By Sarina Pasricha
Here, at Organizational Dynamics at Penn, we always kick start our engagements with opportunities to come together to share stories and experiences. As everyone knows, we begin each class with our trademark dinners at the Inn at the Penn. We also begin each term with our OD Brunch, where the community can discover first hand the state of the program, and reconnect with friends and professors.
For Fall 2010, the speaker for the Brunch is Dr. J. Gerald Suarez, Professor of the Practice in Systems Thinking and Design, Department of Management and Organization, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.
Prior to joining the Smith School, Dr. Suarez served under two administrations in the White House as the Director of Presidential Quality. In this capacity, he initiated efforts to inculcate systems thinking and organizational redesign into the White House Communications Agency, the White House Military Office and the Executive Office of the President of the United States.
Dr. Suarez rocked the house down with his down to earth humor and his striking wit, as he shared “Meaningful Insights from the White House to the Classroom.”
Dr. Suarez’s brilliance comes from his ability to share stories that spark systems. He talked about how a minute is not just sixty seconds when in a discussion with an undergraduate. He talked about how it is a kind of systems oriented mess when students don’t really know what they want to do in life. He talked about how we never reach the future, but are always just in pursuit. We must never get weary of the chase.
His honesty resonates as he tells of how working in the White House meant a promising past will always overwhelm the future.
His most meaningful story is of a little boy whose father died in the September 11, 2001 attacks. The boy embraces Dr. Suarez and says, “When you find whoever is responsible, give them a time out, and no t.v.”
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