Frontline Workers and Lewinian Change

The front-line workers are the people doing the physical work, directly serving the customers, writing the code, providing social services to a targeted population, etc. Lewin's action-research validated that involving people on the front lines is the key to successful and sustainable change, whether within organizations or in pursuit of broader social change. The how of his model is simple and effective, yet rarely practiced by management or even OD practitioners. The presenter will cover the how and the why, using case studies from his most recent book, Leadership and the Frontline Workforce: Lessons from the Targets of Change. 

What you'll take away:

• Change the way Lewin wanted it practiced 
• True stories of moving from polarization to collaboration
• Applications to organizational and social change

Presenter — Gilmore Crosby

Gilmore is an organizational development practitioner, author, and professor of social science at the Leadership Institute of Seattle (LIOS). His work centers on applying the methods of Kurt Lewin—the founder of modern OD and group dynamics—to leadership, change management, and team performance. Crosby's career began in 1984, building on his father Robert P. Crosby's OD practice, which dates to 1953 and to Lewin's immediate circle of students and collaborators.

Planned Change: Why Kurt Lewin's Social Science Is Still Best Practice for Business Performance, Change Management & Human Progress lays out the argument that animates Crosby's work: that Lewin's methods remain the most reliable foundation for change. While embracing the past, Crosby experiments in the present, conducting T-group learning in organizations, online T-groups, and various uses of new technology, including AI. His mission, inspired by Lewin’s, is to help create a better future for humanity—by keeping Lewin's social science alive and in active use as a practical instrument for social and organizational change.