About the Author and Associates
Bill Torbert, now professor of management at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, earlier served as the school’s graduate dean and director of the PhD Program in Organizational Transformation. He is also one of the founding faculty of the Executive Program Leadership for Change at Boston College, as well as a founding research member of the international Society for Organizational Learning, and a board member of Trillium Asset Management (the first and largest independent socially responsible investing advisor).
Torbert has previously consulted widely in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, and served on numerous company and journal boards. With regard to scholarship, some of his recent books are his national Alpha Sigma Nu award-winning Managing the Corporate Dream (1987); his Terry Award Finalist book The Power of Balance: Transforming Self, Society, and Scientific Inquiry (1991); and Transforming Social Inquiry, Transforming Social Action (coedited with Francine Sherman [Sherman and Torbert 2000]).
Torbert received a BA in political science and economics and a PhD in administrative sciences from Yale University, holding a Danforth Graduate Fellowship during his graduate years, and directing the Yale Upward Bound War on Poverty Program. He taught at Yale, Southern Methodist University, and Harvard prior to joining the Boston College faculty in 1978. Most of all, though, he takes great pleasure and pride (not to mention occasional pain) in the ongoing development of collaborative inquiries among his lifetime friends and colleagues and with his three sons, Michael, Patrick, and Benjamin.
Susanne Cook-Greuter is a leading scholar in mature adult development. She is a founding member of Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute and directs HarthillUSA. HarthillUSA helps mature professionals in using action inquiry and personal integral transformative practices to enhance their own and their clients’ effectiveness. Harthill’s Leadership Development Profile is an application of Cook-Greuter’s 20-year research into assessing the worldviews of mature adults. She has a doctorate from Harvard University in psychology and human development. Her 1994 book, Transcendence and Mature Thought in Adulthood, coedited with Mel Miller, has become a classic in the field of positive psychology (Cooke-Greuter and Miller 1994). She teaches seminars and workshops in the United States and Europe, consults to research projects, and dedicates time to her writing as an independent scholar. Personally, she is committed to the spiritual path of Kriya yoga and to serve others in exploring life and work with openness, joy and compassion. Nature study, weeding, song and dance, travel, meditation, and Swiss chocolate, as well as dear friends and family sustain, restore, and delight her on her journey.245
Dalmar Fisher teaches organizational communication, interpersonal effectiveness, and teambuilding at Boston College. His research and writing is aimed at improving managers’ interpersonal skills. Books he has authored and coauthored include Communication in Organizations, Autonomy in Organizational Life, and Personal and Organizational Transformations through Action Inquiry. He has long enjoyed running, from the 400-meter race at Northwestern to marathons with the 60+ age group to more leisurely jogging in recent years. After both running at and graduating from Northwestern, he received an MBA from Boston College and a DBA from Harvard Business School. His wife of 33 years is Laura; children are Deirdre, Nathaniel, and Naomi; and grandchildren are Sarah, Caitlin, and Ocean.
Erica Foldy is an assistant professor of public and nonprofit management at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. She is also affiliated as a researcher with the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons School of Management. Her research interests include identity and diversity in organizations, organizational learning and reflective practice, and the interaction of individual, organizational, and social change. Foldy has published articles in several journals and edited volumes. She also coedited, with Robin Ely and Maureen Scully, the Reader in Gender, Work and Organization. Currently, she is a research team member of the Leadership for a Changing World program of the Ford Foundation. Prior to her PhD program, Foldy worked for 15 years with nonprofit organizations working in the areas of foreign policy, women’s rights, and occupational health and safety. She holds a BA from Harvard College, a PhD from Boston College, and was a Post Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School in 2002–2003.246
Alain Gauthier is an international consultant, facilitator, and educator who focuses on developing new collaborative leadership capabilities within partnerships across the public, private, and civil society sectors. Over the last 38 years, he has served a wide range of clients, from large European and American corporations to a number of not-for-profit organizations and global foundations. A graduate from HEC (Paris) and a Stanford University MBA, Gauthier is currently executive director of Core Leadership Development in Oakland, California. He has adapted and prefaced in French three of Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline books, and is a coauthor of Learning Organizations: Developing Cultures for Tomorrow’s Workplace. Gauthier is an active member of the Society for Organizational Learning in the United States and Europe, and a visiting professor for the International MBA Program at the ENPC in Paris. He enjoys being in the mountains, as well as with his circles of friends and family members on both continents.
Jackie Keeley and David Rooke are the founding partners of the Harthill Group consulting firm in England. Their dozens of clients have included Norwich Insurance Union, Volvo, and Hewlett-Packard. They are also the parents of two lovely and energetic daughters, epic world travelers, and hosts to unique workshops and celebrations among friends at their country home, conference center, and place of business at Harthill Grange.
Sara Ross is an action researcher-practitioner, spiritual director, former CPA, and is currently working on her doctorate in international political development. For 25 years, she has been a developer of organizational change and transformative group processes. Contexts for that work, in which she has also been a curriculum designer, teacher, and supervisor, have included management advisory services, personal and spiritual development of adolescents and adults, community leadership training programs, ministerial training programs, analyses of complex public issues, public politics training programs, and action research in public settings.
Catherine Royce, a writer, speaker, consultant, and former dancer, earned a BA from Wesleyan University in dance and humanities and an MBA from Simmons College School of Management. For the past 20 years, Royce has been working with entrepreneurs, writers, policy makers, and others to ensure that their work accurately reflects their true vision. Since she began her own practice 1989, her clients have included individuals and small groups, one-on-one and in corporate settings, in philanthropy, health care, business communications, government, and nonprofits. The clarity of her understanding is especially sought by authors of nonfiction work, several of whom have books currently in production under her guidance.
Jenny Rudolph is an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, having received a PhD in management from Boston College and a BA from Harvard College. She is an organizational scholar, educator, and consultant who has published in such places as Administrative Science Quarterly and the Handbook of Action Research. Rudolph’s research and consulting focuses on situations such as operating room crises, nuclear power plant accidents, or difficult conversations, and on how people can learn to think, act, and communicate effectively even when social or physical stakes are high.247
Steve Taylor is an assistant professor of management at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in leadership, organizational behavior, and creativity. He received a BS in humanities from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MA in performing arts from Emerson College, and a PhD in management from Boston College. Steve’s research focuses on the aesthetics of organizational action, with particular interest in reflective practice and organizational interventions using artistic forms. His work has been published in journals such as Human Relations, Action Research, Organization Studies, Management Communication Quarterly, Tamara, Journal of Management Inquiry, and Management Learning.
Mariana Tran was born in a small, secluded town in Bulgaria. She remembers springtime when the snowcaps on the mountain peaks melted and roses started to bloom. School was cancelled and students helped collect roses for the production of rose oil, one of the few products that communist Bulgaria exported to the world market. Beholding the sunrise in the rose fields made her wonder about other beautiful places and people in the world. Her desire to explore new places and cultures guided her decision to move to Russia and study biophysics at Leningrad State Technical University, then to move to Boston College for a PhD in biology and an MBA, and then to move to California. She has published numerous book chapters and articles in such journals as Epilepsia and the Journal of Neurochemistry.248