Expanding Your Power (This Experiment is Real)…

Is a big window now open for you—to do what you could not have done three months ago? The painful disruption of COVID and Anti-Racism may be a brief, once-in-a-lifetime “unfreezing,” a chance to deeply change our organizations. Yet, if we don’t focus our larger power quickly, our desperate leaders may quickly lock into decades of new dysfunction.

Even as power is abused, feared, misunderstood and ignored, we will experiment together in this Chicago ODN Zoom: how can we build larger power into our work, to create a forward leap—while the window is open?

We will explore our own differing perceptions of power and engage in an experimental Power Lab. And then, some of us will help each other. The “door” is open to you to join our 3-week individual power experiments.

This OD Network of Chicago session builds upon Bruce’s recent national conference experiment with the Organization Design Forum. There, in June, the group and the follow-up were global; maybe here, we in this Chicago Zoom will “go global,” too!

NOTE:  The day of this program, registered participants will receive an email with instructions for logging into the Zoom meeting.

About Our Presenter :  Bruce Mabee

Bruce Mabee has consulted over 135 client organizations in projects of strategy, teamwork and change. Half of his work has been in consulting relationships lasting 5-10 years and longer; designing “power” into them made the larger outcomes stick. The clients have included Walgreens, Motorola and Conoco-Phillips, creative non-profits such as Working Bikes, and governmental units of the US and Scotland.

Bruce has taught topics of leadership, strategy and power in nine graduate schools, including Benedictine, Lake Forest and the University of Chicago. He holds an MS in OD, and a BFA in Industrial Design. He co-created the Impact Awards of the Chicago OD Network, where he is a founder and former president.

Expanding Your Power is a key element in Bruce’s upcoming book, The Impact Kit, which integrates power into agile innovation and design thinking.