Two webinars to help build more resilient organizations

The Resilient Design Institute is cosponsoring two upcoming workshops organized by the organization Built Environment Plus.

1. Boosting Organizational Resilience – April 14, 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Presented by Dr. Guy Sapirstein

Description:

In our industry, we think of resilience predominantly as a physical infrastructure issue – passive survivability, uninterrupted power supply, and managing storm surges and flooding. The other side of resilience is business continuity and the human aspect of organizational function. Our current experience with COVID-19 is truly emphasizing how critical it is to be prepared to address the human dimension and manage operations from that perspective.

This webinar will address the issues of enhancing organizational resilience during times of crisis in general and a pandemic in particular. In the current situation where most people are working remotely, a variety of business processes, and ‘cultural’ norms are adversely affected. We will discuss the three pillars of resilience: People, processes, places, with a focus on the people and people-related processes. A

Staff who are in managerial or leadership positions, will need to adapt leadership styles to accommodate the new reality of remote teams, and cultivate a stronger sense of team membership to facilitate productivity. In addition, staff will have the increased burden of balancing work obligations and home responsibilities (especially if they have younger children or others requiring more care).

The webinar will provide answers for the following questions:

1. What are the psychological principles that should guide engaging with employees throughout the process of dealing with crisis?

2. How can a “single point of failure” be avoided?

3. Which of our business processes are vulnerable to disruption?

4. How do we avoid burnout and employee turnover?

We will review practical “fixes” addressing issues related to communication; structuring the workday; and maintaining staff engagement. Finally, we will review strategies for self-care, personal resilience, and caring for others (employees, family members, etc.).

About Dr. Guy Sapirstein

With a PhD in Clinical Psychology, Guy has been on the cutting edge of applied social science for the past 20 years. Following the events of September 11, 2001 he began collaborating on the development of models for enhancing resilience through individual, community and organizational preparedness and response. Those models have been successfully implemented across the United States and internationally. Currently he splits his time between coaching clients on personal and organizational resilience, helping leaders implement strategies for resilience in their organizations, and providing resilience focused psychotherapy for individuals and couples.

An experienced speaker, Guy has presented at numerous conferences including the first UN sponsored International Strategy for Disaster Reduction conference in Davos, Switzerland. His articles have appeared in academic journals, trade publications and textbooks. Additionally, he co-authored several manuals (on crisis response and interventions) that have been translated into several languages and widely distributed by IBM Corporation as part of their crisis response following disasters in the USA, Pakistan, China, the Philippines and Haiti. Guy holds a PhD from the University of Connecticut and a BA in Social Studies from Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

The webinar is free, but requires registration. Click here for registration details.

2. Managing Change in Crisis – April 21, 1:00 to 2:00 pm

Presented by Barbra Batshalom

Managing change is a constant in business, but in these times, we are faced with more and faster changes with no way to predict what will happen from day to day. Pervasive uncertainty kills productivity and morale. Successful change management results from a combination of effective leadership, clear and targeted communication, team building, emotional intelligence and appropriate levels of transparency. Leaders need to create for employees as much safety and predictability as they can, as well as some level of perceived control in their lives. The practical tools and approaches shared in this webinar are useful all the time, and especially valuable during this pandemic and attendees will leave with immediately applicable strategies.

About Barbra Batshalom

Barbra has been a leader in the green building movement since 1998 when she left 12 years of traditional architecture practice to found The Green Roundtable (GRT) a nonprofit whose mission was making green building mainstream. GRT was the USGBC’s Affiliate in MA for 9 years and supported the growth of the LEED program.

Sustainable Performance Institute (SPI), originally a program of GRT, focuses on high-level interventions to institutionalize sustainability at the organizational level in processes, systems and policies nationally, working with companies to implement change management strategies and achieve measurable improvements in performance and profitability across their portfolios. SPI’s SMARTsustainability ™ program provides a framework to evaluate the capability of A/E/C firms to deliver consistent, high quality sustainability services and was adopted by HUD for affordable housing developers.

SPI’s transformative workshop programs have been delivered to hundreds of organizations nation-wide to help raise the bar on professional practice in the industry. Barbra is an adjunct professor teaching Sustainable Real Estate Development in Brandeis University’s International Business School. She has served on numerous boards, government task forces and committees to help develop public and corporate policies for sustainability and teaches courses on change management for sustainability for professionals around the world.

Her work focuses on the intersection of systems, processes and culture. With a diverse background of fine arts, social psychology and 20+ years in architecture and sustainability consulting, she brings a variety of skills to her work and a unique perspective engaging the human dynamics of decision-making and creative collaboration to technical work.

The webinar is free, but requires registration. Click here for registration details.

David W. Orr, Ph.D

David W. Orr is Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies & Politics, Emeritus. He also served as “Counselor to the President” of Oberlin College for ten years. He is the author of eight books, including Dangerous Years: Climate Change and the Long Emergency (Yale, 2016) and Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse (Oxford, 2009) and co-editor of three others. He has authored over 220 articles, reviews, book chapters, and professional publications. In the past twenty-five years he has served as a board member or adviser to ten foundations and on the Boards of many organizations including the Rocky Mountain Institute, Bioneers, and the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

He is currently a Trustee of the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, Children and Nature Network, and the WorldWatch Institute. He has been awarded nine honorary degrees and a dozen other awards including a Lyndhurst Prize, a National Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation, leadership awards from the U.S. Green Building Council (2014) and from Second Nature (2012), and a lifetime achievement award from Green Energy Ohio and the North American Association for Environmental Education. He has lectured at hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Asia. He headed the effort to design, fund, and build the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, which was named by an AIA panel in 2010 as “the most important green building of the past thirty years,” as “one of thirty milestone buildings of the twentieth century” by the U.S. Department of Energy, and as one of “52 game-changing buildings of the past 170 years” by the editors of Building Design +Construction in January, 2016. He was instrumental in the design and funding of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center. He is the founder of the Oberlin Project and a founder of the journal Solutions. His current work is on the state of American democracy.