Arian Ward 
Arian Ward
is co-founder, principal coach/consultant, and CEO of Community
Frontiers (www.communityfrontiers.com),
in Boulder Creek, CA. Community Frontiers is a knowledge and experience-rich
global network of individuals who have pooled their unique talents
and perspectives in the service of the larger community of their
clients, society, and the earth. Community Frontiers’ approach
is guided by the belief that any organization and the people who
work in it make their greatest contribution when they come together
around a common purpose grounded in the spirit, practice, and
collective intelligence of community – in the deepest and
most powerful sense of that often overused, but very special word,
“community.”
Through his
thought leadership, coaching, and event design and facilitation,
Arian ignites organizations and their leaders to evolve their
highest potential through the spirit and practice of community,
deeply meaningful connections and conversations, and “living”
strategy, processes, and organizational relationships. He has
guided successful introduction of breakthrough approaches to these
within the American Society for Quality (ASQ), Financial Planning
Association, AARP, and other associations, the UN, the EC, and
other governing bodies, and numerous corporations. He is a co-creator
and the world’s most experienced facilitator of World Cafés
(www.theworldcafe.com),
a highly innovative means of engaging groups in meaningful, energizing
dialogue around questions that really matter. His pioneering work
with a living systems, community, and knowledge-based approach
to strategy development, known as Living Strategy™, is featured
in the cover story of the winter, 2004 issue of The Journal of
Association Leadership. Here
is an excerpt from that article.
From 1991
to 1999, Arian was an executive for Hughes Space & Communications
Co. (HSC; now part of Boeing Satellite Systems), the world's top
producer of commercial communications satellites. As Leader of
Collaboration, Knowledge and Learning, he led HSC's efforts to
understand, manage, leverage, and expand its human capital. He
was the principal visionary and champion for HSC's knowledge sharing
and re-use, competency management, communities of practice, and
intranet efforts, and one of the early pioneers in successfully
implementing these within a large corporation using grass roots,
community-based approaches. His efforts led to HSC being named
a knowledge management best practice company in 1996. It also
resulted in Arian’s work being benchmarked by over 50 major
worldwide organizations and being featured in over a hundred different
books and articles, including numerous issues of Fast Company
and a Fortune magazine cover story.
Prior to
joining Hughes, Arian was a management consultant for Ernst and
Young, where he gained considerable training, mentoring, and experience
with organizational change in a wide range of organizations and
situations. The balance of his long and varied career has taken
him through all functional areas across all industries. While
working in the manufacturing sector, Arian was certified as a
Fellow in Production and Inventory Management by APICS.
Mr. Ward
is a graduate of the University of Minnesota in Management Information
Systems and Anthropology. He believes in contributing to education
— industry’s and society’s knowledge pipeline
and future. He was heavily involved in HSC’s partnerships
with the local school system and served on the Board of the partnership
organization. He taught in the MBA program of the University of
Southern California, using the same experiential learning methods
he pioneered in the workplace. He has also done extensive virtual
training in the same subjects he supports through Community Frontiers.
The key constants
throughout his career have been his focus on the future, his involvement
in and leadership of change, his efforts to tap the unrealized
promise of information technology, his heartfelt support of people
and causes who are trying to make a real difference, and his intense
interest in human potential, community, and learning. He is known
for relentlessly pursuing these passions with humor and compassion
in all areas of his work and life. The shift in his primary focus
over the last decade to non-profits and other life-affirming organizations
and causes is indicative of his desire to completely align his
work with his values by emphasizing the need to make a difference
in the world.
Here is how
the Executive Director of the American Society for Quality characterizes
his relationship with Arian and the value he provides to the association,
“I remain very grateful that I found you and that you're
so committed to quality, ASQ, and me. We've worked with a lot
of consultants over the years and most give you what you pay for
and little else, but you have given greatly more. Your investment
in our journey is obvious, your care of my needs is obvious, and
your depth of expertise is bottom-less. You consistently amaze
me with the depth and breadth of your knowledge and resources.
I feel I have a great opportunity to learn, and in so doing help
our great organization to make a difference and the people involved
to feel engaged and inspired by the difference. Finding you has
been a God-send!”
|
