"That Was Great!": More High Impact Exercises For Teaching Or Consulting On Organizational Change
A two-hour interactive Academy of Management Annual meeting PDW workshop in Boston, Friday, August 9, 10:45AM - 12:45PM
WDW Coronado Springs Resort in Coronado T
Do you teach, research, or have an interest in organizational change?
For the ninth consecutive year, we offer a PDW to provide a forum for educators, researchers and consultants to showcase high impact methods for teaching organizational change in its many contexts (undergraduate, EMBA, MBA, corporate training, consulting). The workshop covers high impact classic and contemporary exercises that receive very positive responses in change programs. Two key features underpin this workshop:
- The workshop has a "hands-on" approach where participants get to experience, in part, the actual exercise or activity being undertaken.
- The teaching philosophy underpinning the workshop is a "multiple perspectives" approach which assumes that a variety of approaches, assumptions and methodologies may be employed to explore the many areas associated with organizational change.
Presenters will introduce their exercise, provide the audience with a short, hands-on sampling of it and the method for debriefing it, and will provide more detailed take away notes.
1. Gary Wagenheim (Simon Fraser U.) will present the Team Communication Conundrum Game – a highly interactive team game to facilitate learning about the impact of organizational structure on communication. He will use the exercise to help participants facilitate the importance of leadership, organizational structure, and communication for effectively managing organizational change. Participants will have the opportunity to experiment with their own group communication, discuss communication patterns, and explore the exercise's potential for classroom or client use.
2. Tony Buono (Bentley University) will present Assessing Reactions to Organizational Change which is designed to examine reactions to change. The exercise quickly engages participants and prompts them to share their thoughts and experiences about how change is experienced, probing expectations about change, and the change process. This assessment is used as a basis for discussion about reactions to change and their ramifications for organizations and their management. Drawing on over a decade of data with the exercise, general trends in teaching reactions to change will also be discussed.
3. Susan Resnick West (U. Southern California) and Cindy Martinez (U. Southern California) will present Strategy Development. Frequently people are energetic about environmental complexity but stymied when confronted with identifying the link between resources, capabilities and strategy development. The exercise centers on what an organization has and can do when confronted by complex environmental changes including the implications that one's "business" strategy has on CSR intentions. The exercise works particularly well with graduate students who have little experience in strategy development. Presenters will also demonstrate how this exercise can be translated for distance learning courses.
4. Dave Jamieson (U. St. Thomas) will present Improving Working Relations. The underlying premise of this exercise is that teams operate as multiple paired relationships, which are often underdeveloped. It uses structured worksheets to report interchanges on the priority of work or key change interdependencies needed and then to record what was heard during the exchanges and what participants think they can do about it. Focusing on the subsequent information and report outs brings to the surface work-related issues, interpersonal issues, style discussions, expectations and feedback. Debriefing this activity raises many common issues to change and the team level and serves to help communication and team development during change.
5. Gavin Schwarz (U. New South Wales), Richard Dunford (U. Newcastle), and Ian Palmer (RMIT U) will lead all presenters in a discussion of How to Effectively Debrief High Impact Exercises focusing on outcomes for organizational change teaching and consulting.
No pre-registration is neccesary to attend the session.
For information on the session contact organizers Gavin Schwarz (g.schwarz@unsw.edu.au), Ian Palmer (Ian.Palmer@rmit.edu.au), or Richard Dunford (R.Dunford@econ.usyd.edu.au).