available for:Art Kleiner
Art Kleiner is a writer, lecturer, and consultant with a background in management, interactive media, corporate environmentalism, scenario planning, and organizational learning.
He is a co-author (with Pete Senge et al.) of the best-selling Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, The Dance of Change, and Schools That Learn; and author of Who Really Matters: The Core Group Theory of Power, Priviledge, and Success.
Since 1986, he has taught in New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (the "academic home" for New York's "Silicon Alley"). He has consulted to BP, the International Finance Corp., Royal Dutch/Shell Group Planning, the Arizona Republic newspaper, Excite Europe, AmeriTrade, the LensCrafters retail chain, Global Business Network, the Canadian Energy Research Institute, and many educational organizations.
He has conducted editorial consultations for Pete Senge, Peter Schwartz, Noel Tichy, Harriet Rubin, Mitch Kapor, Arie de Geus, and Kenichi Ohmae; he has been described by journalist Stuart Crainer as one of the top three business ghostwriters. Art's own articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, 7 Days, Wired, Tikkun, Discover, Popular Science, Across the Board, Grolier's Encyclopedia, Marketing Week, and a variety of computer and telecommunications magazines.
A former editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and a longstanding expert on computer conferencing, Kleiner has been writing about telecommunications and computer technology for the general public since 1979. He was involved with the development of the Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES), WELL, and ECHO computer conferencing systems.
Executive Coaching creates a framework for leadership effectiveness and help clients grow beyond their boundaries. Through executive coaching, clients gain insights to new possibilities and communicating more effectively. Clients learn to alter their perceptions in order to develop the skills needed to lay the tracks for success within the organization.
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Faculty members have spoken at events across the US and abroad, and have participated in events of all varieties: executive retreats, sales meetings, industry conferences, corporate training seminars, client appreciation dinners, and trade shows.
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Our assessment tools may be customized to your organizational climate and business challenges. For companies interested in a more intimate program focused specifically on their needs, Liminal Group custom tailors group seminars and workshops on a variety of topics relevant to the transformation of individuals and organizations.
Art Kleiner speaks about Ethical Decision Making at the Carinegie Council.
Art Kleiner speaks about the inportance of truth in team organization at the Carinegie Council.
“I have worked with Art Kleiner since 2001, when he was a key presenter at the inaugural six-day program of the Shambhala Institute for Authentic Leadership (now ALIA Institute) of which I am the Founding Chair.
Art has subsequently presented modules on scenario planning at several other of our Institute gatherings, and his offerings have been consistently ranked among the best liked in our subsequent polling. This is no small thing, as we attract a highly sophisticated group of change practitioners from around the world, and our presenters are all highly regarded in their fields. I attribute this to the fact that Art is engaging, straightforward, very knowledgeable, an excellent listener, and is able to present a lot of complex ideas in a graspable big picture.”
Michael Chender, CEO
Coemergence
“Art was our "lead off" keynote speaker for the Organization Development Network conference of 800+ participants including internal and external consultants as well as corporate leaders. Art’s informal and engaging style made the substantive content he presented accessible to the audience. He shared stories and examples that connected with our group making the keynote feel customized rather than canned. Many participants remarked that they appreciated really getting some "meat" from his presentation rather than just generalities. Vocabulary and ideas from Art’s presentation were referenced by other speakers as well as by participants throughout the rest of the conference demonstrating that it served the purpose of setting the tone for what followed.”
Lisa Kimball, Board of Trustees
Organization Development Network
“Art is a master facilitator who goes beyond simply being able to introduce sessions and keep things moving. At a recent conference of executives, academics, and thought leaders he deftly managed speakers with significant differences in viewpoint, participants with very different levels of understanding and experience, and content that was so cutting edge a new field of study was emerging during the conference itself. Art created a space that was engaging and inclusive and made us all feel like part of the community.”
Lisa Kimball, President
Plexus Institute
“For the Neuroleadership Institute at CIMBA, we needed a moderator/facilitator with an eclectic background to smoothly and effortlessly tie seemingly disparate pieces of knowledge together and have them make sense to our diverse, multidisciplinary audience. Art Kleiner was that person. In addition, Art's breadth of experience in dealing with people greatly (and impressively) assisted us in making changes to our program virtually on the fly to broaden the overall learning experience. ”
Al Ringleb , COO
Neuroleadership Institute, CIMBA
“Art has not only one of the best grasps of the history of management, but also the history of insurgency in management. His presentations serve to provide a deep context within which change has manifested itself over time, including the hows and whys. I would highly recommend Art.”
Teddy Zmrhal, -
www.neuroleadership.org
The old saw "the customer comes first" is a flat-out lie, argues Kleiner, a contributing editor at strategy+business magazine and the author of several business books, in this fresh look at the structure and politics of business. He contends that "a depressing number of business corporations have evolved into organizations with one primary purpose: To extract wealth from all constitutions (not just the shareholders, but the employees, customers, and neighbors as well) and give it essentially to the children and grandchildren of some of its senior executives." Such corporate selfishness works because the key decisions in are being made by the "Core Group"-executives or employees whose needs and desires determine company behavior. Others within an organization immediately sense who is in the Core Group and adjust their behavior accordingly; "Day after day, in all the small decisions we made, all the employees contributed to keeping these individuals more or less at the center of the Core Group." Using examples of individuals and companies, Kleiner shows how employees can better understand the mechanisms of the Core Group to advance their careers; sometimes, he says, if they lack the respect of Core Group members, they might even conclude that leaving their current position is more advantageous. The book also provides executives with strategies for managing unions, shareholders and others in a time when recent scandals have tarnished the image of big corporations. Not just another bit of conventional business wisdom, this volume should prove most beneficial to experienced managers who are accustomed to holding workshops and seminars on change.
Kleiner's freewheeling portrait gallery focuses on corporate mavericks of the 1950s, '60s and '70s who pioneered self-managing work teams, responsiveness to customers, grassroots organizing and other ways to imbue corporations with a sense of the value of human relationships. Starting with British management scientist Eric Trist, whose experiments in industrial democracy in the 1940s laid the groundwork for U.S. managerial innovations of the 1980s, Kleiner afterward profiles General Foods manager Lyman Ketchum, who launched the work-team concept at a Topeka pet-food plant in the early 1970s; he then discusses how Royal Dutch/Shell in England switched from rigid numbers-based forecasting to "scenario planning," a method of predicting alternative patterns of global energy demand. Also spotlighted are MIT computer scientist Jay Forrester's design of the "Limits of Growth" model of the world's economic future; community/labor organizer Saul Alinsky's drive to change Kodak's hiring policies; and Stanford Research Institute engineer Willis Harman's parapsychology experiments and his campaign urging the federal government to adopt an ecological ethic. Kleiner, a freelance business reporter who has edited The Whole Earth Catalog, serves up a smorgasbord of status quo-changing ideas
Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation is the second book in the new Oxford Series, The Learning History Library. It is the story of major corporate change undertaken by Oil Co, a pseudonym for a major international Oil Company, just after a time of layoffs and cutbacks. Key people within the company tell this story, using a technique developed at MIT's Center for Organizational Learning. One hundred and fifty employees were interviewed at all levels of the company, from hourly workers to the Executive Council. They worked in all primary Oil Co businesses: exploration and production; refining and retail; chemical and oil consulting. During this time all the firm's values came into question, including its business practices, corporate governance structure, team management, and leadership style. Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation gives readers an inside look at what Oil Co learned collectively as a company. It also shows what employees learned individually as they dealt with a changing environment.
A step-by-step guide to establishing learning organizations within existing companies functions as a participative workbook, with exercises for both individuals and teams, suggested approaches and ideas, and success stories.
Since its release in 1990, Peter M. Senge's bestselling The Fifth Discipline has converted readers to its innovative business principles of the "learning organization," personal mastery, and systems thinking. Published nearly a decade later, Dance of Change provides a formidable response to businesspeople wondering how to make his programs stick. He outlines potential obstacles (such as initiating transformation, personal fear and anxiety, and measuring the unmeasurable) and proposes ways to turn these obstacles into sources of improvement. Senge--with considerable help from the team who worked on the follow-up development manual, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook--presents an insider's account of long-term maintenance efforts at General Electric, Harley-Davidson, the U.S. Army, and others who are learning organization, along with experience-based suggestions and exercises for individuals and teams. "We are seeking to understand how people nurture the reinforcing growth processes that naturally enable an organization to evolve and change," Senge explains, "and how they tend to the limiting processes that can impede or stop that growth." --Howard Rothman
Car Launch: The Human Side of Managing Change explores the turmoil occurring in the automobile industry and shows how one company was able to succeed dramatically, even while facing the rigors of open opposition. Told in the words of the people who were there, with commentary by the authors and other observers, this document was first commissioned by the firm (AutoCo) to help production teams learn from each other across organizational boundaries. It also provides an "insider" look at relationships between subordinates and bosses. This story will be of interest to any individual who is, or will be, engaged in transformation work and who wants to improve development and manufacturing operations.
Thankfully, organizational management theory guru Senge doesn't make the kind of simplistic prescriptions for improving schools that often come from the business community. At the heart of his handbook for educational change are the ideas Senge first articulated in The Fifth Discipline and subsequent books on building organizations where learning can thrive. His five key themes highlight the importance of developing realistic personal goals, establishing a shared vision, cultivating awareness of attitudes and perceptions, practicing positive group interaction and understanding interdependency and change, feedback and complexity. Although there aren't any genuine breakthroughs or original ideas here, the book succeeds in offering a compendium of useful concepts and innovative practices that may be of use to educators struggling to redefine themselves and their work during a time of rapid global and technological change. The book's broad sweep is both a strength and weakness. Some readers may be frustrated by the lack of depth and focus, though the book's helpful resource lists will steer them to other valuable sources. By popularizing ideas about learning theory, leadership, group dynamics and school/ community partnerships that are already accepted in much of the educational community, this handy volume may help parents better understand the struggles of educators to create dynamic and effective learning environments
Email: akleiner@liminalgroup.com
Phone: (212) 546-4625