Dialogic Organization Development and Generative Change: Helping Leaders Lead Emergent Change

Gervase will provide a brief overview to Dialogic Organization Development, and then describe some of his work in helping leaders understand emergent change approaches and help them develop the capacity to lead an emergent, generative change process.  Dialogic Organization Development (OD) is a mindset about leadership and organizational change based on conclusions from three decades of studying successful transformational change. Focusing on the patterns of thinking and organizing that emerge from networks of meaning-making, the intent of Dialogic OD is to promote rapid transformation by disrupting (or working with the current disruption of) current patterns and engaging the right people in conversations that generate new, more useful ideas, meanings and beliefs to better manage complex problems and create more agile, adaptive teams and organizations. It encompasses a variety of methods, from one-on-one coaching to very large group events. The Generative Change Model is the focus of Gervase’s most recent book, The Dynamics of Generative Change, and helps managers and consultants understand how to lead an agile, rapid, transformation effort.

 About our Presenter — Dr. Gervase Bushe

Gervase (pronounced Jervis) Bushe is the Professor of Leadership and Organization Development at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser U in Vancouver, Canada.  His career spans four decades of transforming organizational structures, cultures and processes away from command and control toward more collaborative work systems.  He is an award-winning author of over 100 papers and four books on organizational change, leadership, teams and teamwork. Gervase has consulted to blue chip corporations and start-ups, public sector and business corporations, in a variety of sectors. Clear Leadership (2009) has been translated into 7 languages and over 100 certified facilitators have trained tens of thousands of managers in North America, Europe and Asia in his models and methods.  Dialogic Organization Development: The Theory and Practice of Transformational Change, co-edited with Robert Marshak (2015) builds on his ground-breaking research into processes of generative leadership and change, and is transforming the OD discipline. In 2019 he co-founded the Bushe-Marshak Institute for Dialogic OD, which offers online courses and certification in Dialogic OD,  and is the editor of the BMI Series in Dialogic Organization Development. Since 2016 HR Magazine in the UK has identified him as one of the 30 most influential HR Thinkers. In the last ranking he was 12th. A chapter on his life and work appears in the Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers.  For more information and links to his papers go to www.gervasebushe.ca

For more information, contact Maggie Shreve at admin@odnchicago.org or 312.730.0041 (mobile/text)