Tuesday, June 21, 2011
4:30 - 6:00 pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Featured guests: Mark Tomizawa and Barry Stein
We're waiting for a short bio from Mark, and have received the following from Barry:
Dr. Stein is President of Goodmeasure, Inc., co‑founded with Rosabeth Moss Kanter, which advises executives and organizations on productivity, innovation, leadership and design. Representative past clients include Ford, IBM, Washington Hospital Center, P&G, BID, AA, Royal Bank of Canada, Robert Bosch, the UK Foreign Office, OTA, NSF and the US Congress.The topic that Mark and Barry have chosen to discuss is structuring success. Here's the summary that Barry gave us:
With IBM, Dr. Stein developed a user-guided web suite of leadership and management tools. One version is being used in US public schools, and a second version (BoldStroke) is available more generally. He has published in many professional journals, books and magazines, on both technical (materials science and pattern recognition) and social issues. Life in Organizations (with RM Kanter) was named a best business book of the year. Quality of Work Life in Action was written for the AMA. He co-authored The Challenge of Organizational Change. Organizations: A Repair Manual, is due in 2012. He is also a frequent public speaker, and wrote and hosted "Management Speaks," ten videotapes on business issues.
Earlier, Dr. Stein was on the senior staff of Arthur D. Little, Inc., Research Manager at the Center for CED, and President of OD Associates. He has taught Organization Behavior at Harvard, Socio-economic Development at MlT, Management at UNH and was a Visiting Lecturer at Yale. He holds a SB, SM (ChemE) and PhD (Planning) from MIT and was elected to Sigma Xi.
Almost without exception, our hopes and wishes, both as individuals and enterprises hinge on our success at persuading people to help us raise the odds of realizing those wishes – or at least to avoid people’s acting to oppose those wishes. Some of this is inevitably a matter of individual persuasion, but the heavy lifting almost always requires working with and through social units such as groups, organizations and communities.After the conclusion of our Ethos Roundtable session, we will stroll down the hall to enjoy the good company, charming venue, and free food at the 501 Tech Club, which is generously underwritten by TechFoundation. The 501 Tech Club is the monthly gathering of technology professionals who work with nonprofit organizations.
The overall record of attempts to bring about significant and deliberate change is pretty awful; details vary but most experts agree that about 2/3 of these efforts have either been only marginally success or outright failures. Most experts also agree that the root problems are usually related to cultural constraints and individual resistance. However, since most change approaches inevitably stress just these strategies, that seems to be asking for trouble – and so it proves in practice. We really need new ways.
The core issue, in my view, is to understand what, exactly, brings about the actions – and results – we seek. What makes deliberate change possible at all? Can we reliably increase our success rate? Can we cut the cost, the time, the struggles? Can we even imagine a situation in which those involved, even passively, actually enjoy the trip? I think the answer to all of those questions is: Yes. The trick is to understand how change really comes about in social systems, and particularly, to learn to take advantage of the context in which the people are embedded.
All Ethos Roundtable attendees are welcome at the Boston 501 Tech Club, and vice versa.
Please remember that there's never any need to make a reservation to attend Ethos Roundtable events. Just come if you can, and feel free to invite others! However, if you're planning to attend the Boston 501 Tech Club event at 6:00 pm, we ask that you send an email to Kathleen Sherwin of TechFoundation (ksherwin AT techfoundation DOT org). Since TechFoundation is providing the free food, it's both courteous and prudent to let her know how much to order.
See you on June 21st!
