An Evening with Robert Crosby
How small (micro) change influences large (macro) change
Where: On line via Zoom
When: November 14th, 6-7:30 pm PST
I began my last note reminding you that I just turned 96.
This mind of mine keeps dragging up memories that I haven’t written about before and yet were powerful elements in helping, not only individuals and groups, but entire organizations shift their culture, and therefore be more productive.
My new submission to a professional OD journal is written with son Chris Crosby. It is about micro systemic interventions that quietly, but surely change the cultures of total organizations. These aren’t announced programs, but things that you as a consultant or organizational member can do one by one constantly each day. When you register for this zoom event you will receive a copy of the paper.
When most of us use the word “system,” we think of a total organization or at least a total department. That’s what I mean when I use the word macro. In a total organization or department or sometimes even in groups attempts to change the culture are named which I have recommended against because it allows an immediate negative response from some about this “new” program. And they are often given titles such as “empowerment,” “employee involvement,” or to me the worst title, “self-managed teams,” etc.
I have written about so-called “self-managed teams” in many publications and will talk about why they are the worst for me if I am asked in the Zoom session.
On the other hand, micro systemic interventions are one-on-one and demonstrated (lived!) by the behavior of the consultant or employee who wants to shift their group or organization in a positive way.
See you November 14!
Bob
Robert P Crosby
Robert P. Crosby is 96. He is an author, poet, singer, and organization development practitioner. In 1969 he founded the Leadership Institute of Spokane (later Seattle) – aka LIOS. An ordained Methodist, he was named a distinguished alumnus by Boston University, and received an LHD from Bastyr University. Crosby has three business books written out of his experience in organizations, along with his career "Memoir of a Change Agent" (called a "must read" by Edgar Schein), two spiritual books from his passion for non-dogmatic meaning and social justice, a poetry book, and, with his wife Patricia, a pictorial diary of a month in his beloved Volpaia, Tuscany, a village of 52 in Italy. In October 2014 you would have heard him in concert in the ancient church there. At age 86 you would have met him still working with two of his sons in their OD consultancy. And on October 1, at age 94, he sang a concert of secular and sacred music. At age 95 he published two paper, Dinner with Edgar, with the OD Review, and
The Seventh Question: A Reliable Indicator of Change When Answered in the Affirmative, with the Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences.
In 1953 he began his immersion in the budding T-group and organization development movements, was personally mentored for decades by Ronald Lippitt, while simultaneously learning from the "godfather of the civil rights movement", mystic Howard Thurman, who famously impacted the young MLK Jr.