A Philadelphia Region Organization Development Network Special Event

Peter Stroh is a founding partner of Innovation Associates and a Principal with Arthur D. Little. His expertise lies in visionary planning, leadership development, systems thinking, organization design, and change management. He focuses on helping diverse stakeholders align around a common purpose and integrate their thinking to improve individual and collective performance.

Mr. Stroh’s corporate clients have included senior management teams, business and plant managers in such companies as British Petroleum, Shell, Gillette, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola, Lever Brothers, Woolworths UK, AT&T, Georgia Pacific, Miliken, Syntex Pharmaceuticals, and Abbott Labs. He has also consulted to the World Bank, National Aeronautics & Space Administration, Federal Aviation Administration, Georgia Department of Human Resources, City of Boston, Council on Foundations, Pew Charitable Trusts, The Boston Foundation, and Cultural Survival. He is committed to bringing business principles to the public and non-profit sectors and to facilitating collaboration between these sectors toward sustainable development.

Clients acknowledge him for his ability to integrate diverse thinking, people and organizations; rekindle motivation; and establish strong relationships with both individuals and organizations based on his caring, knowledge and professional approach. Some of his assignments have included:

• At Digital Equipment Corporation, as a member of the Corporate Organization Consulting Group, he helped establish the strategic focus for two businesses totaling over $2 billion in sales, streamline the company's complex order management process (involving 16 organizations), and align the managers of a 3,000 person functional organization.
• For a $700 million consumer products business, Mr. Stroh guided redesign of the new product development process to incorporate concurrent engineering using cross-functional teams. The process has enabled the company to establish both clear controls and greater freedom for product developers, develop new facilitation skills to manage these complex programs, and create an environment of continuous learning. The company made excellent progress in developing its first product using this process and is expanding it to include all new products in the same category.
• For a major chemicals company, Mr. Stroh facilitated the transition from a functionally-based organization to a company managed through global business units. Specific projects included integrating 3 research organizations into one operation and launching 12 global Product Business Teams. These projects were considered major successes in helping the company manage the change.
• For a $3.5 billion retailer, Mr. Stroh enabled the senior management team to align around a new mission and strategy, learn to lead improvements in strategic as well as operational performance, and engage employees in cross-functional teamwork. Applying these new capabilities in the first year, the company made breakthrough progress in five strategic initiatives and achieved record profits while outperforming its competitors in a difficult market.
• For a major consumer products company, Mr. Stroh helped rationalize effort on a BPR program covering the organization’s 7 business processes. Through using systems thinking with representatives from all the redesign teams, he enabled them to identify and change the key sales and marketing policies that were driving supply chain costs, customer satisfaction, and overall profitability.
• For a major bottling company, Mr. Stroh designed and facilitated an action learning program for internal consultants on how to use systems thinking to facilitate organizational change. Participants applied systems thinking to real, chronic business problems in the company while simultaneously deepening their technical systems thinking skills. The program also enabled change managers in a specialty foods company to improve its new product development and planning processes.
• For a major foundation, Mr. Stroh supported management’s commitment to become a learning organization through training and coaching in the development of initiatives targeted to achieve concrete organization imperatives.
• For a major city, he created and facilitated a conference on community-based economic development involving the public, private, and non-profit sectors. One important result of the conference has been a coordinated city-wide effort on employment training.

Mr. Stroh is well known throughout the organization development profession as an author and speaker. His articles have appeared in Organization Dynamics, Training and Development, The Systems Thinker, and the book Transforming Work. He is a frequent speaker for the Organization Development Network and Systems Thinking in Action Conference. Mr. Stroh was a National Science Foundation Fellow at MIT, where he earned an M.A. in City Planning. He also graduated Summa cum Laude with degrees in Civil Engineering and Urban Studies from the University of Michigan.

About Marilyn Byfield Paul, Ph.D

Marilyn Paul, Ph.D. is an organization and management consultant skilled in facilitation, organizational diagnosis, systems thinking, career development and coaching. Among her skills is the ability to facilitate a new perspective and original solutions to persistent problems. She has a special ability in combining a focus on results with attention to individual growth and team development. The focus of her consulting is to help people improve their abilities to work together to accomplish desired results. She is dedicated to improving the well being and effectiveness of people working in a wide range of organizations.

Over the past sixteen years, Dr. Paul has worked with people on many different organizational levels from executive teams to the shop floor in manufacturing settings. She works with clients to understand their current realities, develop a clearer shared vision, implement strategy, improve their skills in communication, peer coaching and time management. While in Israel she did several consulting projects including to local community centers, the Brookdale Institute and the Ministry of Health. She also directed a project for management development in the public health system in Gaza. There she worked with senior Israeli and Palestinian health professional to develop and deliver a training program for improving management skills in the health sector in Gaza.

She has published several articles including Moving From Blame to Accountability recently reprinted in Organizational Learning At Work, Pegasus Communications, Inc. 1998. And, The Learning Family: Taking the Five Disciplines Home. The Systems Thinker, 1999.

In 1988-1990 Dr. Paul worked with the Israeli Ministry of Health to produce a management development program for senior health professionals in the Gaza Strip.