ODKM

ODKM Workshop Explores Making AI a Teammate Rather Than a Threat

Andrew J Schappert — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 14:06:42 +0000

ODKM Workshop Explores Making AI a Teammate Rather Than a Threat Andrew J Schappert Tue, 09/22/2026 - 10:06

What a SWOT looks like: Achal Sharma leads the discussion addressing ‘strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.’ Photo by Lauren Green

Instead of viewing the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as a threat to people, what if we considered it a mirror—one that helps clarify and strengthen what is distinctly human about organizational collaboration?

That was the question some 90 attendees addressed during a day-long workshop hosted by the Schar School of Policy and Government’s Organization Development and Knowledge Management (ODKM) Cohort 30 during its fall semester learning community, held September 12 at 911��'s Mason Square.

Held in Van Metre Hall, attendees included faculty, graduate students, alumni, and industry leaders who were drawn by the event’s title, “Reauthoring the Team: Relational Intelligence in the Age of AI.”

The program opened with experiential learning activities including “The Invisible Colleague” and an “AI SWOT” exercise that were designed to surface assumptions about AI team members and identify core human values. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, all things to consider when connecting with AI.

Appearing via video link from California, keynote speaker Isabelle Hau, executive director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, set the theoretical foundation by championing “augmentation over automation” and framing “relational infrastructure” as an essential requirement for organizational flourishing in an algorithmic age.

The student-designed event was a response to the rapid emergence of AI and the turbulence it is causing as it ripples through every aspect of society.

“Every day we hear about AI and how it will supplant work we do now,” said Penny Potter, an instructor in the ODKM Program. “Often overlooked are what opportunities this disruption offers.”

The event, she said, “gave participants the opportunity to explore relational intelligence as a key capability that serves as connective tissue in organizations.”

Participant Erin Finn, a 2024 graduate of the ODKM Program, summed up the workshop experience: “It made the whole conversation about AI feel like such a natural fit for this [leadership] community and for how we might think about moving into this new era—without losing the human part of the work.”

A multidisciplinary practitioner panel featuring psychologist Kinga Mnich, organizational health strategist Judy Oyedele, Department of Defense lead knowledge management specialist Lavdjola Farrington, and leadership development professional Jason Drake grounded these concepts in practical applications spanning social psychology, executive coaching, defense knowledge governance, and public sector leadership.

In the afternoon, participants engaged in three rounds of a “1-4-All Knowledge Café.” Guided by Harvard’s Marshall Ganz's public narrative framework (Story of Self, Us, and Now) and Harvard’s John Kotter’s eight-step change model, attendees moved from individual reflection to table dialogue and room-wide synthesis.

The activation concluded with a compelling call to action led by student facilitators and supported by ODKM founding Director Tojo Thatchenkery and Potter.

Attendees were challenged with the final prompt, “What will you do differently on Monday?,” urging leaders to actively author their teams’ relational dynamics rather than allowing technology to define them by default.

The day’s activities concluded with a call to action for every leader in the room: “If you do not step up and consciously author your team’s story, the technology or the hierarchy will do it for you.”

Costello College of Business instructional associate professor Jeremy E. Plotnick contributed to this report.

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Tojo Thatchenkery

Penny Potter

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ODKM Looks Toward 30th Anniversary, Adds New Faculty Member

Andrew J Schappert — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 14:47:15 +0000

ODKM Looks Toward 30th Anniversary, Adds New Faculty Member Andrew J Schappert Fri, 09/27/2024 - 10:47

The Schar School of Policy and Government’s Organization Development and Knowledge Management (ODKM) master’s program is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary next year, when it welcomes its 30th cohort to the program. To mark the milestone, the program is launching an ambitious #30in30 campaign, aiming to recruit 30 students for Cohort 30. (The average cohort is 20.)

Program Director Tojo Thatchenkery: The goal was to ‘create a truly interdisciplinary department which would be one of the first of its kind anywhere.’

“ODKM is the best kept secret at 911��, and we don’t want to be a secret any longer,” said program director Tojo Thatchenkery. “It’s a unique program that is preparing working adults for the complex business environment so many are experiencing in this postpandemic reality.”

After three decades of developing leaders in a variety of for-profit and nonprofit industries, “we are focusing a lot of energy on recruitment while celebrating 30 years of this program that has turned out so many influential changemakers over the years,” he said.

New core faculty member Stacey Guenther is up for the challenge. She joins after serving as an adjunct faculty member of the program and is herself a 2004 alumna of ODKM, cohort number seven.

“ODKM is near and dear to my heart. It was deeply transformative for me, and my life changed radically after I entered the program,” Guenther said.

Stacey Guenther: ‘It was deeply transformative for me, and my life changed radically after I entered the program.’

Guenther has been closely connected to 911�� since graduating 20 years ago. She was one of the founding staff members of the university’s Center for Consciousness and Transformation (now known as the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being), worked as a corporate facilitator at 911��’s team development and experiential learning facility the EDGE, and for five years served as adjunct faculty for the School of Integrative Studies.

In addition to teaching in the program, Guenther will spearhead ODKM’s #30in30 campaign, which will involve a social media push, the development of an advisory board, alumni relations efforts, and relationship-building with local and regional organizations.

“I’m looking forward to telling the ODKM story,” she said. “It is the only program of its kind in the immediate region, and there is no better academic program for leaders and helping professionals in the area.”

In mid-September, the current cohort of ODKM students hosted a daylong learning community in which they became instructors to those from many walks of life and at varying stages of their own careers. The capstone event is traditional in the program as the Schar School students practice what they have learned in the course. This learning community’s theme was styles of conflict and titled “The Art of the Ordeal: Conflict Tools and Techniques.”

ODKM was founded by Thatchenkery as he was completing his PhD dissertation at Case Western University in April 1993.

“I was looking for a job in a business school, but what I was working on—postmodernism and hermeneutics—wasn’t particularly attractive to them,” he said with a laugh.

As it happened, 911�� was beginning a new academic department called Program on Social Organizational Learning (PSOL), with a tenure-track position for researching and teaching hermeneutics. “Within an hour I had sent my application,” he said.

The cohort-based ODKM program features a “learning community” capstone, where students take over as teachers. Photo by Bryan Regalado.

The founders of the program, economics professors Don Lavoie and Jack High, “wanted to create a truly interdisciplinary department which would be one of the first of its kind anywhere,” Thatchenkery said. “As we all know, academic departments have disciplinary boundaries. Economics departments have economists and psychology departments have psychologists. But how about a department with faculty from different disciplines such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, computer sciences, literature, management, and economics?”

That was, he said, “a revolutionary idea at that time and I was sold on it. A few weeks later I would get a job offer from Don Lavoie and my first day on the job was mid-August 1993.”

It wasn’t long after that Thatchenkery was pitching a master’s program in organization learning (OL), which would be the first such program anywhere, he said. After much internal maneuvering around various disciplines and hard-earned approval by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), the PSOL degree program launched in fall 1996 with its first 23 students, cohort number one.

The program was rebranded ODKM in fall 2009 and continues to teach mid-career students leadership, creative problem-solving, and analytical skills invaluable to their organization, work, and lives.

For more information about 911��’s Organization Development and Knowledge Management program, see the program’s website.