Facilitator: Gay Lynch

Gay Lynch is an OD consultant and coach with Thought Partners, Inc., a Performance Consulting firm headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, where her focus is on developing measurable approaches to leadership development, talent management, strategic alignment, and human performance and capability. As a “scholarly practitioner”, Gay is on the faculty of Wilmington University, teaching courses on leadership, organizational theory and design, and change management.  She is also on the professional and continuing studies coaching staff of the University of Delaware.

Today, Gay’s work focuses heavily on issues relating to employee engagement, organizational resiliency and change, and the development of leaders and the leadership pipeline.  Drawing upon a rich background in (1) performance engineering, (2) positive psychology, and (3) linguistics, Gay uses an array of collaborative thought-partnership techniques to help her clients respond effectively and creatively to these challenges.  In today’s program, she will share a technique she learned from Peter Block (ODN lifetime achievement honoree and long-time consulting guru) that falls squarely at the intersection of these three influences.

“The Answer to How Is Yes”: Exploring the work of Peter Block
The recent work of Peter Block, and his award-winning book “The Answer to How is Yes”, offers OD practitioners a new set of tools to help their clients tap into the innate values, wisdom, and sense of accountability of their employees - facilitating problem-solving and “future path forward” thinking - crucial capabilities in today’s organizations. If we are able to suspend the urge to focus on HOW things will get done, and shift the conversation to WHY, will employees choose to commit to the success of the organization with no proof or promise of reward?

In this workshop, the presenter will share her experiences learning from the master (Peter Block) and implementing the techniques/concepts of “Six Conversations That Matter”.  Participants will ‘try on’ the approach and explore applications to their own work.

To read more about the concepts:
 
http://www.designedlearning.com/six-conversations-that-matter-2/building-accountability-and-commitment-concepts/