Ken Shepard, PhD., is the Founding President of the Global Organization Design Society, a world-wide professional association of academics, business users, and consultants practicing the application of Requisite Organization concepts. He was chief editor and contributing author of the book, Organization Design, Levels of Work Complexity and Levels of Human Capability: Executive Guide, and was also founder of the new journal, Organization Design.

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Ken held management positions in business, government, and not-for-profit sectors.

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As a consultant and Principal of the Canadian Centre for Leadership and Strategy for 24 years, Dr. Shepard worked with CEO's, Deputy Ministers, and seconds-in-command responsible for major change projects in Canada and abroad.

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Ken's practice was largely based on Requisite Organization concepts developed by Elliott Jaques complemented by state-of-the-art organization development processes.

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Ken met Dr. Jaques in l978, brought him to Toronto in l992 and produced 3500 participant days of public workshops in Requisite Organization with Dr. Jaques introducing these concepts to senior consultants and line managers. Over time he benefited from Dr. Jaques's advice on his major consulting projects.

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Dr. Shepard founded the management of change program at the Niagara Institute in 1981 and directed it for a decade before leaving to found the Canadian Centre. In that role he benchmarked best practices at major Canadian corporations and designed a wide-range of senior management development programs at the VP level. Dr. Shepard has designed and led the following workshops often tailored for application within a corporation.

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• Creating the CEO Role

• Strategic Planning

• Strategy Implementation

• Organization Design

• Talent Pool Design and Management

• Leadership and the Management of Change

• Public Affairs, both fundamentals and advanced.

• Working Effectively with External Stakeholder Groups

 

Services include:

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• coaching to leaders

• top management team building

• strategic planning

• organizational design

• major cultural change, and

• senior management development and work conferences.

 

Experience in supporting strategic planning

 

Dr. Shepard's primary consulting focus is to support public sector and not-for-profit executives to plan and manage their strategic tasks.

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• Master of city planning degree and advanced graduate studies in regional science and regional resource development.

• Five years as a senior manager in a large regional planning agency coordinating complex development issues among various councils, committees and boards.

• Senior planner for a world's fair effort in Philadelphia working to build consensus in a racially charged environment.

• A doctorate in management specializing in planning models, futures methodology and effective accountability and participation processes.

• Seven years experience in designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue and planning on contentious social, economic, and environmental issues. This involved designing constructive dialogue and planning processes to bring together strong special interest groups who often used power and threats in difficult situations.

• Fifteen years experience in designing and facilitating strategic planning processes for federal, provincial agencies and crown corporations and non-profits across Canada.

• Extensive experience in working with federal and provincial deputy ministers and their management teams of assistant deputy ministers and with not-for-profit boards and CEO's.

 

Advanced skill in:

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• Assessing and improving planning systems.

• Designing and facilitating planning processes including large scale planning meetings.

• Data collection including interviewing, focus groups, surveys and critical review of reports.

• Developing and using effective templates and wall graphics for effective systems thinking.

• Skills in value assessment, clarification, and reconciliation of competing values. (Use of Charles Hampden-Turner's theories on reconciling competing values as developed at the Niagara Institute)

• Experience in the Carver governance model assisting non-profit boards in revising their roles and processes.

 

Academic Degrees and Professional Certifications:

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• Ph.D. - Management - Andersen School of Management, UCLA, United States

• M.C. P. - University of Pennsylvania, United States

• Certificate - Natural Resource Evaluation - OAS, Brazil

 

GO Society Roles/Positions:

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• President (2004-Present)

• GO Toronto Legacy Group