Global RO Conference: First Report

Forrest ChristianEvents Leave a Comment

So, I am attending the Global Org Design Conference in Toronto, Ontario this week. It’s a working conference: I’m filming the sessions. Something that can actually get quite tiring. Right now I’m beat after just two days of filming. Harder than I recalled.

There are some wonderful people here. I finally met Barry and Sheila Deane from Australia. Barry and I huddled together and talked about high potentials who are underemployed and IT process failures. Wonderful stuff I got from him.

I filmed the BIOSS session. It’s interesting, this Career Path Appreciation tool of theirs. I’ve read only lightly on it: a couple of articles from Professor Stamp that came out a couple of years back. It looks interesting, but I’ll confess that I prefer Human Patterns to their psychometric. HumPat seems richer. Still, the level of conversation in the room was quite stimulating.

And I finally ran in Dr. Steve Clement, he of the US Army fame and the co-author with Dr. Jaques of Executive Leadership. Dr. Clement was absolutely nothing like I imagined him. Somehow I pictured him as being more, well, “West Pointy” (with apologies to my friend, J.). He’s got a reputation for being a tireless worker and a great consultant, but the government seems to be monopolizing his time lately. I hope to get his side of the story that I posted, and write a more complete version. The Inglis/Whilrpool Canada case would make a great book.

I also ran into Mark Van Clieaf this afternoon after seeing him from afar for the past two days. He invited me to sit down (he had just completed some writing work, it seemed) and we had just started to talk with Larry Trapp of the Ivey Business School sat down. That ended our conversation but he was quickly joined by Jos Wintermans, once CEO of Canadian Tire Acceptance. I had the prescence of mind, so often missing from these stories of mine, to keep my trap shut. I’m sure I made a stunning impression on all involved, but it was neat to see these two close up. Mark and they talked for some minutes before we non-CEOs were kicked out of the room to dinner upstairs. I hope to connect with Mark at some point just to say hello, as I have enjoyed his work and his keeping me in the loop on his writings.

I did get to talk to several others whom I have read or written about. It’s strange to finally have a face to put with the voices or words. I’ve been wildly inaccurate about each and every one.

As a cameraman, I’m working with some of the other volunteers, including a couple of young guys running the soundboards. Great lads who have lent me an ethernet cable, allowing me to write this.

And I was so hoping to watch the rest of Last Exile while here in the evenings….

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