I am delighted to hear that Brad Benson will be receiving the Robert L. Dilworth Award for excellence in the field of action learning.  When I first met Brad in 2004, he was leading a 3-week residential leadership program for Intel Corporation’s senior executives.  Since then, I have had the privilege of working with him closely as he led our company’s annual strategy process and as a leader on my team when I led Intel’s global software efforts. 

I have observed Brad to be an excellent leader of people and teams as well as a world-class coach and advisor.  He is an effective listener and because of his background in large complex organizations possesses unique strategic insight and organizational acumen.  On a personal level, I found Brad’s help essential when I was asked to take on responsibility for a 5,000-employee organization with operations in over 30 countries and later when we underwent a major organizational transformation.  This was all done with the backdrop of expectations from a new CEO, company president and other stakeholders.

Brad is very good at working at all levels of an organization and bringing out the best in people and teams.  This has proven valuable in his leadership development roles as well as when he works with executive teams to address their goals and challenges.

I honestly could not imagine doing my complex job at Intel without the ongoing coaching I would receive from Brad.  I have never had a better and more impactful coach throughout my career.

I want to congratulate Brad on his receipt of this award and wish him the best in the future.

Hi Brad,

I am pleased to endorse you as follows:

I am delighted to hear that Brad Benson has been selected to receive the Global Forum / Robert L. (Lex) Dilworth Award.
When I launched a new Learning & Development events business in 2009 I looked around the globe for visionary L&D leaders who could connect L&D with business results. I quickly discovered Brad and was fascinated by his role and impact at Intel. I subsequently invited him to travel from the USA to Europe to share his insights. Brad engaged a group of Chief Learning Officers in a conversation about action learning which I found to be deeply insightful. The example of driving executive development initiatives for Intel's top 300 leaders was fascinating in itself. To then take the success of this into leading the long-term strategy development process for the CEO was really quite unique. Making this transition from observing and anticipating change, to driving change really made Brad a valuable case study of where corporate learning could really progress to.

Over the subsequent years I would frequently invite Brad to connect with the Global L&D community as my benchmark action learning practitioner. The unique angle always coming from lived experiences rather than theory, which means Brad's inputs always resonated with a deep credibility.

Brad also joined my advisory board and continued to provide a deeper alignment between L&D and the business in a way which I found extremely valuable. On every occasion interacting with Brad and benefitting from his corporate insights I could see the core action learning principles being lived out over a diverse and fascinating career at Intel. During this career you can see the breadth and depth of roles and functions Brad has impacted at Intel as a testament to his value to the business.

Letter of recommendation for Wolfgang Braun.

The business world today is undergoing complex economic transformations at speeds not seen since the industrial revolution. Business ecosystems are more dynamic than ever, supply chains are globally connected and chaotic or disruptive. To find skilled people for companies is a challenge for Human Resource managers, and the existing employee base has to learn faster to keep up with the rate of change. At the same time, agile work teams have to find innovative and digital business processes to best support the workforce and to respect a work-life balance.

Wolfgang has observed first-hand the challenges of the accelerated business transformation for global businesses, and has applied business driven action learning to support leaders with world-class best practices at highest standards of quality. He explored business strategies and methodologies, identified the learning gaps and organizational development needs of his clients, and has aligned Human Resources with State-of-the-Art work processes and learning systems. His main strengths are the integration of leadership competencies as part of a corporate business strategy to create learning organizations in a broad variety of markets and business segments.

I first met Wolfgang in 1986 at Digital Equipment Corporation and we continued our professional journey in complex environments through many joint projects and finally to our joint consulting start-up–the Kompetenzhaus network–which he has grown and influenced with Global Executive Learning network competencies. His curiosity and analytic quest to find sustainable business solutions, combined with academic research has led to the future of learning in business environments.

Wolfgang was always expiring and a valuable resource for me, I highly recommend Wolfgang Braun to receive the Dilworth Action Learning Award in 2022.

It is my pleasure and honor to recommend Wolfgang Braun for the 2022 Dilworth Award of the Global Forum on Action Learning and Leadership Development.

I have known Wolfgang since the early 1980’s when we both were Fulbright Fellows at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and have followed his career ever since. From the outset, I was struck by Wolfgang’s uncanny ability to view technology issues and opportunities in an organizational context without getting lost in technical details. He has made significant contributions to the early adoption of technology solutions at major international corporations, and was one of the early pioneers who linked organizational strategy to executive leadership development—achieving superior results through improved execution capabilities.

In recent years, Wolfgang has provided organizational design consulting and best practice leadership services to his client base. He has built and maintains a large network of internationally recognized domain experts that brings learning organization leadership and direction to front-line staff as well as to the executive leadership team. I wholeheartedly recommend him for the Dilworth Award.

Congratulations to Dr. Ira Cohen as the Recipient of the Robert L. Dilworth/Global Forum Award for Outstanding Achievement.
At my first Global Forum on Action Learning in Shanghai in 2005, I met Ira Cohen.  Giving a presentation on Action Learning (before I knew anything about Action Learning), Ira sat in the back of General Electric Learning Centre asking insightful questions. 

At that time Ira was living in Shanghai and well-known for his management consultancy, Universal Ideas (UI).  UI has been recognized year after year for the ‘’Training Services in China Directory.  Ira has been the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding contribution in Human Resources in China and Hong Kong.
Since 2005, I’ve stayed in contact with Ira.  He’s become a mentor and thought partner in cross cultural leadership, coaching, and of course, Action Learning. With sharp and insightful comments, I frequently turn to Ira for advice.

I was fortunate to be part of the second examination team for Ira’s defence of his PhD dissertation, focusing on “The Application of Coach Facilitated Action Learning in China”.  A fascinating study and one that everyone should read before embarking on Action Learning or other learning interventions. The dissertation demonstrates Ira’s deep experience in navigating the complexities of business and human resources in China.  And his passion for Action Learning.

An insightful, values-based leader, Ira will always be there for support and learning. Ask a question and he will respond.  He’s one of the top responders to my newsletter, one conversation (email) leads to many others – always sharp, witty, and on-target. Since the age of 11, Ira knew he wanted to explore the world – and – that he’s done! 

Ira once shared with me, he didn’t know what he wanted to be, but it was always clear he knew ‘who he wanted to be.’’ On career advice, Ira recommends a career path that is defined by understanding what makes us grateful, and what and who we appreciate.  Wise words to follow.

I sincerely appreciate Ira’s friendship, mentorship, and leadership through the years.  I am delighted and honoured to formally congratulate, Dr. Ira Cohen on being the recipient of the Robert L. Dilworth, Global Forum Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of action learning, human resources, and executive development. Huge Congrats on this well-deserved achievement.

Greetings Yury and participants at the Global Forum on Leadership, Learning and Strategic Change.

Yury and I met, and both taught in the 1990’s at the Theseus International Management Institute and IMD (International Institute for Management Development). It was around that time in 1996 that The Global Forum on Action Learning was initiated.  Some 26 years later this community of practice is still flourishing and contributing toward strategic change within major corporations around the world. So, my initial congratulations go out to my dear friend Yury Boshyk for his exemplary leadership in the world of Action Learning and beyond. A couple of decades ago I had the chance to take a year off from our University and worked with Yury in several programs. It was for me a life changing experience making my research much more applied and consequently useful.

In the year 2000, I introduced Ira Cohen to Yury and the Global Forum.  I knew at that time it was a perfect liaison. Ira was serving as the Executive Director of the Rutgers University Business School EMBA programs in Beijing and Shanghai.  He subsequently influenced and coached greater than 900 senior management/executive students working in China to succeed with their business education.  The majority of graduates went on to become the key decision-makers in companies such as Tencent, Siemens, GE, Boeing, Honeywell, C-trip, Motel 8, Starbucks Asia, Johnson and Johnson, among many, many others. From this career practice it is evident Ira has been connecting minds and creating the future for at least the past two decades.

In tandem with Ira’s leadership at Rutgers, he was the Executive Vice-President of a boutique management consulting firm Universal Ideas that focused on marketing, management and research related to China’s training sector.  His contribution in this area was profound. This was especially the case with the firm’s annual publication (1998-2018) of the “Training Services in China” Directory. This resource provided the definitive market research and comprehensive overview of the state of the training industry inside China and Hong Kong. 

However, it was in partnership and guidance from Yury, Chantal Fleuret and others, Ira made his mark as the coordinator and co-facilitator of approximately 30 corporate action-learning/executive development programs and orchestrated greater than 400 outside-in meetings throughout China. Action-learning and the Reg Revans’ School of Thought is clearly Ira’s personal and professional passion.  His liaison and development of a center of excellence in creating peer-to-peer executive dialogues with proponents of Business-Driven Action Learning, and alongside advocates of the American and U.K. models demonstrated one of his strongest attributes as a global networker.  It is also often remarked by executive development project facilitators and program participants that Ira and his team at Universal Ideas were the creators of Action-Learning WOW moments.

Some twenty-two years ago I was thrilled to introduce Ira to Yury and the Global Forum; Today I am honored to congratulate my friend Ira Cohen on being the well-deserved recipient of the Robert Lex Dilworth Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of Executive Education and Action Learning.

Sincerely

Miklos

Brian Isaacson-Testimonial: Making a difference with leaders for children and young people!

For more than 20 years Brian Isaacson provided guidance to African and Global leaders of SOS Children‘s Villages. He worked with them to create strategy and to build teams and processes that enabled learning and action. Brian took our social mission to heart and inspired us to find new ways to impact on the lives of children without adequate parental care. Work to prevent family separation was added to our portfolio, advocacy and partnerships were anchored and an ambition was set to reach 1 million children. 

As a partner and guide Brian‘s caring and adaptive style is valued by many of us across SOS Children‘s Villages world -wide. Personally, Brian impacted on my career multiple times supporting me in making key choices when leading our Southern African work and then continuing in my global strategy role based Austria. 

Congratulations to Brian on receiving the Alex Dilworth Award. His contribution is felt by many of Africa‘s leaders and evidenced through the enduring success of the children and young people served by SOS Children‘s Villages.

Brian intuitively “sees” the invisible and intangible in large, multifaceted Enterprises!  I have had the privilege over a sustained period of many years, of experiencing Brian’s understated,  distinctive and extremely effective way of influencing a range of top leaders to introduce processes that enable and drive transformational change, develop leaders and embed the Ethos of the Enterprise. The core of his wisdom and expertise, honed through decades of passionate involvement in complex businesses, is his ability to design highly impactful Action and Learning focused processes.  I have always marvelled at how Brian manages to “bring together” top leaders, top quality talent from across the Enterprise, creatively blending in relevant “outside” experts to provide additional context and somehow getting them all to concentrate on real Organisational problems and drive them to some kind of resolution!

Sanlam is the largest non – banking financial group in Africa. Brian contributed meaningfully to the Sanlam Group success during the entire eighteen years that I was the Chief Human Resources Officer at the Sanlam’s Investments Cluster of businesses.

At the Sanlam Group level Brian worked with the Group Chief Executive Officer to include new interventions and innovations that transformed the Annual Leadership Conferences into learning and “Community” building experiences.

Our shared journey at Sanlam Investments included some “bumps in the road” and many successes through a range of interventions over the years, that viewed together, have impacted substantially and been game changing for the overall business:

There were high stake strategic initiatives to integrate and transform different “pieces” of disparate businesses with historical animosity toward each other and very different cultures.  Foci included expectations of leaders to collaborate with new colleagues, to take accountability and to “step up”, to turn around businesses performing below their potential. Names given to these initiatives such as 1 + 1 = 3 and Perform and Transform reflect their core intent!

There were Leadership Development initiatives: “Fast Tracker” targeted young high potential future leaders. “Leading Edge” targeted the next groups of Chief Executive Officers of Sanlam Investments businesses. Our aim was to put these technically strong individuals under the spotlight”, reinforce the high expectations of them, accelerate their leadership development and to engender deeper commitment to the business. Different methodologies and media were embedded for each cohort in all of these programs, which were experiences integrated with work over a number of months: Learning Modules at breakaway sites; Case Studies; Mini-Projects and of course the ubiquitous “Brian Isaacson Speciality” Action Learning design which constituted the golden  thread  through each journey of learning, relationship building and making a real impact on the business. Sanlam Investments today benefits from the Leadership of graduates of these Leadership Development Programs.

In the early years Brian was central to helping us crystalise our core business values. Subsequently Brian was pivotal to crafting what we called “Living Passionate Ownership” (LPO) – a two day “sleepover” Breakaway. The Chief Executive Officer of the Sanlam Investments Cluster participated in and was the glue for each of these approximately 20 LPO experiences of between 50 to 75 participants, consisting of different people from from all levels across the businesses.  LPO is arguably Brian’s “signature” contribution to Sanlam Investments and its embedded “intangible value”. Each of the 20 LPOS was different one from the other. Every moment of the two days “adventure” was carefully considered and creatively designed to optimise the experience and probability that the participant will “get” and start living even more the taking “Passionate Ownership” ethos that the CEO was trying to instil across the Cluster.

I am delighted to learn that Brian is to be honoured through the Lex Dilworth Award for excellence in Action Learning,  Executive Development and growing Leaders in Africa. I think it is richly deserved!

Sharon has given me the honor of providing a testimonial for her earning the Dilworth Award.  Below are my comments.  Thank you for supporting her and UPS.  She’s extremely deserving!

Hope all is well with you, Shireen

“When it comes to those who teach children, we are often in awe of their patience and ability to focus on the child's best interest.  When it comes to those who teach leaders, we sometimes do not stop to acknowledge that it is more challenging than teaching children.  As leaders, we have A-type personalities, boundless ambition, and have the answer to almost everything.  We are not receptive to being treated as anything but as an expert. 

Sharon Marshall is one of our teachers at UPS.  Sharon and her team shaped the executive development program.  Sharon's approach is unique because she creates situations that allow us to stretch our skills to their boundaries to find growth opportunities.  She has students who have been groomed to lead with strength and conviction.  Although these are good traits, it is also traits that make letting our guards down to be mentored uncomfortable.  Since I have known Sharon, she has been the master of taking down those guards for our executives, myself included.  She has mentored us to value our strengths and see our weaknesses.

Sharon's mentorship and friendship pushed me to reflect on myself rather than others.  The professional and personal growth triggered by being part of Sharon's program has provided me with confidence, stability, and vision.  She recognizes what each type of leader needs to be their best self and has mastered creating situations that help us develop with that goal in mind. 

Congratulations, Sharon, on being the recipient of the Dilworth Award!  Your passion for creating better leaders shines through each of us leaders at UPS.  We are very proud of your accomplishments and are blessed to have you as part of our UPS family.”

It is a privilege and honor to write a testimonial for Sharon Marshall.

Sharon’s passion for learning and development is amazing. She was chosen to create an original new program to develop the next generation of UPS leaders. Sharon successfully shattered all expectations. She created the strategy for the program and brought it to life. She had the creativity, knowledge and tenacity to accomplish this working with a variety of teams and sometimes conflicting inputs. Sharon presented the Senior Leadership Development Program (SLDP) to executive leadership, listened and thoughtfully applied their feedback over a series of months and years. She led with grace and continually strived to make the program the best it could be always allowing for continuous improvement. At the end of the day, Sharon knew this program would shape the leadership landscape at UPS by helping executives reach their full potential. Sharon Marshall helped to ensure that UPS had high performing senior leaders that were provided global exposure and career development.

I had the privilege of working with Sharon while she was creating and implementing the Senior Leadership Development Program. During this time, Sharon coached and developed her team into being strong professionals. She is caring and selfless in all that she does. Sharon is the perfect mentor, coach, and teammate. I am thankful to call her a mentor, a friend and the type of fearless leader I aspire to be.

Sincere congratulations

Dear Sharon,

I am so very happy you have been nominated for the Dilworth Award as you are so exceedingly deserving.

I first met you as a new executive embarking on my first journey into the vast world of professional development – and my first experience with action learning.  To call you the cornerstone of our development program would be an understatement.  You carefully curated an engaging and impactful program that truly transformed our group from burgeoning managers to action-oriented leaders.

Your impact did not stop simply at our education, but guided us through personal tragedy, the onset of a global pandemic, and provided the foundation for a cross-functional group from around the world to cross the proverbial finish line in our development journey.  This was no easy task – it took two and a half years rather than the months originally planned as you kept us laser focused on our goals.

You are a person devoted to the pursuit of learning, excellence, and the nurturing of those around you.  Your impression on each of us has not only been that of a teacher and guide but culminated in what can only be called a friend. 

With sincere gratitude and genuine congratulations,

Sharon Marshall is richly deserving of this Global Forum/Robert “Lex” Dilworth Award and recognition from the Global Learning Forum for her work at UPS.  My understanding is that Robert “Lex” Dilworth was an individual who cared passionately about people and was always helpful to all, two characteristics that are also hallmarks of Sharon Marshall.

I first met Sharon when I was selected to participate in the first cohort of the UPS Senior Leadership Program, a program that Sharon championed and developed for UPS.  Known as SLDP, the program was an enriching and impactful experience for me personally, as well as for my career in UPS.  Sharon had a big vision to help develop the senior talent at UPS in a new and different way, and the perseverance and persistence to get it successfully launched.  Her approach pushed UPS, a company that clings to “tradition” and “culture” more than most, to do something radically different.  This was a program that would require people to dig deep, open themselves up to new experiences, challenge long-held views, and open themselves to new learning experiences.

As I had the opportunity to work closely with Sharon, I developed a deep appreciation for her professionalism, her grace, and her deep commitment to helping others be better versions of themselves.  To this day, she remains just a phone call away when I need help and advice on my career and on life in general.

But more important, I count Sharon as a friend.  During our time together, we developed a trust that is both lovely and rare in today’s world.  It doesn’t hurt that we got to spend a week in Paris doing wonderful professional experiences as well as enjoying amazing cultural sites (and food.)  (Too bad she missed out on joining us in India with Yury, which is another story for another time.)

Congratulations to Sharon on this recognition and award for her vision, her persistence, her stamina, and her grace!