Courses

Organizational Dynamics Programs courses

By bringing together students from a wide range of professional backgrounds—corporate, nonprofit, military, and government—we foster innovation in our classrooms. When students from fields such as law, human resources, education, healthcare, insurance, and technology come together with our faculty, they build new conceptual connections and address problems more creatively.

Format and schedule

Organizational Dynamics Programs courses have always been scheduled to meet the needs of students who are working full time while they complete their degree. Most students take one or two courses per term so that they may complete the program while managing other personal and professional obligations. Organizational Dynamics Programs courses are offered online, with select courses scheduled in a hybrid format that requires students to attend one or two in-person weekends on campus per term.

See our Format and Schedule page for more information.

Courses

See our latest course offerings for spring, summer, and fall.

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DYNM 5110 Organizational Culture and Communication

This foundational course in Organizational Dynamics explores the complex relationship between organizational culture and communication within modern workplaces. The course provides a comprehensive overview of that interplay, emphasizing their significance in today's diverse and dynamic work environments, a key focus of the program. In so doing, the course will cover various theories, models, and practical approaches that enhance communication in diverse organizational contexts.

DYNM 5112 Equity and Belonging in Organizations

This foundational course examines how inclusive organizations successfully adapt to diverse customers, markets, ideas, and talents to maximize productivity and achieve an organizational culture of equity and belonging. With the growth of diversity in the U.S. and global workforces, organizations are increasingly expecting leaders to effectively create and champion a culture of inclusivity as a way to meet organizational commitments to social justice, enhance organizational performance, and maximize employee satisfaction. In this interactive course, students will explore the structural foundations of social identity and inequity in organizations, examine the necessary leadership tools to meaningfully address these forces in contemporary organizations, and learn how leaders can best create and sustain organizational cultures that respect and value diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

DYNM 5113 Research Design and Methods in Organizational Dynamics

This course introduces students to the use of qualitative and quantitative research methods in the social sciences and humanities as applicable for conducting research related to organizations. The aim of the course is to give you a general understanding of a variety of research methodologies and to combine this with theoretical discussion and practical experience. We will explore debates and discussions related to the nature of qualitative data and the value of particular approaches; the conditions under which specific methods of data collection and analysis are most appropriate; ethical questions in qualitative research; and research design and implementation. A significant portion of class time will be devoted to covering practical aspects of qualitative research, including: gathering data through interviews, focus groups, and observational research; strategies for recording, coding and analyzing qualitative data; and evaluating and presenting qualitative research.

DYNM 5114 Introduction to Organizational Dynamics: The Practical Scholar

This course provides you with an overview of academic concepts central to the Organizational Dynamics Program. In addition, the course will prepare you to move through our program by developing academic writing and research skills that are interdisciplinary, practical, and critical. We will explore questions central to being a student in a professional degree program, including: Why is academic research important in our daily lives? How can we apply the strategies that scholars use to improve our workplaces? How do we develop research topics that will help us while clarifying the concept under study? The final deliverable will be a proposal for a research project that can be used for your Capstone Project. You will become skilled in how to: explain concepts central to Organizational Dynamics; narrow a topic and frame a research question; develop a methodology that suits your research goals and timeline; engage in innovative thinking techniques distinct to the arts and sciences; write a proposal for a substantial research project; develop and maintain an annotated bibliography; conduct and interpret interdisciplinary research independently and as a class; and read critically and write clearly for your specified audience.

DYNM 5510 The Devil’s Advocate: Power of Divergent Thinking

Short-term or long-term? Us or them? Build or buy? Margin or volume? My way or the highway! Ad infinitum, apparent forced choices—or no choice—and limited perspectives can create costly tugs of war or constricted judgment without our minds (and hearts) and in organizational dynamics, persuasive, and often hidden, divergence in thinking offers great opportunity for learning, creativity, and sound decision-making. This course offers several robust, practical techniques for bringing the value of diverse perspectives in politically productive ways to leadership thinking, communications, and organizational dynamics.

DYNM 6020 Leader-Manager as Coach

New work technologies, increased competition, and employees' desire for more involvement in their work are changing the traditional role of the manager. Rather than directing, planning, and controlling the work, managers and leaders are facilitating processes and coaching and developing their employees. Team-based organizations are built on coaching as a core requirement of the team leader role. This course explores the theory and practices of individual coaching as leadership behavior. The focus is on helping managers develop their skills and improve their performances as coaches. We will examine the need to provide others with successful performance strategies, timely feedback on strengths and development needs, and growth opportunities in order to challenge others to reach their potential. We will explore workplace environments that foster the growth and achievement of those we lead.

DYNM 6030 Leading Emergence: Creating Adaptive Space in the Age of AI

In an era where AI can optimize processes and automate decisions, the true differentiator is human connections, our ability to influence, adapt, and drive meaningful change. This highly experiential seminar equips leaders to navigate and lead innovation in AI-driven environments. Participants will explore how ideas informally emerge, gain momentum, and scale within complex organizations, often through networks of trust and influence rather than formal hierarchies. We evaluate the need for adaptive space in generating value that drives growth by enabling an environment of idea generation, entrepreneurship, and innovation while leveraging the benefits of existing, formal systems to scale these ideas. Participants will explore and engage in such topics as creative experimentation, idea emergence, organizational network analysis, social capital, design thinking, organizational analytics and complexity leadership.

DYNM 6040 Organizational Consulting: Lessons Learned and Key Takeaways

This course takes students inside what happens when theory meets practice and…falls flat. We visit case studies where work did not go to plan and use those bumps in the road to examine the choice points we make in consulting. This course provides a space for practicing a growth mindset and developing the muscle of resilience as consultants. We are each regularly confronted with experiences where the approach we’ve mapped isn’t yielding the behaviors and results we’d expected. Those moments bring each of us face-to-face with natural—but often unhelpful—instincts to double down on our existing plan, blame the client or sideline ourselves with our own insecurities. This course builds muscle and skill in curiosity—and grounds that practice of curiosity in a deeper understanding of the range of theories we can draw on as consultants. This course immerses students in theories and frameworks across the social sciences and positions each student to deepen their own self-awareness while building a robust knowledge base in the practical application of an array of theories that serve us in organizational consulting.

DYNM 6090 Critical Imagination: Strategies for Change

In her novel Parable of the Sower, MacArthur “Genius Grant” awardee Octavia E. Butler reminds us that "the only lasting truth is change." While this mantra comes from the pages of science fiction, it speaks to an important fact about the shifting social realities that affect organizations in our technological age. If we want to develop lasting strategies for leading through change, we must think carefully about the resources we turn to for guidance—including which perspectives are represented in those resources. Critical imagination can help us do this work by encouraging creative thinking that fosters substantive change. We’ll begin this project-based course by asking how work within organizations can better reflect the diversity of perspectives and research that have already transformed our world. This will involve looking closely at a range of case studies and scholarship across disciplines—as well as speculative texts that invite us to think about the future of work within agile teams. We'll discuss models for inclusive leadership, adaptive facilitation, and intercultural collaboration which highlight emergent strategies for change. This means turning to research on organizational dynamics in our digital era—where science fiction is closer to social and technological fact than ever before. Our culminating efforts will include projects that we will develop throughout the course via discussion posts, reflective activities, collaborative presentations, simulations, and reading groups. Much of this will entail using imaginative work to think critically about what’s possible, as we advocate for meaningful change within diverse organizations.

DYNM 6140 Tools and Techniques of Coaching and Consulting

This course will offer a conceptual comprehension of the tools and techniques used in effective internal and external organizational consulting engagements. By contrasting the theory and practice of alternative coaching models, we will build tools and techniques for effective coaching as a leadership competency. Through an analysis of the coaching relationships in your organization, you will learn to develop a personalized approach to coaching and expand upon and within organizational settings. Participants learn the "how and why" as well as consulting frameworks. Additionally, the relevant and often symbiotic connection between consulting and coaching will be studied. What process tools are most useful to today's executive coach in a consultative environment? How do approaches to consulting and coaching differ? How are they similar? How can a confluence of coaching and consulting lead to more effective decision making and wide-scale organizational performance? The emerging role of AI in coaching and consulting and the impact on relationships with clients and how organizations are leveraging the relationships will be explored. Students will challenge established best practices and develop individual best practices in coaching and consulting. This course will be presented over five class meetings in a hybrid format, using in-person and virtual class meetings. The class sessions will be taught utilizing lectures, case studies, structured small group discussions, individual and team presentations, faculty and participant experience, and guest speakers.

DYNM 6160 Myths to Media: Stories on a Mission

What determines our behavior? How do we come to understand? Who determines our purpose? Is now the only time? When asked "What if there were nothing in the universe," one professor replied, "How do we know there isn't?" The more our world seems to disintegrate into discrete and unpredictable units and actors, the more we crave guidance from robust human models and conceptual frameworks of intellect, emotion, psyche, and action. Fortunately, our 100,000-year-old brains retain mechanisms enabling us even now to enhance our choices using the "stories beneath the stories" that—in form and content—have driven our purposes and actions since sentient beings could communicate. Yoda you should ask. This course offers several means of deploying these powerful ancient sense-making tools—myths and stories—to purposefully communicate and foment action with individuals, groups, and organizations, particularly in our global social media milieu. We will learn many practical story-based ways to apply this power to several "missions": engaging others in individual and collective action, increasing understanding of patterns in human behavior, and harnessing the driver of purpose for business and social enterprise. Seek help from Prometheus.

DYNM 6170 Economics of Human Behavior and Organizational Life

As a society, we choose many different ways to organize different aspects of our lives. The institutions and organizations we choose to provide us with the necessities and comforts of life range from the fundamental institutions of family and religious organizations, to firms in the capitalistic market and democratically elected governments. We respond to this environment in unique ways: we marry, we worship, we buy and sell goods and services, and we vote. The primary goal of this course is an examination of the various aspects of human behavior in the context of organizational and institutional life from an economic perspective. We recognize that the choices we make are sensitive to the costs and benefits of different actions and use this economic perspective to gain insights into social, economic and political behavior in our daily lives. We start the course with an examination of how microeconomists view the world and examine their favorite toolkit. We discuss concepts such as efficiency, opportunity cost, marginal analysis, externalities, incentives, free-riding, rent-seeking, and transaction costs. These concepts are fundamental if an economic perspective and they will be presented using everyday examples. Before concluding the course, we will look at several topics such as: human capital and investment in education (Should you invest in an Ivy League school education?); law and enforcement (When is it profitable to break the law?); bribes and gifts (Quid pro quo?); economics of information (Used cars and the market for "lemons"); why we discriminate against minorities; property rights and externalities (The tragedy of the commons: Should we have smoke-free environments?); and free-riding (Should I vote in the next election? Should I volunteer to clean up?).

DYNM 6190 Organizational Project Management

The course provides an overview of the concepts, procedures, and fundamental processes of project management for working professionals. Participants are introduced to the principles, tools, and techniques of project management within an integrative framework. The course emphasizes that, for most organizations, projects are the primary means for implementing strategic initiatives.

Course objectives:

• Understand and critically evaluate expectations, procedures and processes of program management as currently practiced in large for-profit enterprises
• Understand the content and processes and standards of practice as defined by the Program Management Institute (PMI)
• Understand how to build and manage effective project teams
• Become familiar with the critical components of effective project plans. In addition to the scheduled meeting dates, additional class activities will be planned between faculty and students.

DYNM 6200 Paradox in Organizations

This course introduces multiple approaches to understand and interpret the paradoxes that baffle us, such as: 1) Why is it that we go to hospitals to be healed and get well, but we leave sick and infected? 2) How is it that we come together to do purposeful work and end up doing mundane, boring tasks? 3) Why is it that banks were created to protect and ensure financial security, but banks have caused a global recession? 4) Why do we not learn from history? Why do we repeat the mistakes we have made before? 5) Why is it that the "Developed and Advanced" countries of the world are destroying the planet? This highly interactive, flexible, and remarkably diverse online course will offer frames to observe the paradox in ourselves, our families, our friendships, our workplace, and our relationships with individuals, teams, and systems—the three units of analysis that constitute every paradoxical situation. Paradox appears in our organizations, our relationships, and our experience as contributing members and leaders of our society. The value proposition of this course is for managers, leaders, and strategic thinkers who wish to understand the art and science behind the paradoxes in the systems within which we live and operate—the visible and the invisible and the rational and irrational. Understanding the unconscious forces that lead to inconsistencies and contradictions will help us be resilient in the face of paradox. This online course will have weekly synchronous and asynchronous sessions of 2-3 hours in length. Through guest speakers and multiple interdisciplinary discussions, we will explore many angles of our understanding of paradoxes. Course grading will be based on class participation, contribution to the collective wisdom, and academic excellence in written assignments.

DYNM 6210 Giving & Receiving Difficult Feedback

Difficult feedback conversations are a central mechanism of learning, accountability, and performance improvement in organizations and communities. However, they are also among the most avoided forms of communication, in part because they can evoke defensiveness, uncertainty, and interpersonal risk. This course is designed to develop students’ capacity to give and receive difficult feedback with clarity, care, and rigor, while maintaining an explicit focus on performance improvement and relationship quality.

DYNM 6240 Leadership: Mindset to Action

This course bridges theory and practice to guide you in honing your unique leadership style within your personal and professional context. Rooted in an experiential and application-based approach, the course moves beyond simply understanding leadership theories, emphasizing the importance of acting on them and making them your own. Through discussions, assignments, and reflective exercises, you will deepen your understanding of leadership principles, refine your approach, and articulate your identity as a leader. Whether you are an experienced leader or embarking on your leadership journey, this course integrates a structured framework—Theory, Mindset, Action, Outcome—to support your growth. You will assess and reflect on your leadership mindsets to understand how they influence your actions, identify areas for development, experiment with new approaches, and align your intentions with outcomes. By the end of the course, you will develop a personal leadership narrative that synthesizes your past and present leadership experiences, analyzes your mindset, and outlines a forward-looking plan for growth and impact. This course encourages you to move beyond theoretical understanding to purposeful and context-driven action, empowering you to lead authentically and effectively.

DYNM 6270 Behind the Screen: Decoding Team Effectiveness in Virtual and Hybrid Workplaces

Virtual and hybrid teams have become increasingly popular and necessary in organizations around the world across multiple industries and geographies. With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic further transforming the way we work and accelerating this trend, the ability to effectively collaborate virtually is critical now more than ever. Yet, virtual and hybrid teams are difficult to get right. Why? What accounts for the persistent challenge of navigating virtual team dynamics in this digital age, especially given our increased knowledge and tools about how to do so? In this course, we will explore the nature of team dynamics and team effectiveness in virtual and hybrid teams and how the unique characteristics of these teams, such as geographical dispersion and high reliance on technology for communication and collaboration, impact team effectiveness. This course draws from multiple disciplines informing these topics, including industrial-organizational psychology, communication, information science, and sociology. Specifically, this course examines the current research and best practices from virtual team literature pertaining to topics such as learning and performing in such teams, building and maintaining trust, identifying and managing conflict, power dynamics, information sharing across boundaries, diversity dynamics, creativity and innovation, and intercultural collaboration. Through case studies, real-world examples, and project work, this course enables students to gain practical skills and actionable insights on the topic and explore ways to apply their learnings in real-world situations.

DYNM 6280 Organizational Diagnosis

This seminar introduces participants to approaches to diagnosing organizations to understand the complex ways issues show up and how to work through them. When organizations find themselves in trouble (i.e., rumblings about lack of leadership, cultural challenges, diminished productivity, low morale, etc.), they tend to frame the problem(s) simplistically or locate blame in specific individuals or groups. On closer examination, problematic issues are often symptomatic of systemic or cultural issues within the organization. Effective change begins with a thorough, evidence-based assessment. Through systems thinking, cultural analysis, and group dynamics, students will learn to identify and frame problem areas, collect and analyze data, and deliver actionable feedback to client systems. The course emphasizes hands-on learning through case simulations, real-world examples, enactments, and diagnostic project work. Participants will gain practical skills to connect diagnosis with meaningful organizational action.

DYNM 6350 Organizational Essentials for Leadership

Through presentations by expert speakers, case discussions, and participation in team projects, students will review and evaluate critical issues from across the frames of business, including general; human resources; marketing; information and stakeholder management; leadership; corporate culture; communications; organizational behavior; sales, marketing and public relations; finance and financial reporting; ethics and social responsibility; unions and government relations; and business law. Each of these elements will be studied in light of changing environmental conditions, including the economy; society; consumer behavior; market trends; regulation; politics, unpredictable events such as 9/11; organizational change; history; and internationalism.

DYNM 6410 The Art and Science of Organizational Coaching

Coaching has become a primary tool for consultants, human resource professionals, leaders, and administrators interested in promoting and sustaining leadership and executive development, organizational change, and managerial performance. Through practice, observation, feedback, and discussion, this course explores the fundamental skills and theoretical knowledge underlying leadership and organizational coaching. We examine the coaching process and relationship, as well as the issues and boundaries that can sometimes derail or constrain coaching’s effectiveness in organizations. This introductory course follows an online model of instruction, combining synchronous virtual class meetings with asynchronous assignments and resources. The course is highly interactive and provides many opportunities to explore and move beyond the edges of your comfort zone, experiment with new skills, and learn from your experience.

DYNM 6470 Influence and Persuasion

Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca once noted, "You can have brilliant ideas; but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere." This course builds on Iacocca's insight, helping students develop the ability to win support for their perspectives, proposals, and projects from key people in the workplace. Everyone needs to know how to sell ideas. Salespeople obviously need this skill and so do managers of all kinds. Even CEOs need it to gain buy-in for a vision. Influence and persuasion help you work with and through others—customers, teammates, colleagues, direct reports, and stakeholders—who have different professional backgrounds, roles, opinions, and agendas. In highly interactive discussions and exercises, students will learn about practical field-tested frameworks that draw on current insights from psychology, anthropology, and behavioral economics.

When the course is completed, students will have mastered the latest thinking about:

• Persuasion styles and how they can adapt them to achieve desired outcomes
• The five barriers to communication and collaboration and methods for overcoming the barriers
• The systematic steps in the process of selling ideas and negotiating when you need to
• The similarities and differences among influencing, persuading, and negotiating
• Ways to build momentum for ideas
• Techniques for motivating others to take action
• Winning support for culture change

These insights will enable students to work across the boundaries that create warring workplace tribes. Nearly every organization contends with this tribal warfare, and leaders need to know how to counter-act the natural human tendency to square off against co-workers who have different professional backgrounds or roles.

DYNM 6480 Thriving in the Workplace

America's workforce is struggling. The results of Gallup's most recent employee engagement survey show the first annual decline in worker engagement in more than a decade. A recent Deloitte study of workplace well-being suggests that 70% of C-suite leaders are considering quitting and finding a job that better supports their well-being. These trends are closely connected to well-publicized crises such as the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting, popular terms that describe the overall dissatisfaction and disengagement prevalent across workplaces. In this environment, what can leaders do to create a different experience for themselves and their teams? What does it look like for workers—and entire organizations—to truly thrive and reach their fullest potential? The news isn't all bad—there are leaders across the world who are creating a distinctly different experience in the workplace by intentionally recognizing and maximizing the good in themselves, their colleagues, and their organizations. This course will explore promising frameworks, strategies, and practices for creating thriving workplaces that maximize individual potential and organizational impact. Course content will integrate key concepts from organizational development, workplace well-being, positive psychology, and performance management. Participants will first explore strategies for maximizing individual well-being and the science of character. We will then examine approaches for building thriving teams, including strategies for fostering trusting relationships, leveraging collaboration, and creating a culture of feedback. Finally, we will investigate organization-level practices, including applications for strategy, organizational culture, and change management. The course will use a diverse mix of methods to help participants learn and apply the content, including small group projects and discussions, guest presentations, case studies, and individual assessments and reflections. Course material will include a variety of mixed media that cover academic science, research, and practical application. Participants will apply new strategies and tools in real-time throughout the course as a way to put them into practice. Ultimately, participants will develop a new lens for seeing and maximizing the good in themselves and others in an effort to create thriving workplaces.

DYNM 6510 Group and Team Dynamics

This course focuses on groups in an organizational context: how they develop, behave, and function, and the dynamics that evolve within the group. It also addresses the ways in which groups influence and are influenced by organizational behavior and life. The course pays particular attention to the seemingly inexplicable group and team events and behaviors that occur in organizations, including what groups “carry” on behalf of the department or organization they are part of; covert behaviors; cascading problems; scapegoating; and counterproductive group behaviors. The course will emphasize understanding group dynamics through paradoxical and psychodynamic frameworks. Although we spend much of our lives in groups and teams, we rarely take the time to understand their underlying dynamics. Group and team members often struggle to make meaning of the myriad spoken, as well as unexpressed, factors influencing the process and outcomes of the groups of which they are a part. By emphasizing both theory and practice, this course provides students with a thorough grounding in the ways groups and teams develop, learn and behave. In addition to drawing on the extensive literature and research in group dynamics and team building, the class will rely on experiential methods to help students develop keener understanding and insight into the ways in which their own leadership and followership dynamics, as well as the dynamics of the group-as-a-whole, influence their team's ability to accomplish its tasks. Non-Dynamics students: please include a brief job description in your Permissions Request.

DYNM 6520 Exploring Organizational Culture: An Ethnographic Approach

This course introduces concepts, methods, and applications for understanding and conducting ethnographic research in organizational settings. Organizational ethnography is an approach to qualitative research that helps practitioners understand the complex social, cultural, and behavioral dynamics of this approach when applied across a variety of settings and for both practical and scholarly aims. Organizational ethnography is grounded in immersion in specific settings (cultural, organizational, community) and draws on observation, interviews, and other modes of interaction with members of the organization being studied to get close to the lived experience of people in organizations. Ethnographers collect their data through field notes, recordings, photographs, surveys, and other means and also produce reports in written and now, increasingly, other media forms (image- and sound-based). While traditional ethnography emerged out of anthropology and the social sciences, there has been considerable innovation in revising these methods to make them relevant, practical, and inclusive for the contemporary environment and for use in other disciplines. There have also been criticisms of the power relations inherent in traditional ethnographic methods, and the field has developed collaborative and participatory ways of engaging with these organizations and communities. This course will allow students to learn about and experiment with ethnographic work in organizations through reading, doing, writing, and discussing ethnographic approaches.

DYNM 6580 Fundamentals of Sustainability

This course is designed to provide an introduction to sustainability concepts and challenges through the lens of the world's most significant framework to address them: the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs). The UN-SDGs serve as a blueprint for addressing the world's most critical social and environmental challenges, calling for urgent collaboration and change to reset the world on a path that operates within planetary boundaries and promotes global prosperity and security. This course will explore extraordinarily significant threats to the way of life of future generations—such as climate change, ecosystem degradation, health and nutrition, pollution, and resource depletion—-with specific attention to sustainability challenges and solutions involving food, water, energy, oceans, waste, plastics, biodiversity loss, and urbanization. Further, the course will include focus on the importance of transitioning from linear to circular systems and maximizing life cycle resource utilization. Case studies of scalable sustainability practices and organizational leadership for sustainability will be reviewed with additional input from global thought leaders. Course permits for students outside of the DYNM, MES, or MSAG programs: please include a brief job description in your permissions request.

DYNM 6670 Organizational Lessons from the Military

This course is designed to provide students with a fresh take on how to marry business strategy to successful tactics, create successful organizational change campaigns, and run engagements that create high impact and value. As we continue to respond to the pandemic and enter a new era of work, it is worth noting that productivity (at least in the US) largely remained steady when the workplace moved into a virtual setting. In some cases, productivity even went up, although there are indications that innovation has dropped, sometimes alarmingly. Students will learn how to string these tactics into engagements and campaigns critical for innovation and organizational success. Organizational leaders, managers, and change agents will benefit from being clearer in recognizing and leveraging powerful strategies and effective tactics. For example, military theorists differ in their thinking on the meaning of tactics and strategy, with views ranging between a classical, hierarchical view to a postmodern perspective informed by complexity theory. Being able to distinguish between strategy and tactics is a useful lens and will help create more effective organizational change interventions. Making this distinction and planning deliberately to link tactical action and strategic effect is the key to both military adaptability on the complex battlefield, and to achieving organizational performance objectives in a postmodern economy.

DYNM 6770 Post‑Disruptive Growth

Reality has moved from a physical to a cognitive location—in our minds. This exceptionally hands-on course brings together intellectual discipline with real-time application to look at the shattering of assumptions in the face of crisis (such as the current one). It explores what happens to individuals, groups, communities, and systems when the world takes the blue pill overnight (goes virtual and hyperreal). Interaction with this altered reality is often hindered by cognitive traps of "ghost structures" (i.e., those that only stay in memory but have disappeared from concrete reality), leading to counterproductive decisions by individuals (personally and professionally) and systems.

The course is highly recommended for leaders and managers of complex organizational structures who must continue to create a "holding environment" for the psychological safety of their teams, managers, leaders, customers, vendors, and themselves. It aids in redefining post-disruptive growth through micro- and macro-decisions for value creation in everyday interactions. There will be conceptual and experiential assignments that enable rich scrutiny with immediate application in their work and life. This course will have both synchronous and asynchronous sessions.

DYNM 6780 Applied Systems Theory and Analysis

The Systems Theory and Analysis course will delve into the fundamental principles of systems thinking and equip students with the tools to analyze and address complex organizational challenges. The course will cover the following key areas:

• Introduction to systems thinking
• Systems analysis techniques
• Organizational dynamics through a systems lens
• Integration with organizational strategy
• Connecting systems thinking to strategic planning and decision-making
• Application of systems theory in practice.

Course objectives:

• Understand the foundational principles of systems thinking
• Develop proficiency in using various systems analysis tools
• Apply systems thinking to analyze and solve complex organizational issues
• Evaluate the impact of systemic factors on organizational dynamics
• Integrate systems thinking into strategic decision-making processes

DYNM 6991 Leadership and Organizational Coaching Field Experience

During the Field Experience, Leadership and Organizational Coaching concentration cohort students are matched with a coaching client and will meet with them regularly, while maintaining a reflective academic journal. During the field experiences, students meet virtually with their advisory before and after each client contact. The course culminates in an autoethnographic exploration of the experience. For students based outside of the greater Philadelphia area, their field experiences will be virtual or in their home area.

DYNM 6999 Independent Study

An independent study allows students to create a customized curriculum to study material beyond or outside the scope of our standard course offerings. Students must submit a proposal outlining the study area along with the professor's approval. A paper or presentation is required.

DYNM 7200 Foundations of Leadership Coaching

This five-and-a-half-day intensive is the first in a cohort program in Leadership and Executive Coaching. During this course, students will experience the formation of a learning cohort, explore the foundational elements of helping relationships and the adult developmental journey, observe and respond to the dynamics that commonly affect groups, and begin applying coaching concepts and skills through interactive live coaching sessions. DYNM 7200 is wholly experiential, meaning learning will occur through students’ direct interaction with course exercises, and with peers in the class. The core requirement is a willingness and courage to “be yourself” and to be open to the impact your being has on others. This course is open to LOC members only.

DYNM 7220 Four Provinces of Coaching

The territory of professional coaching spans four distinct provinces: The Coaching Context, The Coaching Relationship, The Coaching Process, and the Coaching Self. Each of these provinces represents a special area of interest and responsibility for practitioners, as well as an area of intellectual inquiry. This course continues to build on the foundational skills established in DYNM 7200 and DYNM 7230 through a practical exploration of the core theoretical perspectives that underlie and inform coaching practice. Knowledge of coaching theory serves to illuminate complex social phenomena, provides a sense of direction for your actions and choices in coaching, and helps you evaluate the results of your efforts in terms of client outcomes and progress. DYNM 7220 culminates with cohort members working together in small groups to research and execute a high-level presentation of the theoretical perspectives underlying each of the Four Provinces, as well as their applications in practice. This course is open to LCC students only.

DYNM 7230 Becoming a Coach

This course is designed to immediately follow the five-day DYNM 7200 intensive in order to build on foundational coaching knowledge through guided practice and experience. You will have an opportunity to experience and reflect on a complete peer coaching engagement as both coach and client. You will also explore and gain familiarity with common tools used in assessment (360 feedback, psychometric assessments, etc.), various coaching career paths and business models, and professional credentialing bodies for coach certification. By the end of the course, you will possess a complete coaching toolkit—as well as insight into the appropriateness and impact of specific tools for a variety of client contexts. The course provides an in-depth introduction to the entire coaching process to accelerate your journey toward coaching proficiency. This course is open to LCC students only.

DYNM 7240 Beyond the Dyad: Group Coaching Theory and Practice

This course explores the application of coaching principles, models, and techniques in the context of groups and teams. While most coaching is dyadic in nature, coaching in group or team settings requires an understanding of the complex social dynamics that shape learning and change in groups, as well as the levers and mechanisms that enable collective action toward common goals. The course is designed to build on and complement your growing base of scholarship and practice from 7200, 7220, and 7230. This hybrid course blends synchronous virtual class sessions and team meetings with asynchronous learning opportunities, in-depth readings, and other self-study activities. It is a highly experiential course combining conceptual knowledge, integrated practice, and interactive sessions that serve the development of group and team coaching competency, capability, and capacity. Learners will participate in group coaching sessions as both group member and coach to gain an understanding of the unique benefits of group work—as well as the innate challenges coaches must navigate when working in the group domain. Individual one-on-one meetings with the instructor will complement these group experiences in further support of the course learning objectives. Participants in the course will demonstrate their learning through scholarly and reflective writing, live coaching, in-class discussion, and other assignments. This course is open to LCC students only

DYNM 7660 Global Collaboration for Sustainability (Italy)

Environmentalist Paul Hawken challenged a class of 2009 college graduates that they would have to "figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating." That theme is at the heart of this course. While we have seen an uptick in corporate initiatives, government policies, and NGO activity related to multiple sustainability challenges in the last 10-15 years, the world remains well off track on all of the Sustainable Development Goals—which come due in 2030—and emerging global headwinds are concerning. Our quality of life, and that of future generations, increasingly hinges on the development and implementation of sustainable solutions to the enormously complex environmental and social problems embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals—particularly those related to the food-water-energy nexus. This course is designed to foster the thinking, and the collaborative spirit, that is needed to address these enormous problems. It involves focusing on a critical global sustainability problem with vast social, cultural, and environmental dimensions—in this case, the need to balance global food, water, and energy needs in a manner that allows the world to feed nearly 10 billion citizens by 2050 while preserving the environment for future generations (i.e. achieving the healthy people, healthy planet balance). It also involves collaboration and the exchange of ideas between multidisciplinary leaders from multiple countries, and perspectives on how to manage diverse views and sustainability initiatives that are extremely relevant to the success of today’s organizations (i.e. how to lead “big change” with urgency for competitive advantage).

DYNM 7050 Capstone Course

This course will help you prepare your Capstone Project by synthesizing previous Dynamics course ideas/materials and guiding you through the development phase of your final interdisciplinary research project. The course design involves active practice of writing to learn. In this process, you will learn how to: practice and improve your grasp of academic research conventions; plan to write a large research paper; narrow a topic and frame a research question; establish a Capstone committee; conduct interdisciplinary research that synthesizes ideas across multiple sources; develop a methodology that suits your research goals and timeline; read critically and write clearly for your specified audience. While many MSOD students take this course to draft their proposal, others may take it to work on completing their final interdisciplinary research project. For either aim, this Capstone seminar has been structured as a practical path and collaborative support group designed to refine your skills in researching, writing, and thinking as you undertake your Capstone thesis projects. Core lessons will include reviewing the literature; positioning and integrating interdisciplinary sources; and framing or refining your research for your intended audience.