When Lawrence Technological University’s College of Business and IT Professor of Management Jackie Stavros, DM, was asked to be one of the three lead editors in the fifth edition of Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change, she invited two Doctor of Business Administration CoBIT alumni to co-author two foundational chapters on leading and strategy.
Stavros also contributed six chapters in the latest edition since the launch of its third edition in 2010 by the publisher Wiley. Since then, Practicing Organization Development has been the primary textbook for CoBIT’s MBA course Organization Development: Leading Transformation and Change and LTU’s Senior Service College Fellows (SSCF) program for the U.S. Army.
Leadership Begins Within
This book exemplifies Lawrence Tech’s long-standing motto of Theory and Practice, serving as both a scholarly foundation and a practical guide for students and managers alike. The fifth edition offers a contemporary and integrative view of organization development (OD), blending classical and emerging theories, whole-systems approaches, and practical frameworks to support transformational change across organizations. It is widely used to inform how organization development is accomplished, guiding and supporting leaders at all levels strengthen team performance, build strategic capacity, and effectively lead change in complex organizational systems.
The two Lawrence Tech alumni who are contributors and co-authors with Stavros are Donald R. James, Master of Business Administration ‘06 and a DBA ‘11, CEO of Solero Technologies; and Patricia Malone, DBA ‘10, Managing Director of Breneman Advisors.
In Chapter 4, Stavros and James demonstrate that effective leadership begins with inner clarity. Through a Change Leadership Self-Assessment (C-LSA), leaders articulate their personal values, vision, mission, and purpose creating the foundation for shaping an enterprise’s strategic direction and culture. James believes the best leaders create more leaders. By grounding leading of self in clearly defined personal values, vision, mission, and purpose, he embodies an authentic servant leadership style that has contributed to how he leads others and sustained organizational growth and success. Their chapter shares how disciplined self-leadership translates into enterprise clarity, cultural alignment, and measurable performance. When leaders are clear about who they are and what they stand for, they create the conditions for others to grow, learn, and lead.
In Chapter 15, Stavros and Malone share a case study on how the Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results (SOAR) framework, a generative, strengths-based approach to strategic thinking, planning, and leading was used under Malone’s leadership, to guide a 12 member team to become a true strategic partner to the Consumer Products Division. This case demonstrates that strategy is strongest when the people responsible for delivering it help shape it.
SOAR: An Accessible Framework for Strategic Impact
SOAR was created by Stavros by applying Appreciative Inquiry (AI) from the field of organization development to the strategy process. Appreciative Inquiry is widely recognized as one of the most effective approaches to positive change and serves as the operating system of SOAR. The result is a disciplined, practical framework that transforms strategy from a top-down exercise into a shared, results-driven capability. Learn how to SOAR at www.soar-strategy.com
The collaboration between Stavros, James, and Malone reflects an ongoing relationship with alumni who are committed to learning and contributing where theory informs practice, practice strengthens theory, and leadership learning evolves across academic, industry, and government environments.
A remarkable outcome of “Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change” is how accessible Stavros and her co-authors have made the OD and leading change concepts. Rather than spending weeks searching for seminars or consults, the discerning executive can turn directly to this edited volume with over 40 contributors to design meaningful change processes because the book offers “transformations you can help achieve.”
And like everything Stavros touches, the heart of her work remains deeply human-centered while driving systemic change that improves learning and performance. She consistently reminds leaders that the human element cannot be sidelined, and they must create environments that work for all, where leadership and strategy are shared capabilities. “People are motivated by authentic leaders,” she says. “You are the intervention; so, what you think, say, and do matters!”
Click here to purchase a copy of “Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change.”
By: Peter Hollinshead
