With Alpesh Bhatt

WHEN: Thursday, May 17, from 5:30pm (networking) 6:00pm (event) to 8:00pm.

LOCATION: Lesley University, Brattle Campus, 11 Phillips Place.

The disciplines of organizational practice - OD, HR and Management Consulting - that grew up during the Industrial Era share a fundamentally engineering-oriented view of their work. Engineers work on 'machines', and their relationship with the machine they are working on is irrelevant to their ability to create control, predictability and reliability in that machine. Furthermore, the engineering orientation places a supreme value on models and expertise: the roadmaps for desirable outcomes and the depth of knowledge required to apply those roadmaps in a way that eliminates all unwanted 'surprises'.

When we examine them in application, even the most 'enlightened' and humanistic branches of OD have these attributes; and our training and day-to-day experience as practitioners further embeds them.

In this session, we will explore how our models and mindsets - and our very training as practitioners - creates limitations to our effectiveness in working with human systems. There will be no 5-stage models or 7-step processes...because these would only further limit our effectiveness.

Presented by Alpesh M. Bhatt

As a Principal of the Center for Leadership Studies and Founder of its Advisory Services division, Al supports senior executives in navigating the personal and interpersonal challenges of facilitating business breakthroughs and integrating systemic change. He has been an advisor and coach to executives across multiple industries in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Al was previously a Director in a multinational Publishing firm, an SVP and Practice Leader in a global consulting firm and, in addition to his work at CLS, is currently a member of the faculty in the Graduate Psychology Department at UNH where he teaches Leadership, Organizational Development and an experimental course he has designed for future organizational practitioners called 'Personal & Interpersonal Effectiveness for Change Agents'.

Al has a passion for public speaking and has been a featured speaker at over a hundred events over the past 15 years. Al recently published the first of a 9-part series on the future of Work, Organization and Practice titled The Triple-Soy Decaf-Latte Era and writes a blog at www.PrepareForSurprise.com.