

In this session, you will:

George RichardsonGeorge P. Richardson is chair of the Department of Public Administration and Policy and professor of public administration, public policy, and information science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the State University of New York at Albany. He is the author of Introduction to System Dynamics Modeling with DYNAMO (1981), Feedback Thought in Social Science and Systems Theory (1991), and the edited collection Modeling for Management: Simulation in Support of Systems Thinking (1996).

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Achieving the Impossible: Personal Sources and Design Principles of Large-Scale Change
Skip Griffin, Dialogos; David Marsing, Retired Executive, Intel Corporation

When Rosa Parks chose not to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery in 1955, her feet were not just tired. Her actions revealed the DNA of a movement—the deliberate, conscious expression of a quality of character and intention that reverberated through a generation of Americans. At the center of any such profound change, whether in a community or a corporation, are always a few people who consciously resonate with and follow a disciplined set of core creative principles. Their shared focus produces “field effects” that shift the ground of action from which everyone operates. Skip and Dave will lead you in exploring the design principles and personal requirements for producing large-scale breakthrough change.

In this session, you will:

Skip GriffinSkip Griffin directs the Leadership Education Practice at Dialogos and consults with corporations on developing effective strategies for socially responsible change. For 15 years, he was the director of community relations and public affairs at the Boston Globe newspaper. Skip has a significant background in civil rights, community organizing, and community education initiatives. He was a plaintiff in the landmark school desegregation case, Griffin v. Prince Edward County, Virginia. Skip holds a BA and master’s of education from Harvard.

David MarsingDavid Marsing is a former senior vice president at Intel Corporation. As a plant manager over Intel’s Fab 11, the world’s largest wafer fab, he accomplished the fastest ramp and then sustained world-class performance, establishing a new benchmark for the industry. He is one of the most creative practitioners in the world in the field of large-scale systems change and has a particular gift for bringing new levels of practical operational insight to any system.

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Accelerating Performance: Leaping Tall Buildings Together
Taking Social Innovation to Scale: Working with the Lifecycle of Emergence

To Understand Performance, Follow the Joy

Enhancing Continuous Improvement Through Organizational Learning
Flexing Our Systems Thinking Muscles
Achieving the Impossible: Personal Sources and Design Principles of Large-Scale Change
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