Consulting Projects

A Perspective Related to Our Work With Organizations

The Gestalt OSD body of knowledge we have developed over the last forty years is based on natural human processes. OSD is deeply rooted in OD theory and concepts, Systems theory and thinking and Gestalt psychology and perceptual theory. The OSD founders studied with master teachers from each of these disciplines.  OSD theory, concepts and methods have been taught to managers, consultants, company presidents, government officials, physicians, attorneys, judges, educators, engineers, trainers and others around the world.  The efficacy of the awareness, knowledge and skill produced by this method has been tried and proven to be world class.

We highlight using oneself as an instrument of change, rather than promoting the use of particular tools or techniques. We focus on developing a person's ability to observe, to experience, and to organize meaning from diverse phenomena at all levels of system—processes which lead to interventions that align with one’s intention. Tools and techniques support the theories, concepts, and methods used to support Use of Self. Resistance is viewed and dealt with as a healthy, positive, and creative force in the dynamics of change.

Three to Ten Year Transformational Change Projects

We provided the dental school seeking re-accreditation with a presence the school could not provide for itself. We held the compelling picture of them being accredited when they did not believe it was possible. The school was accredited and the accrediting body adopted the process used by the dental school to conduct future accreditations. The school later became number one in the nation, and credited much of their success to the change processes we helped them create. The Unit of Work was to get the school accredited.

As part of a strategic planning off-site we took top executives to a magic show and exposed them to palm readers, tarot card readers, astrologers and intuitive practitioners.  The intent was to provide the executives with the ability to think outside their habitual patterns and to be more open to their own indwelling intelligence.  Ninety percent of the sixty executives stated the experience changed their life in a positive way, increased their openness to their intuition and increased their creative thinking.  The Unit of Work was helping the executive to attend to alienated aspect of their being.  The accomplished desired outcome was more creative and innovative thinking.

We worked with one of the world’s top consulting firm’s consultants and their consultants, to enhance their effectiveness in their work with top leaders in their client organizations.

We supported this financial institution in completing a nation wide merger successfully.  They made the business case and exceeded expectations.  We supported the organization in conducting a strategic planning process from the middle of the organization down.  It produced a product more action-oriented, more specific and more empowering than the top down strategic planning process conducted by one of the top consulting firms in the world.  Much of the plan created in the top down process was deemed unnecessary.  We made innovative and breakthrough use of the “Search Conference” methodology. They used the search conference methodology to support movement through the Unit of Work stages. The unit of work was a successful merger integration process.

Work with Royal Bank of Canada

Consultant to:

  • New President and Leadership Succession Process Royal Trust
  • Royal Trust during AcquisitionBy Royal Bank
  • Royal Bank/Royal Trust Merger Consultant to Strategic Planning Process of Royal Trust
  • Top HR and Org Leaders On Organization Change Innovative Search Conference Intervention—Grass Roots Org Vision Three Year Monitoring of Merger Integration of RB/RT Significant Impact on Success of Merger
  • HR succession process
  • Org Review of Training and Development Consultant to Diversity initiative team
  • Human Resource Business Advisors
  • Joint Team RB/BMO to create Merger Principles for NewOrganization
  • Top RB HR/Management Leaders on Org Change & MergerIntegration
  • Start upof a variety of initiatives and events
  • On Going Annual Grass Roots Initiatives LeadershipMeetings ,Business Unit and Geographical Unit Advisors Meeting,  Wealth Management Platform Organization Restructuring
  • Cross Org RB team to create RB Org Change Framework

Conducted:

  • Joint Training of RB/ComEdInternal Org Change Resources
  • asPartnership(Other Consultants) Org Review of Training and Development and Complete restructuring of T&D
  • Search conferences used to create vision of T&D
  • Strategic Planning Process with PFS Business Unit Consultant to Three Organization JointVenture(Outsourcing)

Team Building:

  • Events with Top HR Team, PFS HR, Toronto T&D,Nat T&D, learning center & BU,FU,GU advisors

SAP Service Delivery

We consulted to the Governor of the State of Ohio and conducted a quarterly retreat for his top forty leaders during his second term in office.  They exceeded their expectations in implementing policies directed toward creating transformational change in the conducting of the business in the state. Their primary objective was the creation of good policy that could be sustained in the long term.

We worked with the Board of Directors and three top leaders of the worldwide organization to assure leadership succession process would occur in most effective manner with best leadership possible emerging from the election process.

We worked with the Canadian Firm of Deloitte/Touche, assisting them with three top leader successions over a twenty one year period of time.

We supported this accounting and auditing firm to move from number seven in their industry to number one in their country.  We designed a merger integration process for them that supported successful completion of 35 of 36 mergers.  Every one of the successful mergers, acquisitions and takeovers made their business case.  They implemented the change without slashing and burning human resources.  We designed an innovative and creative use of “Appreciative Inquiry” that changed the way the creator of AI used the theory, concept and method.  The income of half the partners in a national merger doubled and this success was credited largely to our tailored AI intervention. The unit of work was leadership succession.

Working with an individual in the organization, our ability to act as a objective third party and support a senior executive make a decision about whether to leave or stay with his organization was credited with saving the organization more than a one and one half million dollars, the cost of replacing the executive had he left the organization.

We designed and conducted a workshop for 19 years credited by the organizational leader as being the best risk management intervention in their organization.  Savings were significant and impossible to fully measure.  The estimated savings, millions of dollars.  The peace of mind, priceless.

ORGANIZATION INTERVENTIONS With Touche Ross of Canada (Deloitte)

  • Ongoing Journey
  • Institutionalized In Process 1-10 year projects
  • Managing people  workshop
  • P.D.E.S. Program
  • Business Planning
  • Merger Integration
  • Managers/Principles  Conferences
  • Succession Planning
  • New Hire Orientation
  • Merger Strategy
  • Partner Consultation
  • Praps Performance Appraisal  Program
  • Partner  Development  Week Programs
  • Partner Orientation
  • Roundtable Appreciative Inquiry Intervention
  • Global collaboration of HR Vision
  • Management of Change Consultation
  • Becoming A Better Intervener OSD Workshop

We consulted to a workshop for Black Managers in the telecommunications industry that has been conducted for thirty years and the president of the organization used it as prototype for a workshop required of every executive and manager in the company. He stated he had never seen anything else create the sense of responsibility and accountability represented by participants after attending one of these workshops. This workshop created by Howard Jackson, a GestaltOSD graduate was conducted for forty three years and trained thousands of managers. The workshop survived several nation wide mergers. The Black Manager Workshop staff used the OSD body of knowledge as their primary theoretical, conceptual base for conducting the workshop effectively. All of their faculty are OSD program or workshop graduates. OSD theory and concepts, while used to enhance the design and process, are not taught overtly in the Black Manager Workshop.

Organization Change Projects Using Large Group Methodologies

We worked with the organization development/effectiveness groups from

Shell Oil
Kodak
Bell Atlantic
McKinsey & Company
Royal Bank of Canada
Ohio Bell Telephone, and Digital.

We have conducted large group interventions (Appreciative Inquiry, Search Conference, Retreat Into Action with the following organizations:

Gestalt Institute of Cleveland
Royal Bank of Canada
Royal Trust of Canada
Touche Ross of Canada (Deloitte)
National Training Laboratories (NTL)
Exelon
NASA GLEN Space Center
Metro Health Hospital Center
Mead Johnson & Company
Verizon (Bell Atlantic Telephone Company)
Governor's Office, State of Ohio
National Training Laboratories
Kodak
Realty One Mortgage Co
First Families
Free Clinic of Cleveland Ohio

Worth mentioning notes related to our work in the field of applied behavior sciences:

  • Three of our Gestalt OSD Center faculty and a number of our graduates have received the lifetime achievement award from the Organization Development Network.
  • Our graduates and faculty have held leadership positions in most of the major professional organizations in the applied behavioral sciences.
  • The Gestalt OSD Center conducted five programs of the firsts certified Gestalt Coaching Program in the world – the OSD Gestalt International Coaching Program.  Additionally, six different versions of the OSD training program have been offered by the OSD Center, including Ghana OSD and a five session OSD International program that conducts sessions in six different countries.
  • Members of the Gestalt OSD faculty have played a critical role in the creation and application of many of the theories, concepts and methods used by change agents and consultants in the field of applied behavioral science and innovative interventions with top teams.
  • John Carter, Carolyn Lukensmeyer, Leonard Hirsh and Elaine Kepner, founders of the first OSD program, were part of the staff with Dick Beckhard and others who designed the National Training Laboratories workshop for Executives that introduced “present state, transitional state, future state” change model to the field of O.D.  This model remains one of the most utilized transitional change models.
  • John D Carter & Associates conducted the first country-wide Appreciative Inquiry Intervention in Canada and John is credited by David Cooperrider as being primarily responsible for changing the application of AI in ways that resulted in it being used around the world.  See OD Practitioner, Vol. 28, Nos. 1 and 2, 1996, pp. 34-41, and Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry by Charles Elliott, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Chapter 14, The Roundtable Project, pp.255-280. John introduced Appreciative inquiry to South Korea and to the National Training Laboratories (NTL).
  • The Touche Ross of Canada, now Deloitte of Canada, Managing People Course conducted continuously from 1972 to 1990 was designed  by John Carter, William Bradshaw and Tom Isgar using a Gestalt OSD perspective.  Gestalt OSD concepts, while conveyed and embedded in the fabric of the design, were not taught directly in this course. William Bradshaw attended the first OSD training and development program and was our first outstanding graduate.