Creating Sustainable Value? Resolving the Improvement Paradox
Improvement programs come in all shapes and varieties [Six Sigma, Lean Thinking, Re-engineering, Organizational Learning, PDCA, and an unlimited list of home brews]. Given disciplined implementation and management support, most programs yield measurable performance improvement. Yet many corporations eventually drop their support and move on to something else. This phenomenon is called the "Improvement Paradox". The more the organization improves, the more likely it is to face failure. What is going on here? The dynamics of organizational change are at play. Change Leaders go after short-term measurable performance gains in order to build support and momentum. Operational capacity grows faster than growth from market share or new product development can utilize that capacity. On the cost side, direct costs fall faster than indirect costs, leading to faulty pricing decisions [price drops too fast]. In short, performance gains do not show themselves on the bottom line. So?the Research Question: How do we resolve the Paradox?
PRESENTER
Patrick J. O'Brien - Performance Consulting, Inc.

"Balancing" Performance Measurement within Global Organizations: managing integration, (un)learning and change
As organizations moved into the new millennium, they have driven actions to pursue objectives that are commercially desirable, ecologically necessary and morally compelling. Accordingly, the old methods of reporting are proving to be no longer sufficient, and new forms of rigorous corporate disclosure which integrate financial, environmental and social reporting, are starting to take shape (Triple bottom-line reporting). The proposed session aims to explore the nature and role of these "broadened" performance measurement systems`within the processes of managing global organizations and, in particular, the way in which financial and non-financial resources are integrated and managed through a common organizational language.
PRESENTERS
Cristiano Busco - University of Siena, Italy
Elena Giovannoni - University of Siena, Italy

Creating Collaborative Space
Few collaborations describe the internal struggles that participants must resolve to generate actionable knowledge and transformational learning. After four years, we are beginning to understand the process for creating such a space. It has five phases: entry; a tense negotiation period; a period of mutually peripheral understanding of participants' worldviews; a boundary threshold; and the collaborative space's establishment. Measures of success include whether the changes persist over time, whether the participants' behavior changes, and whether others can adapt the methods, mechanisms, and processes elsewhere. The process is lengthy. How can we shorten the time required to create collaborative space?
PRESENTERS
Dan Kowalski - U. S Department of Veterans Affairs
Robert Petzel - U. S Department of Veterans Affairs
Rita Kowalski - U. S Department of Veterans Affairs
Joel Neuman - SUNY at New Paltz
Lyle Yorks - Columbia University

Strategic Planning and Sustainability: Socially Constructing a New Corporate Purpose
This is a story of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) applied to corporate strategic planning with an examination into the tacit economic assumptions of business. The emerging SOAR framework on AI and strategy is introduced. Next, there is a review of one dominant construct underlying strategic planning in the U.S. and an alternate perspective, flowing into a reflection of what could be. Maximization of shareholder wealth as the purpose of the firm is contrasted with the triple bottom line. The inquiry's purpose is not to choose either perspective as correct, distinct from the other, or even good but to inquire and appreciatively reflect into how these are socially constructed with an eye towards creating the change we desire.
PRESENTERS
Jackie Stavros - Lawrence Technological University
Daniel Saint - Benedictine University

Pattern language as a tool in search of a "grammar" - a deep structure - for organizational learning
Is there an underlying set of rules - a grammar - that underlies the creation of a spirit of organizational learning that can help us talk more meaningfully as we try to create a climate for organizational learning across cultural and geographic boundaries? Is there such a grammar that can guide our clients or new practitioners to find their own ways of promoting organizational learning? If so, how might we make this "deep structure" more visible? Still in the early stages of constructing the grammar of this "language," I will present 30 patterns for creating a climate that allows for spirited learning experiences in groups. May be this is just a basic vocabulary at this point, but perhaps a step in the direction of uncovering the grammar. These 30 patterns emerged from the presenter's experience and that of colleagues over 25 years of facilitating organizational learning in public and private organizational settings in Africa, the U.S., the Middle East and South East Asia.
PRESENTER
Sylvia Vriesendorp - Management Sciences for Health

Measuring the Impact of Leadership Development
The session will describe the experience and results 'to date' from the "Leading in a Learning Organization' program offered by the Centre for Excellence in Learning at the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA). The program design is based on the five disciplines of the learning organization. Interest in the program and subsequent application of the learning in the workplace has been remarkable. Follow-up focus groups and interviews with leaders and 'observers' indicate understanding, application and results. VIHA is seeking collaboration and advice on measuring the return on investment of this leadership development program.
PRESENTER
Terrie Conway - Vancouver Island Health Authority

Regulation of Safety in High Hazard Industries: Balancing Learning and Control
This session invites practitioners and scholars interested in safety and learning in high-hazard organizations to join an inquiry about the relationship between industry member organizations and regulators. Regulators are in a position to promote safety learning, yet their control function stands in the way of the kind of shared inquiry that can promote safety learning. The focal industry will be health care, which has in recent years seen a dramatic increase in attention devoted to patient safety. The session will explore parallels between health care, safety regulation in the nuclear power and aviation industries, and environmental regulation of industry.
PRESENTER
Peter Rivard - Boston College

Thinking Clearly within Complex Social Systems To Halve Extreme Poverty World-wide by 2015
Influencing the human ability to think clearly within complex systems provides an exciting yet difficult area of research, encompassing a wide range of phenomenon such as information processing, perception, interpretation, mental models, detail and dynamic complexity, judgment and decision making, and system impacts. Providing a bridge between complex systems and the human understanding of them is particularly difficult for theory and method. The purpose of this research is to develop and test theories on clear thinking in complex social systems.
PRESENTERS
Jim Ritchie-Dunham - Institute for Strategic Clarity / MIT
Rafael Callejas - CARE
Steve Waddell - Tellus Institute
John Carroll - MIT

The climate change challenge: the role of science-based stakeholder dialogues in creating knowledge for mitigation and adaptation
Science-based stakeholder dialogues aim at linking scientists with the world of businesses and NGOs and providing various stakeholders access to scientific research results. An inter-organisational learning process is a challenging effort in particular since the scientific and business worlds are very different. As a consequence of the collapse of the fact/value dichotomy as suggested by Hilary Putnam, dialogues and the exchange of arguments become important at the intersection of science and society. The session will explore practical experiences and conceptual frameworks of science-based stakeholder dialogues related to climate change and energy transition. The European Climate Forum (ECF) serves as a practical example.
PRESENTER
Martin Welp - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact

Designing and conducting a collaborative SOL research project
In the summer of 2003 Jean Bartunek proposed a research project that would be carried out in collaboration with SOL staff, the facilitators of the core competencies course, and Jordi Trullen, her research assistant. The research is beginning this year, and is expected to continue for some time. Our aim in this presentation is to describe some of the experience of the multiple participants to this point in the project, with the hope that this description might be instructive for those interested in carrying out collaborative research projects within SOL.We will address the research from the perspectives of the academic researchers, the SOL staff members involved, the newly formed SOL IRB, (and the facilitators of the core course)
PRESENTERS
Jean Bartunek
Sherry Immediato - The Society for Organizational Learning
Frank Schneider - The Society for Organizational Learning
Barry Sugarman - The Society for Organizational Learning
Jordi Trullen
Beth Jandernoa
Robert Hanig

The SoL Sustainability Consortium: What We Can Learn From a Collaborative Self-Organizing Entity
A Sustainability Consortium of multinational corporations and non-governmental organizations fostered by the Society for Organizational Learning was formed in 1998 to catalyze and document learning in pursuit of inter-organizational learning in pursuit of sustainable enterprise. The Consortium has evolved its practices, governance, and focus over time in confronting the challenges of a complex and uncertain problem and a broad set of participants with varied experience and needs. Our presentations will focus on some of the key practices, such as collaboration, and key projects, such as the Materials Pooling project, that characterize the Consortium.
PRESENTERS
John Carroll - MIT
Peter Senge
Sarah LeRoy
Katrin Kaufer
Joe Laur

KIN SoL: The Knowledge and Innovation Network of the Society for Organizational Learning
An interactive presentation by Global Stewards (Goran, Dennis and Nick) on the activities of KINSoL in Europe, Middleast, Asia, and the United States--with particular emphasis on the emerging projects in China. KINSoL is exploring the nature of "knowing" and its foundation in "doing" as reflected in organizational performance--as measured by social well being, biological well being and economic well being. KinSoL activities are rooted at the intersection of research, practice and capacity building with the following questions in mind: 1. What are the organizational structures that enable performance? 2. What is the purpose of leadership? 3. What are the most effective methods that enable organizational transformation?
PRESENTERS
Goran Carstedt
Dennis Sandow
Nick Zeniuk

Learning through Silence & Dialogue: Building Sustainable Community Culture
Ancient Confucians regarded knowing "how to stop the mind" as a prerequisite for authentic learning - "to become fully human." This research aims to re-discover, re-assess, and re-integrate ancient mind/body energy-field cultivation practice as a fundamental individual and collective learning technique towards intersubjective and human-Nature experiential interconnectedness, empathy, and wholeness. Such an experiential learning may well prove to be essential to facilitating authentic communal dialogue practice, creating new ways of being and relating to others that are naturally (silently) compassionate, communicative, meaningful, and sustainable, thus helping dissolve the root cause of many of today's most pressing psycho-physical, socio-ecological, and organizational conditions.
PRESENTER
Mette S. Husemoen - MIT Sloan School of Management
C. Will Zhang - Wufang Health and Wholeness

A Healthier Approach to Cutting Health Care Costs
This session outlines a new approach to cutting hospital costs that can significantly improve outcomes for patients and job satisfaction for nurses in ways that are improvable and sustainable. Among the advocates for this approach is the union representing nurses in Pennsylvania hospitals (District 1199P/SEIU). Participants will have the opportunity to explore why conventional approaches to cutting hospital costs are counterproductive and what makes this new approach produce better results for patients, nurses, and the bottom line.
PRESENTER
Pete Carlson - Peter E. Carlson & Associates

Executive Forum on Corporate Citizenship: A University/Business Action Learning Collaboration
This forum brings together senior managers from nine global companies and a team of researchers to study and advance the integration of corporate citizenship into the business structure and operations in the represented firms. Started in fall, 2002, this two-year forum involves biennial meetings of company senior managers and researchers along with regular interviews, conference calls, and site visits. Each firm serves as a "live" case study of the development of citizenship in a different industry, geography, and corporate context. Forum members gain an in-depth understanding of the developmental trajectories of citizenship and offer advice to one another. The researchers compare development across firms allowing a more nuanced and textured understanding of this type of organizational change (vs. a singular model) and at the impact of action learning in each of them.
PRESENTERS
Philip Mirvis - Boston College
Julie Manga - Boston College
Steve Rochlin - Boston College
Kristen Zecchi - Boston College

Embedded Environmental Metrics
Previous research suggests a gap between different management levels perceptions of environmental practices and metrics. Additionally, a chasm exists between firms who are the innovators or early adopters of environmental practices and other firms who may be considered the early majority, late majority, or laggards. In this business environment, firms are finding metrics increasingly important. However, a dearth of information is available to guide firms in developing strategies, practices, and implementation approaches to achieving effective environmental metric integration into measurement systems. The information presented in this session will summarize empirical research conducted with ten leading environmental manufacturing firms, and the results of a large-scale environmental metrics survey in the U.S.
PRESENTER
Robert Sroufe - Boston College

Co-Evolutionary Sustainability: Renewal and Regeneration of Communities and Organisations
Organisations and communities decline - many die but some have gone through a remarkable process of renewal and regeneration that offers profound learning. For that process to continue and to become sustainable they needed to learn to co-evolve with a constantly changing environment. The presentation will propose advanced ideas for a collaborative, action-research project, using a theory of complex social systems and an integrated methodology (of quantitative and qualitative tools and techniques) developed by the Complexity Group at the London School of Economics, UK, that offers rigorous triangulation of data and of findings and facilitates the co-creation of enabling frameworks.
PRESENTER
Eve Mitleton-Kelly - London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Using Reflective Practice Research to Address the Triple Bottom Line
As researcher-practitioners, we are committed to creating new knowledge that leads to liberating alternatives. By this we mean new pathways beyond binary polarities, options which occurred to no one in the system before the intervention, or those which were considered impossible and were thus ruled out. Such knowledge must be usable and generalizable toward the promotion of alternatives to current ways of organizing and measuring results. We have found that researchers may employ notions of "rigor" which impede to the discovery, creation, and enactment of liberating alternatives, while practitioners' ideas of "relevance" can have the same effect. In our interventions we try to create a framework in which researcher-practitioner interactions can be optimized, and in which individuals and organizations can address all three variables of the triple bottom line. This session will focus on emerging research-in-progress toward the creation of liberating alternatives.
PRESENTERS
Tom Bigda-Peyton - Third Ways
Beebe Nelson - Partners in Ending
Hunger

Inventing Ecological Societies - conquest, engagement and reinvention
This presentation will look at learning and invention in the context of post-colonial societies. It will re-examine the social foundations of the English Industrial Revolution to understand how a new economic system was invented three hundred years ago. This experience will be contrasted to the experience of working and travelling in East and West Africa during the past twenty years. The presentation will argue that as societies renegotiate the experience of conquest – first in pre-industrial England, but more recently in post-colonial Africa – new social and economic systems are invented. Given that much of the biological wealth of today’s world is in post-colonial societies, these places may be the creative new space where ecological societies are born. An example of such renegotiation in Kenya will be presented as an illustration.
PRESENTER
Barbara Heinzen

Journeys to the Heart of Business: Developing Socially Responsible Leadership
Unilever has attained sustainable growth in a sluggish industry and significant success within many of it operational units by new and unconventional processes that challenge its leadership to contribute to the well being of its members and consumers alike. The path that Unilever has chosen for growth is one that demands heavy investment on personal growth and community building. "Service learning" experiences shape leadership practices and inspire them to not only become better business leaders but to also serve humanity and assume an active role in creating a better world for their consumers. Leaders are given the opportunity for extraordinary experiences working with locals -renovating the home of disabled children, cleaning beaches and villages, building roads and bridges and more.
PRESENTERS
Karen Ayas - The Ripples Group
Philip Mirvis - University of Michigan

Being in Competition with One's Self: Learning as Dynamic Capability
Two recent high profile research initiatives - AIM and the GNOSIS Group - form the context of the research to be presented. Both initiatives are charged to enhance knowledge about how organizations and their management can improve UK performance and well being by undertaking world class research which is rigorous and relevant.to management practice. The research which will be undertaken as part of a 3-yr. AIM funded fellowship, explores how learning as a dynamic capability provides a lens for rethinking three significant aspects of the triple bottom line namely: competition, performance and practice in relation to individual learning in organizations.
PRESENTER
Elena Antonacopoulou - University of Liverpool

Organizational Cultures That Get Financial Results
How important is culture to an organization’s financial success? Is there anything in that largely intangible, usually unexamined realm of corporate values, practices, and behavior codes that could offer a competitive edge?The answer is a resounding Yes! Hagberg Consulting Group has assessed the culture of more than 200 corporations from a variety of industries worldwide using its Cultural Assessment Tool, which measures cultural elements including loyalty, trust, information sharing, accountability, teamwork, external focus, politics, and participation in decision-making. When these cultural values and practices are correlated with bottom-line financial results, clear relationships are seen between culture and financial success.
PRESENTER
Richard Hagberg

How Southwest Airlines is Addressing Triple Bottom Line Sustainability Opportunities
For thirty years, SWA has championed putting Employees first. From the beginning they have created new business paradigms and repeatedly found that by building trust with Employees and Customers, these are the People who come through for them when the company is in crisis. Profits truly are the fruits of the first (People & mutual trust) and not the other way around. Adding accountability for impact to the planet was natural and welcomed. We will explore the connections between the 3 P's, (people, profit and planet) and what drives this within SWA. [Note: SWA capitalizes Employee, Customer and People to show respect.]
PRESENTER
Ann McGee Cooper