Ken Shepard

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Ken Shepard
Global Organization Design Society

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. 

Distinguishing experiences that provided the foundation for his RO-related roles

  • Work experience as a senior manager, academic, and consultant with roles in business, government, not-for-profits and education.
  • A doctorate in management specializing in organization behaviour, organization development - his research including building a network and community in the field of organization development.
  • An early meeting with Elliott Jaques in 1978
  • Experience in building leadership networks, designing multi-stakeholder consultations, creating learning experiences, and designing and moderating conferences.
  • 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.
    • 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
  • International experience - residential periods in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina plus extensive travels in Latin America and Europe - 
  • 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.
  • Ken's practice was largely based on Requisite Organization concepts developed by Elliott Jaques complemented by state-of-the-art organization development processes.

Contributions to the field of Requisite Organization

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.

He was the chief editor and a contributing author of the book, Organization Design, Levels of Work Complexity and Human Capability: Executive Guide.

Contributions to the Global Organization Design Society

A member of the Toronto Legacy Group that began meeting after a memorial service for Dr. Jaques in 2003,  Dr. Shepard retired from consulting work to dedicate his volunteer energies full-time to preserving Dr. Jaques's legacy.  He incorporated the GO Society as a non-profit and served as its founding president from 2003 to the present.  He also chaired the Society's Editorial Board for that same period.

He networked to build a community of RO practitioners worldwide.

He produced and moderated five world conferences in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2014

He developed the GO Society's website and managed the transition through three platforms and countless revisions.

Contact info

Email:                   [email protected]

Telephone:          +1-647-570-6805

Webpage:            https://globalro.org/

Linkedin URL:     https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-shepard-51915111/


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Degrees and certifications

B.A. In Earth Sciences, Antioch College
Certificate in Natural Resource Planning, The Organization of American States, Project #29, Universidade Rural, Brazil
M.C.P.  Master of City Planning, University of Pennsylvania, School of Fine Arts
Ph.D.  in Organization Behavior, Andersen School of Management, UCLA

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Major organizations and consulting firms that provide Requisite Organization-based services

A global association of academics, managers, and consultants that focuses on spreading RO implementation practices and encouraging their use
Dr. Gerry Kraines, the firms principal, combines Harry Levinson's leadership frameworks with Elliott Jaques's Requisite Organization. He worked closely with Jaques over many years, has trained more managers in these methods than anyone else in the field, and has developed a comprehensive RO-based software for client firms.
Founded as an assessment consultancy using Jaques's CIP methods, the US-based firm expanded to talent pool design and management, and managerial leadership practice-based work processes
requisite_coaching
Former RO-experienced CEO, Ron Harding, provides ooaching to CEOs of start-ups and small and medium-size companies that are exploring their own use of RO concepts.  His role is limited, temporary and coordinated with the RO-based consultant working with the organization
Ron Capelle is unique in his multiple professional certifications, his implementation of RO concepts through well designed organization development methods, and his research documenting the effectiveness of his firm's interventions
A Toronto requisite organization-based consultancy with a wide range of executive coaching, training, organization design and development services.
A Sweden-based consultancy, Enhancer practices time-span based analysis, executive assessment, and provides due diligence diagnosis to investors on acquisitions.
Founded by Gillian Stamp, one of Jaques's colleagues at Brunel, the firm modified Jaques;s work-levels, developed the Career Path Appreciation method, and has grown to several hundred certified assessors in aligned consulting firms world-wide recently expanding to include organization design
Requisite Organization International Institute distributes Elliott Jaques's books, papers, and videos and provides RO-based training to client organizations