CBODN upcoming events

CBODN Welcome Circle (13 Apr 2026)

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:00:00 GMT

CBODN WELCOME CIRCLE:

Where new and longtime members connect to turn membership into momentum!

The CBODN Welcome Circle is a facilitated, conversation-based session designed to help members connect quickly and meaningfully within the CBODN community. The gathering will center on peer-to-peer dialogue and shared experience.

Whether you joined recently or have been part of the network for years, this session offers a space to meet fellow OD practitioners and OD-adjacent professionals, learn how others are engaging with CBODN, and identify practical ways to make your membership work for you.

Held on the second Monday of each quarter, the Welcome Circle is designed to be practical, welcoming, and grounded in real experience.

Coaching Community of Practice – Navigating the Valley: Amplifying Resilience Through Community and Skills (14 Apr 2026)

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 21:00:00 GMT

Navigating the Valley: Amplifying Resilience Through Community and Skills

Ever find yourself thinking, “WTF?!” regarding the state of affairs these days? Maybe you feel lost, hopeless, disconnected, and unsure of where to go from here? You’re not alone. These vibes echo across the board, both on personal and organizational levels. Lots of us are having this experience…why not find our way through together?

Led by your trusty guides, Bryan Miles and Kathryn Snyder, this journey will take you through the twists and turns of this “valley," where the past is a distant mountain range, the future is uncharted territory, and the present is the liminal space in between.

Using this powerful metaphor, we’ll navigate the emotional impact of these challenging times, build meaningful connections, and equip you with practical skills to help you traverse the valley. Expect interactive discussions, engaging exercises, and focused skill-building sessions that are anything but boring.

Don’t miss this chance to be in the community and support for the journey ahead. Let's rock the valley together!

Partnership Series with OODN Chapter - Marketing for Consultants Who Hate Marketing (15 Apr 2026)

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 23:00:00 GMT

PARTNERSHIP SERIES - Marketing for Consultants Who Hate Marketing

**This program is organized by our partners in the Oregon ODN Chapter! Join our partners, alongside the Minnesota, Pacific Northwest, and Triangle OD Networks for an opportunity for learning and cross-regional connections.

Even if we can work wonders with organizations, for most of us marketing is our Achilles Heel. And for good reason. Marketing OD is unlike virtually every other professional service: Our clients don't know when to call us. They don't know what we might do for them. And they are not confident they can discern a good consultant from a bad one. So how do we market to clients who aren't even looking for us?

Or worse yet, our potential client has already decided what they want (coaching, team building, change management) and they come to us to "place an order" for a specific service. So we have the same status as a caterer or bookkeeper. If you're responding to a public sector RFP, often you can't even talk to the client until deliverables, cost and schedule are locked up in a contract. So how do we create the room to find the real problem behind the client's request?

And just to make matters worse, many of us are mildly allergic to "selling". So, this workshop is about how we can present ourselves to the marketplace in a way that supports our role as a consultant addressing often elusive and misunderstood problems.

Explore:

The real purpose of marketing
What clients actually want from us (HINT: It's not your services)
The 3 basic planks of a sound marketing platform
How to let the client do the selling for you
Ways to get your first 10 clients

Presenter: Jerry Talley

Jerry started his 45-year career in Stanford’s Sociology department where he taught for 18 years. Leveraging his research and assessment experience, he moved out into corporate consulting. Over the years he accumulated over 450 client engagements with companies in high tech, higher education, manufacturing, construction, health care, banking, the military, entertainment, hospitality, telecom, city & county government, public utilities, consulting firms, aerospace, college publishing, pharmaceuticals, numerous not-for-profits, and one organic grocery store.

He is no longer providing client services; his practice is now focused on mentoring and coaching for the next generation of organization development consultants. He teaches courses on Unlimited Consulting, Marketing for Consultants, How to Think About Work, and Advanced Problem Solving.

April CBODN Peer Consulting Group ("Mastermind Sessions") (29 Apr 2026)

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 22:00:00 GMT

CBODN Peer Consulting Group ("Mastermind Session")
"MASTERMIND SESSIONS" have been renamed as CBODN PEER CONSULTING GROUP

We all face challenges in our work. Whether you are a leader in an organization, an independent consultant, or acting in any other role, it can often be useful to get an outside perspective when faced with a pressing or ongoing challenge.

At CBODN, we know that our members each possess a unique and diverse set of personal and professional experiences. In CBODN’s Peer Consulting Group (formerly known as the "Mastermind Series"), we invite you to join our members and tap into the collective wisdom, curiosity, and experiences that our community of practitioners offers. By attending, you will trade ideas and learnings across a variety of organizational disciplines and career situations.

For highly seasoned consultants and professionals, consider this a rich opportunity to pass on your hard-earned wisdom to other professionals who may be walking a similar path.
For new consultants and professionals, consider this as a safe avenue to develop your consulting muscles by bringing thoughtful curiosity and fresh perspectives.
For anyone with a challenge or obstacle in their work (that is all of us!), consider this a valuable resource to become “un-stuck” in your thinking or to find a new idea or direction forward.

The Peer Consulting sessions take place each month with a new group of participants each session. During Peer Consulting events, we will use a modification of the Wise Crowds Liberating Structure to form small groups, identify a "client" to present a current challenge, and invite the other members in the group (or "crowd") to ask questions and offer suggestions while bringing inquiry, experience, and unique experiences.

For anyone interested in attending, you are fully welcome! Even if you do not have a pressing challenge you are ready to discuss, we encourage you to participate in supporting other members and contributing to the valuable discussions and learning.

About the Facilitator:

David Kading, MS, ACC is a facilitator, organization development consultant, and executive coach with over a decade of experience in leadership development, experiential learning, and organization development.

He is the past president of CBODN (2023-2025) where he launched the Peer Consulting Group as a way for members to deepen peer-to-peer learning opportunities in addition to CBODN’s various presenter-led programming options.

Important Registration Note, PLEASE READ:

The peer consulting format finds the most success when working in small groups. The sessions are interactive and rely on each attendee's engaged participation. To facilitate this, we will limit the number of attendees to a maximum of 10 participants and ask anyone who is unable to actively participate refrain from registering. Anybody who signs up after the first ten spots will be added to a waitlist for the event.

If you sign-up and then find that you are unable to attend, please let us know by emailing admin@cbodn.org and cc’ dkading030@outlook.com. It’s no problem! Life happens. But we will provide your seat to the next member of our community on the waitlist to ensure a fruitful session for attendees.

Attended Before?

We have been facilitating peer consulting sessions at CBODN for the past two years, with dozens of participants acting as “clients” and getting support with their challenges. While we love supporting members through their challenging moments, we’d also love to hear about what happened next in the story! Did you make progress? What role (if any) did the peer consulting experience play in supporting you with your next move?

If you have participated as a client in a past session and are willing to share, please consider using the collection form https://forms.gle/BUPp2fKrJjF5UHMK9.

DC Area OD Practitioners CoP — Explore A Self-Managing Organization (SMO) (07 May 2026)

Thu, 07 May 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Explore A Self-Managing Organization (SMO)

Many organizations today feel the strain of hierarchy—slow decisions, overwhelmed managers, stifled innovation, and talented people who disengage because the system leaves little room to lead. Self-managing organizations (SMO) offer a proven alternative, showing that more adaptive and human-centered structures can outperform traditional models.

Yet many leaders remain unaware that these approaches are already succeeding at scale. This interactive discussion is a session that introduces the core principles and evidence behind SMOs, translating research into practical insight for business and association audiences. The goal is simple: to spark informed curiosity and open a doorway to more resilient, participatory ways of working.

Deanna Doan will share her in depth research in this area and offer lessons learned from the experience in standing up this type of organization and tips on how to make it work.

Presenter — Deanna Doan

Deanna is an enabling partner and co-founder of Eleccion LLC. She has more than 20 years of consulting and leadership experience across government and commercial markets, with expertise in designing and implementing highly decentralized organizations. Prior to founding Eleccion, she was vice president at Allegheny Science & Technology, managing a diverse portfolio of programs across the Intelligence and DoD markets. Prior roles include advising senior intelligence community leaders on strategy and improvement initiatives.

Deanna holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Virginia Tech, a master’s degree in Operations Research from George Mason University, and is currently a doctoral student at Virginia Tech where her research focuses on decentralized organizational structures. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Lean Six Sigma green belt.

Coaching Community of Practice – Open Forum (12 May 2026)

Tue, 12 May 2026 21:00:00 GMT

Open Forum

This open forum session is designed as a brave and creative gathering space for coaches to come together in real conversation about what is shifting in the coaching industry and what is stirring in their own practices. In a time marked by uncertainty, change, and disconnection, this session offers an invitation to pause, reconnect, and remember the strength that becomes available when we do not carry our questions alone.

Participants will be invited to bring a current challenge in the form of a brief story or lived moment from their practice. Through thoughtful facilitation and a range of reflective and interactive modalities, the group will explore these challenges with compassion, curiosity, and honesty. This is not a space for fixing or performing expertise. It is a space for witnessing and being witnessed, for offering perspective without pressure, and for drawing on the wisdom, care, and resourcefulness of the collective. We will share resources generously and welcome diverse perspectives as part of the learning.

Together, we will create room for truth, reflection, and shared encouragement. Coaches can expect to leave feeling more connected, more grounded, and more supported by the courage, presence, and collective wisdom of a community willing to meet this moment together.

Facilitators: Beza Ayalew, Bryan Miles, Friderike Butler

May CBODN Peer Consulting Group ("Mastermind Sessions") (27 May 2026)

Wed, 27 May 2026 22:00:00 GMT

CBODN Peer Consulting Group ("Mastermind Session")
"MASTERMIND SESSIONS" have been renamed as CBODN PEER CONSULTING GROUP

For highly seasoned consultants and professionals, consider this a rich opportunity to pass on your hard-earned wisdom to other professionals who may be walking a similar path.
For new consultants and professionals, consider this as a safe avenue to develop your consulting muscles by bringing thoughtful curiosity and fresh perspectives.
For anyone with a challenge or obstacle in their work (that is all of us!), consider this a valuable resource to become “un-stuck” in your thinking or to find a new idea or direction forward.

About the Facilitator:

Important Registration Note, PLEASE READ:

Attended Before?

If you have participated as a client in a past session and are willing to share, please consider using the collection form https://forms.gle/BUPp2fKrJjF5UHMK9.

DC Area OD Practitioners CoP — Transitions: Navigating Change — Holding Space for Ourselves and Our Clients (04 Jun 2026)

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 23:00:00 GMT

Transitions: Navigating Change — Holding Space for Ourselves and Our Clients

As OD professionals and coaches, we stand beside our clients through times of profound upheaval—organizational restructures, job loss, economic instability, social unrest, and the quiet losses that follow change. We hold space for their despair, growth, and renewal. Yet, how often do we pause to examine our own internal transitions—the ways we metabolize uncertainty, loss, or transformation in our personal and professional lives?

Nature offers a timeless mirror. After storms come stillness. After endings come new beginnings. This session invites practitioners to reconnect with nature’s wisdom as a lens for understanding both the turbulence and opportunities that come with change. Through guided reflection, discussion, and grounding practices, participants will explore how to deepen presence and expand their capacity to accompany others in transition.

By the end of this workshop, participants will:

Differentiate between change and transition.

Reflect on personal and professional experiences of transition to identify current needs and opportunities for growth.
Recognize nature as a model for resilience, cyclical renewal, and wholeness within organizational life.
Strengthen their ability to hold space for clients and teams navigating disruption with empathy and steadiness.
Leave with tools to maintain personal balance and support organizational transformation.

Presenter — Tanara Bowie

Tanara is a trauma-informed and ICF (ACC) and National Board of Health and Wellness certified coach. For 30 years she has applied Gestalt theory to her work with groups and individuals.

Tanara is a former Vice President at The Nebo Company where she facilitated several cohort programs for senior leaders and designed leadership development strategies for healthcare and nonprofit entities. She is a trainer for Mentor Agility’s Veterans Talking to Veterans program in which veterans are trained in a trauma-informed approach to coaching that uses storytelling to aid veterans on a path of healing and resilience. Her coaching clients include military veterans, family caregivers, those navigating identity after loss and in the second half of life. She uses myth, somatics and her extensive study and practice of Gestalt and Jungian principles to help clients navigate shadow stories, loss, and find renewed purpose.