Mary Ann has conducted considerable research on organization effectiveness and development, resulting in a significant body of published work. We have compiled some of her most popular work here, to share as resources for you:

 

An Appreciative Inquiry into the Factors of Cultural Continuity during Leadership Transition

In this article in OD Practitioner, Mary Ann presents a case study on LeadShare, a 150-year-old partnership of nearly 350 accountants and management consultants in Canada, as they anticipated the transitions of two key executives within three years.

 

Executive Skills Profile: A Method for Assessing Development Needs Among Family Medicine Faculty

This paper, published in the journal Family Medicine, examines how the Executive Skills Profile–a measure of job demands and employee skills–can successfully be used as a faculty development tool in academic family medicine departments.

 

Leading in a Learning Way

In chapter 16 of The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change, leadership and learning come together in the presentation of the relationship strategy vision performance (RSVP) fundamentals of leadership model, a holistic and integrated typology of leadership associated with the phases of the experiential learning cycle. It concludes with strategies for leadership education, training, and development using the model.

 

Present and Future of Organization Development

In this chapter of The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change, Mary Ann looks toward the future of organization development (OD) by reflecting on Kurt Lewin (1890-1947), whose contributions to the field are unparalleled. The relevancy of Lewin’s work has not diminished, and he remains one of the most referenced authors in social science.

 

Reframing Resistance to Change: A Gestalt Perspective

Mary Ann and Claire Stratford examine the Gestalt theory of resistance in organizations. Resistance is best understood if seen as the manifestation of multiple realities. At the most basic level, resistance is defined in Gestalt terms as energy in another direction.

 

Use of Self in OD Consulting: What Matters is Presence

Mary Ann and Jonno Hanafin explore “use of self” and “presence” in organization development (OD) consulting in this chapter of The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change. Even though the two concepts are often used interchangeably, they assert that there is an important distinction.

 

Use of Self as an OD Practitioner

In Chapter 6 of The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change, Mary Ann and Brenda B. Jones explore the topic of use of self in OD consulting. They begin with an overview of the practice of OD through the dual lens of what consultants do and how they do it. The “how” segues to the main topic of “use of self”. An in-depth examination of “use of self” follows, with particular emphasis on understanding the concepts of the helping relationship and the self. A discussion of “use of self” in OD consulting includes principles of Gestalt OD. They conclude with suggestions for maintaining self as instrument.

 

Using Experiential Learning Theory and Learning Styles in Diversity Education

In this chapter of “The Importance of Learning Styles,” David Kolb and Mary Ann apply Kolb’s and Paolo Freire’s experiential learning theories to formulate ideas about delivering effective diversity education

 

What is Gestalt Organization & Systems Development?

In this article published in the OD Practitioner, Mary Ann attempts to clarify Organization & Systems Development (OSD). She explores the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological roots of OSD and presents a summary of key OSD principles.

 

Working with Individuals in Organizations

Chapter 21 of The NTL Handbook of Organization Development and Change describes a model for characterizing and improving how working with individuals is carried out in the service of organization development. The model is an adaptation of a framework initially developed in 1997 by the authors: Edwin C. Nevis, Jonno Hanafin and Mary Ann Rainey, with Claire Stratford