Monday October 15, 2001

We native speakers are fortunate that English is the language of global business.  However, communication involves more than language alone.  Diverse cultural values produce different communication protocols.  Understanding these values work within the different protocols to create the trust, comfort, and respect necessary to work effectively in multicultural situations.  In this interactive session, using video clips, skits, and critical incidents, we'll look beneath the surface of multicultural situations to discover the values that produce the communication protocols of different cultures.  Just because we're speaking English with our international business associates doesn't mean we're communicating.  We'll see how the practices that establish the trust, comfort, and respect necessary to do business in one culture can destroy it in another. And we'll discuss strategies for managing these differences in a variety of situations. Bring your personal intercultural stories to the session!  The IOR Global Services Website can be found at: http://www.iorworld.com.

Douglas K. Stuart, Ph.D., director of training and client services, oversees and conducts business and cultural training programs, designs new training curricula and materials, and consults with clients on cross-cultural interactions.  Prior to joining IOR, Doug served as an educational specialist in Andersen Worldwide’s Performance Consulting group at the Centre for Professional Education.  There he consulted with offices throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia/Pacific concerning language needs assessment, language training program evaluation and program planning. His background in international education includes positions as assistant professor of humanities and English as a Second Language at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and senior instructor at the Economics Institute of the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.  His extensive international living experience includes Germany, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates.  He has also spent summers teaching in Cairo, Egypt and Hanoi, Vietnam.  Doug earned his bachelor’s degree in English literature, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in English linguistics from the Illinois Institute of Technology.  He has also completed studies toward a doctorate in psychology at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology and earned his certification in client-centered therapy from the Chicago Counseling and Psychotherapy Center.

Roger Marsh, trainer, is responsible for the research, design, preparation and delivery of IOR’s cultural and business training programs.  Mr. Marsh’s extensive international background encompasses nearly twenty years of experience with the Institute of Cultural Affairs, while serving in many different positions and locations including:  regional director in Osaka, Japan where he provided cross-cultural training for Japanese companies and government agencies, and team leader for consulting programs and strategic planning in Sydney, Australia.  Mr. Marsh has also served as senior consultant and planning facilitator for Needham Consulting Group in Sydney, Australia.  In addition, he founded Marsh & Associates, a privately run consulting firm.  Mr. Marsh’s professional affiliations include the Organization Development Network where he served as chapter president, American Society of Training and Development where he is an instructor for their Human Resource Development Institute, and the Organization Development Institute.  Mr. Marsh received his bachelor’s degree in social sciences from the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, and his master’s degree in management and organizational behavior from Illinois Benedictine University.

Patrick Burns, Ed.D., trainer, is responsible for the research, design, preparation and delivery of cultural and business training programs.  Prior to joining IOR, he served as the director of training for the U.S. Peace Corps in Nepal where he was responsible for the overall management of the training program for the largest Peace Corps post in the Asia-Pacific region.  Dr. Burns supervised thirty-five Nepali and American professional managers and training staff.  In other endeavors he has worked with the International Catholic Migration Commission in the Philippines, where he supervised and trained teams of Filipino trainers developing a cross-cultural skills development program for Indochinese refugees.  He also served as the cross-cultural education coordinator for the international programs office at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Dr. Burns spent time in Japan where he was an intercultural training consultant and instructor for several universities in Japan, as well as a visiting researcher.  He received his doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, his master’s of international administration degree from the School for International Training in Vermont, and his bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Noel A. Kreicker is president and founder of IOR Global Services.  Under her leadership, beginning in 1979, IOR has grown into a premier intercultural training company providing support services to more than one hundred Fortune 1000 companies.  Noel heads a team of fifty professionals in Chicago, IL, Detroit, MI, and London, England.  She oversees IOR's three client service areas: expatriate programs, global management training, and intercultural consulting services.  In addition, Noel is a partner of GPSLink, a company that delivers expatriate management technology via the internet.  She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines from 1967 to 1969 and lived as an expatriate in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1978.  Noel enjoys active involvement as an Advisory Board member for ERC and IIE.  She conducts seminars for various professional societies, such as ASTD, ERC, EAPA, FOCUS, ORC, SIETAR, and SIETAR EUROPA and is the recipient of the 1995 SIETAR Senior Interculturalist Award and the 1999 ERC Distinguished Service Award.
 

Facilitation is part art, part science.  In this session, which highlights artistic aspects of preparing for and facilitating a meeting, participants will explore the use of creativity in meeting design. Although designing a meeting requires creativity, design entails much more. Design is a synthesis of creativity (imagining new things) and innovation (bringing those new things into existence). As such, design permeates multiple dimensions of the facilitation process: preparing to use self as tool, planning to realize design intent, designs that pull people into change (rather than push them), and serving a client. Using a design exercise, discussion, and case study, participants will experience some of the tensions inherent in doing design work: making creative use of limited resources; planning versus improvisation, spontaneity and re-design; and being artsy without losing the audience. Participants will explore ways to become more intentional about adopting design as a strategy for helping clients change, and ways to enhance their own growth and development as a designer.

Jim Ulrich has over twenty years of business experience in human resources, leadership and organization development, and adult education. He holds a Ph.D. in Adult Education and Community Development and is a core faculty member for the Chicago cohort of Antioch University's masters program in Whole Systems Design (in partnership with Organizational Systems Renewal - Midwest (http://www.osrmidwest.com)). Jim is certified as: an AchieveGlobal (Zenger-Miller) facilitator, a Team Learning Lab coach, a Rapid Improvement Process workshop facilitator, and a Senior Professional in Human Resources. Currently Jim is an independent consultant specializing in training, leadership development, organizational learning and change. His clients have included Equity Office Properties, Parco Foods, Ameritech, and World Relief Corporation. He has also held positions at Chicago-based ServiceMaster and Tellabs. A member of the Chicago chapters of the Organization Development Network and the International Society for Performance Improvement, Jim has taken improvisational acting classes at Chicago's Second City Theater.  Jim is an avid photographer whose Website can be found at: http://www.imagesbyulrich.com.
 
 

The session will focus on “people-oriented” topics on creativity and innovation.

Participants will:

• Understand the Six Ingredients of Cultures that Produce Continuous Innovation^TM: (1) Leadership, (2) Teamwork, (3) Tools, (4) Processes, (5) Technology and (6) Environment
• Discover the “Four Roles of Highly Innovative Teams and Leaders”
• Learn the 6-phase Continuous Innovation^TM Process: (1) Investigate Needs, (2) Create Ideas, (3) Evaluate Solutions, (4) Activate Plans, (5) Celebrate Results, and (6) Replicate Success
• Apply the Thinkathon^TM Brainstorming Technique and award-winning KnowBrainer® Creativity and Innovation Tool

Gerald Haman, the founder of SolutionPeople and the Thinkubator in Chicago will help you to discover the key ingredients and tools to foster more creativity and innovation. Learn how Haman, formerly with Procter & Gamble and Arthur Andersen, has helped people from 20 countries generate over 300,000 ideas valued at over a billion dollars. Also known as Gerald “Solutionman” Haman, the Founding Partner of Chicago-based SolutionPeople and developer of the THINKubator is the Director of a 700-member Innovation Network.  Haman who has a Masters degree in Organizational Communication and Training & Development, developed the Continuous Innovation Process, the Diamond Solution Process and invented the award-winning KnowBrainer® tool.  On 5th September 2001 he helped celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Singapore’s Productivity Movement by facilitating over 8,000 people in the world’s largest brainstorming session, called the Thinkathon, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.   His diverse background includes experience as an award-winning Procter & Gamble manager, Arthur Andersen researcher, author, artist, inventor and concert producer for Grammy award-winners. Today, he teaches creativity and innovation at the University of Chicago.  Co-author of the New Product Development Handbook, his innovation research includes personal interviews with hundreds of people, including Bill Gates and Michael Jordan. He has given presentations to over 100,000 people from 23 countries and has facilitated product development sessions for hundreds of groups. Haman’s is renowned for his expertise on developing “creative work environments” throughout the world. His firm’s Thinkubator, “Chicago’s Most Creative Meeting Place” was recently profiled on CNN and Investors Business Daily.  The SolutionPeople Website can be found at: http://www.solutionpeople.com.
 
 

This session will focus on facilitating workshops where the outcome is the design of an appropriate structure for an organization (i.e., hierarchical, matrix, project team, etc.) and who should fit into given positions of said organization.  Such workshops are typically required after mergers or as part of reorganizations.  The session will cover how to plan for and facilitate organizational design sessions and how to manage the issues involved.  The business to be analyzed will be a professional user group for facilitators.  The group has recently formed.  The members of the group are all stakeholders – i.e., each has a vested interest in terms of time invested.  This meeting is the first time that they have been able to get together to define their group.  The participants in the session are the members of the core user group – all of them as themselves.  All have been chartered to define the most effective organization for the user group – it is important that this group be self sustaining and endure longer than their individual membership.  This is a very difficult workshop because this is when people decide not only their organizational structure, but also what the jobs are and who gets them.  People may see their jobs disappear or new ones open up.  This is not an easy process.  It is recommended that participants read Designing Organizations, by Jay Galbraith, Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco, CA 1995,  before participating in this workshop.

Gary Rush is president and founder of MG Rush Systems, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the finest facilitation services.  MG Rush Systems was formed in 1985 to offer consulting, training, and facilitator services.  Prior to starting MG Rush Systems, Gary worked in the insurance and the oil and gas industries.  After extensive research into interactive design (“JAD”) techniques and over 3000 hours of experi-ence leading sessions, Mr. Rush created a proprietary facilitation process called FAST.  Since developing FAST in 1985, Mr. Rush has trained over 2500 people in 200+ companies in 18 countries.  Each year, Gary teaches between 20 and 30 6-day facilitation classes, numerous 3-day facilitation classes, and data modeling classes.  He also facilitates critical workshops for companies on a regular basis.  Mr. Rush has helped implement FAST at numerous companies, including some of the largest in the world.  He is widely published and is a recognized leader in the movement towards using facilitated workshops. For more information visit: http://www.mgrush.com.