David Peter Stroh

David Peter Stroh
David Peter Stroh in 2010
Born	17 August 1950(1950-08-17) New York, USA
Residence	Boston, USA
Nationality	American

David Peter Stroh (born August 17, 1950) is an organizational development and learning consultant. He was a founding partner of Innovation Associates, and is one of the founders and principal partners of Bridgeway Partners.

Early life

Born Peter Stroh in New York City on August 17, 1950 to Oscar Stroh and Eva Sondheimer Stroh,^[1] he was influenced in early years by the European heritage of his parents and extensive travels with them.

Training

Two other early interests later evolved into what would become Stroh’s career. The first was designing elaborate road networks and maps, and he became an actor in a semi-professional troupe in the New York City area when he was 12. His interest in travel evolved into a fascination with urban transportation planning, which he pursued first as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan where he graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1973 with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and B.A. in Urban Studies. Stroh went on to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a National Science Foundation fellow, where he graduated with a Masters in City Planning in 1975 while shifting his professional focus to Organization Development. Both fields offered him the opportunity to bring people closer to each other and their environment using the diverse disciplines of engineering/design and the behavioral sciences. Unlike urban transportation planning however, he found Organization Development to be a more effective vehicle for helping people.

Early career

Stroh joined Innovation Associates as a partner in 1978, along with the principal founder Charles F. Kiefer, a former MIT classmate, and two other partners, Peter Senge and Robert Fritz.

Kiefer and Stroh published their view of organization development in 1984 in a chapter of the book, Transforming Work,^[2] “A New Paradigm for Developing Organizations”. Senge summarized many of the ideas pioneered by Innovation Associates in the 1980s in The Fifth Discipline, which he published in 1990. Fritz continued his career as both an artist and structural thinker/consultant through such books as The Path of Least Resistance for Managers^[3] and Corporate Tides.^[4]

Later career

Stroh left Innovation Associates in 1986 to work as a corporate organization consultant for Digital Equipment Corporation from 1987-1993. He rejoined Innovation Associates and stayed with them after it was purchased by Arthur D. Little in 1995. During that period he developed additional interests in such areas as the management of paradox , reducing the gap between rich and poor and facilitating multi-sectoral collaboration. Stroh was also a charter member of Senge's Society for Organizational Learning.

In his work, Stroh uses applied systems thinking to apply a practical approach that enables leaders to achieve breakthrough change around chronic, complex problems in the private, public, and social sectors.

Stroh left Arthur D. Little in 2000, and after a sabbatical with his wife Marilyn Paul in Jerusalem, returned to the Boston area in 2002 to co-found the organizational consulting firm Bridgeway Partners with Paul. He has since focused more of his practice on facilitating social change.

Beginning in 2005, he and Paul developed a new approach that enables leaders to transform how they manage time in a 24/7 world. Managing Your Time as a Leader supports leaders to achieve sustainable productivity by transforming how they manage their time, energy, and attention. They use this approach in executive coaching, training, and their organization consulting practice.

Publications

• Paul,M. and Stroh,D.P., "The Learning Family",The Systems Thinker, August, 1999
• Paul,M. and Stroh,D.P., "Managing Your Time As A Leader", Reflections: The Society for Organizational Learning Journal, Winter 2006

• Stroh,D.P. and Zurcher,K, "Leveraging Grantmaking - Part 2: Aligning Programmatic Approaches with Complex System Dynamics", The Foundation Review, Winter, 2010

• Stroh,D.P., "Managing Your Time as a Municipal Leader", Nation's Cities Weekly, October 19, 2009

• Stroh,D.P., "Leveraging Grantmaking - Part 1: Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Social Systems", The Foundation Review, Fall, 2009

• Stroh,D.P., "A Systemic View of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict", The Systems Thinker, June/July 2002

• Stroh,D.P., "Leveraging Change: The Power of Systems Thinking in Action", Reflections: The Society of Organizational Learning Journal, Winter, 2000; reprinted in Organisational Learning for All Seasons, Prem Kumar, ed., National Community Leadership Institute, Singapore, 2003

• Stroh,D.P., "Conflicting Goals: Structural Tension At Its Worst", The Systems Thinker, September, 2000

• Stroh,D.P., "Sustainable Development: The Next Generation of Business Opportunity", Prism, Fourth Quarter 1998; co-authors Gilbert Hedstrom and Stephen Poltorzycki

• Stroh,D.P., "A New Paradigm for Developing Organizations", Transforming Work, John Adams, ed., Miles River Press, Arlington, VA, 1998, 1984; co-author Charles Kiefer

• Stroh,D.P.,"The Case for Systemwide Learning", The Systems Thinker, Dec. 1997/Jan. 1998

• Stroh,D.P., "The Systems Orientation: From Curiosity to Courage", The Systems Thinker, November, 1994

• Stroh,D.P., "Mastering the Archetypes of Social Change", OD Network Conference Proceedings, October, 1994

• Stroh,D.P., "Learning to Thrive on Paradox", Training & Development, September 1994; co-author Wynne Miller

• Stroh,D.P., "The Rich Get Richer, And The Poor...", The Systems Thinker, March 1992

• Stroh,D.P., "Purposeful Consulting", Organizational Dynamics, Autumn, 1987

• Stroh,D.P., "Re-Vision", OD Practitioner, September 1986

• Stroh,D.P. and Kiefer,C., "Sustaining Success in Fast Growth Companies", San Jose Business Journal, April 2, 1984

References

1. ^ Leo Baeck Institute Archives
2. ^ Transforming Work on WorldCat
3. ^ The Path of Least Resistance for Managers on WorldCat
4. ^ Corporate Tides on WorldCat

Books

• Adams, John D. (1998). Elements: Transforming Work. Miles River Press. ISBN 0-917-917-12-X. 

External links

• Bridgeway Partners official website
• David Stroh and Michael Goodman's website, Applied Systems Thinking
• Kali Saposnick, Rethinking the Middle East Crisis: An Interview with David Peter Stroh, Pegasus Communications, 2002

Persondata
Name	Stroh, David Peter
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	August 17, 1950
Place of birth	New York, USA
Date of death
Place of death