Main Event: Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Dr. David Bright, ODN-MV president, welcomed guests and acknowledged Lisa Beutel and UD’s Center for Leadership and Executive Development’s generous hosting of the event.

In a brief introduction of ODN-MV’s vision and cycle of discovery, David highlighted the 2012 Winter-Spring program and acknowledged our partners in the community, including the University of Dayton, Sinclair, and WPAFB’s Institute of Technology. Wright State University will sponsor our Spring Event scheduled for May 10.

David asked participants to introduce themselves and to share their personal interests for this session. He then introduced the speakers, Michelle Tashakor, MBA and VP, Sirocco and Dr. Jason Combs, Ph.D and President, Sirocco.

Michelle Tashakor introduced and defined virtue as, quoting Aristotle, “those qualities of the soul that make men capable for performing noble deeds”. Virtue was further distinguished as affecting interactions with others, because they can be developed rounding out personality traits which are more fixed. Within organizations skills are certainly a key capacity for effectiveness and virtues serve as motivation needed to achieve new results.

Michelle noted the research on virtues includes Robert Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership, Jim Collins’s Good to Great and David Bright’s work in Positive Organizing Scholarship. One guiding principle is the relationship of effectiveness and humility. In Sirocco’s work with charter schools, hospital surgical teams and retreat centers, the value for diversity in thought, temperment and character were represented in a Diversity of Character Exercise. Participants were asked to identify a coworker and choose a virtue from a table of 52 virtues and then list behaviors that embody that virtue. The results seem to provide an expansion for both the coworker who is acknowledged and for the relationship.

Dr. Jason Combs lead a review of the Character Foundations Assessment and the research of Grant Peirce of the Peirce Group. The CFA is a new psychometric instrument that measures character as it relates to an organizational context. It has two primary purposes, to increase individual virtues and develop a balance among virtues. The twenty-two virtues within five dimensions assess integrity, vision, drive, responsibility and influence, chosen because of their prevalence in current business literature. Jason summarized the development of the self-assessment instrument and its validity correlations with MBTI, HBDI and WBI. A lively discussion helped participants think about possible uses within organizations. And a sample report was shared representing the information provided to respondents. The report includes a visual representation of the need for balance among the dimensions, diversity of strengths and developmental areas. As strengths are used to leverage development areas, virtues become fundamental building blocks and a foundation for success. 

An open-space forum at which attendees propose discussion topics and join the dialogue that fits their passion.

Where: Sinclair Community College Learning Center, Miami Valley Research Park, 1900 Founders Drive

When: 7:30-9:30 a.m.

Registration: lanarucks@therucksgroup.com

An informal continuation of the conversation from the September 29 event, “OD in a Complex Environment.” No RSVP necessary.

When: 7:30-9 a.m.

Where: Panera Bread, 2751 Fairfield Commons, Beavercreek

Information: lanarucks@therucksgroup.com

Having just returned from Iraq and Kyrgyzstan, Dr. Dave Fass and Dr. John Elshaw shared the lessons they learned about the practice of OD in highly unstable, fast-changing environments.

Dr. John Elshaw’s presentation about Kyrgyzstan

Dr. Dave Fass’s presentation about Iraq

An open-space forum at which attendees propose discussion topics and join the dialogue that fits their passion.

Registration: lanarucks@therucksgroup.com

We had another wonderful discovery dialog exploring the topic of employee engagement.

Dr. David Bright – ODN MV President opened the event with a review of the ODN-MV mission, to be a community of discovery for practitioners and scholars of Organization Development.  The key principles, actions and outcomes of our vision were highlighted to establish the context for the event and serve as an invitation for session participants to consider becoming members of the Miami Valley chapter.  David also shared ODN-MV’s key dates for 2011 and represented the cycle of discovery and learning.

Event participants were invited to introduce themselves and asked to share what attracted them to this event, what they would like to get out of the event and what unique perspective they bring to our meeting.

Our guest speaker, Mary Miller, former HR and OD Manager, Delphi Brake Operations in Dayton participated in a “fishbowl-interview format” to share her story of “Uplifting Downsizing” in a unique opportunity to represent key principles of positive organizing.

To begin, David outlined the principle of managing for adaption with actions focused to elevate strengths and tap virtues as compared to the classic model of managing for control with actions that are intended to fix or avoid problems.

Further introduced were two conditions for adaptive organizing including, the ability to build relationships and the use of feedback to provide purpose, energy and to keep us on track.

Completing the approach for the discussion, David shared a few observations about organizations in crisis including, the strong incentive to suppress negativity and a survival instinct/mentality to hunker down.

Mary shared her story illustrating another important OD principle: The way an organization handles adversity is the true test of culture and character.

We were in crisis, as an organization and individually.  We were all taken by surprise with Delphi having been ranked as one of the top 75 businesses in the country.  The facts stood, we were bankrupt!  And, five months later we found ourselves standing two years out from permanently closing the plant, required to deliver perfect product to our customers with 84% of the unionized employees opting to take the offered buyout.   So with creditors reluctant to ship parts and employees in complete turmoil the management team was facing large-scale change with one defining context being, we were all in this together.  We knew that we had to define our bedrock (being those things that weren’t going to change during the next two years). What emerged was a commitment to a set of leadership practices including, listen don’t talk, asking over and over, what do employees need and do those served grow? We didn’t promise anything we couldn’t deliver and the results we achieved were outstanding.

For the organization:

• Safety: no lost time accidents in the last million hours worked
• Quality: 99.99%+ parts produced perfectly
• Delivery: 99.5%+ on time
• Costs: reduced by $160 M between 2006-2008

For each salaried employee:

• Forty hours of career-transition training (starting 1 year prior to the closing)
• A plan for every employee (to help each person be ready for their next career move)
• Leading Yourself through Change Program for employees and their partners.
• Financial planning presentations by outside financial experts to help employees asses their situations and plan for upcoming changes

Note: The details Mary shared focused primarily on the salaried employees because the union contract specified what processes and resources would be made available for the hourly workforce during this transition. However, on a daily basis the leadership team’s efforts focused on moving the entire organization forward by helping all employees.

We each saw this crisis as an opportunity to be the best we had ever been and on the last day we knew that together we had done it!

Participant Table Discussions – A theme of insights were shared including:

• If not for the crisis could these results have happened?
• The need for leaders to have foresight
• How to define the bedrock
• Crisis has normal barriers break down
• How to develop trust in times of non-crisis
• Employees as leaders from any chair

We had a great time at our last main event: Building and creating partnerships through innovation

Our panelists Mel Marsh (Acorn Consulting) and Dr. Todd Dewett (Wright State University) gave a live-demonstration of partnership between scholar and practitioner as they engaged participants in the event’s questions:

• What does it take to build an environment where people are most likely to be creative?
• How do we nurture the innovation cycle in our organizations?
• Can a partnership help push creativity and innovation?

Mel Marsh & Todd Dewett

For more information, join us at the Deep Dive scheduled for November 16 at 7:30 am, 2010 at the Panera Bread 2751 Fairfield Commons Boulevard.

Thanks for your strong response to all of our 2010 events!

Your executive committee is working hard to plan even better events for 2011.  Stay tuned for more information.

Presentation – From surviving to thriving

In order for organizations to survive in an increasingly competitive and changing marketplace they must be flexible and adaptive.

The challenge is: How is this achieved?

The  Organizational Development for Miami Valley had a great event on Thursday, June 10th presented by Dr. David Bright, Assistant Professor at Wright State University.

About the Presenter:
Dr. David Bright is an award-winning professor of organization development, organizational behavior, and leadership in the Department of Management and International at the Raj Soin College of Business, Wright State University. Additionally, he has worked with local school districts, community development groups, research organizations, banks, health care providers, a technology company, and government entities such as the U.S. Navy and the Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Bright has a passion for exploring and nurturing the dynamics that build thriving organizations. He lives in the Centerville, Ohio area with his wife, Amy, and their family.

Sponsored by: