Event Brings Together Change-Minded Students and Experts

Three-day event for organization development and change unites researchers, professionals and students

Hundreds of professionals and students chose learning and networking over picnics and parades Memorial Day weekend when they attended ODSHUCON, the Sacred Heart University-sponsored 2025 International Society for Organization Development (OD) and Change Conference and Symposium.

The need for professionals to embrace change themselves was a recurring theme for the conference attended by the biggest names in the ODC field. In his opening keynote address, David Cooperrider, a distinguished professor of OD at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, gave his take on “what OD was made for.” The field can do good for the world and serve the lives in it, but professionals must be ready for “new magnitudes of OD change capacity,” he said.

Workshops provided opportunities for deeper learning. For example, a storytelling science workshop taught skills in storytelling and ‘re-storying.’ Another covered the fusion of neuroscience and value science, or neuro-axiology, considered a breakthrough in human cognitive and behavioral development.

Speaker Fred Miller, CEO of the Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, said he appreciated the conference for more than the information discussed. “I love OD, but more importantly, I love the people that are here—kindred spirits. These times when things are so hard and sometimes depressing, being around kindred spirits is necessary to keep up my spirit and my hope.”

Miller led a session called “Individual and Team Agency in Organizations: The Next Step at Moving OD Forward.” He said there were about 50 people in the room, and it was energized. “People are ready to start doing some things differently,” he said.

The event’s three think tank sessions, which focused on moving the field forward and onward, were billed as participatory action research sessions, and they delivered. One involved identifying and defining strategy, another examined competencies and skills needed in today’s organization development and change (ODC) environment, while the third looked at ODC curricula, scholarship and research. Analysis of data collected in the sessions will be published in the Organization Development Journal.

Opportunities for OD learners

The conference attracted a large contingent of students, especially from Sacred Heart’s Ph.D. in organization development, change & effectiveness program, a cohort-based hybrid program with select in-person residencies. Launched in 2024, the program is unique in that it combines traditional OD education with a forward focus on strategic ODC and social responsibility.

Program director Anton Shufutinsky was highly visible during the conference. ODSHUCON founder and conference chair, Shufutinsky also led a plenary discussion with two OD-educated executives, illuminating how their education has helped them and impacted their experiences in the C-suite. During the conference awards ceremony, featuring 12 categories, Shufutinsky was honored with the Leading Edge of Change Award for his innovation in ODC methods of practice.

Rather than participate passively, student attendees could show off their ideas in an innovation competition. Posters they presented included a model for innovation, collaboration and mastery, and explored agile ODC and strengthening bonds across generations in the workplace.

Marc Andonian, managing partner of Meaningful Metrics, which provides personal and professional development to individuals and organizations, spent much of his time on the exhibit hall floor showcasing books from the Robert S. Hartman Institute about axiology, the science of value. “What I particularly like about this conference is that there are so many of the SHU students here. That changes the whole dynamic,” said Andonian. “I think the students are having a fabulous time: lots of opportunities to network, develop relationships, share new ideas, test ideas and concepts.”

One well-attended workshop covered practical OD skill-building. Co-presenter Larry Kokkelenberg began the workshop with a scenario about the soured relationship between two colleagues after one got promoted. Several attendees took a stab at role playing to get to the heart of the aggressive, non-promoted colleague’s mindset.

“Any organization you work at will never change unless the people change, and OD is people and systems,” Kokkelenberg said. “They don’t teach you at school that the union rep hates you like the devil. Or about [dealing with] the person who’s sexist or racist or abusive and doesn’t even know their own biases.”

Regan Miller, principal of Future Wise Organizational Consultants, has written two books with Kokkelenberg and served as his co-presenter. “As a practitioner, when you’re in the room, you’re part of that system and also responsible for interpreting it. If you see it, hear it or sense it, say it,” she said, explaining that OD professionals must always be ready to bring observations to others.

Reflecting on the conference, during which she received the Outstanding Practitioner Award, Miller said, “It’s been really nice to be immersed with so many folks. We have wonderful practitioners, a wonderful group of students, and we can intermingle because it’s a small size.”

‘Change how we change’

With six decades of experience in the field, David Jamieson, a consultant and professor emeritus at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, is no stranger to adapting his work to changing conditions. But during the session “New Thinking About Leadership and Organization Changes 2025,” he said that in the world today, it’s “80,000% different from everything” he’s done before. “We’re in a new era,” he said.

This new era sees multiple generations in the workforce with many reasons for being unhappy and disengaged. Various overlapping factors, including systemic, technical and social, are changing quickly, while all facets of the environment—government, economy, social values, climate, etc.—are changing simultaneously.

Implementing change used to be about individual projects, but “we need to change how we change,” Jamieson said, adding, “We need to bring leadership and organizational change together.”