Organizing with Purpose Conference Session:

Navigate Designing Purpose into Politics: A Participatory Case Study

Julian Chender, Christopher Carroll

Peer Workshop

Bio

Julian Chender (Left)

Julian is a Manager with Kates Kesler Organization Consulting, part of Accenture, based in New York City. He helps executive clients across multiple industries develop and implement new operating models that enable them to achieve their strategic objectives. Julian is the recipient of the Organization Development Network’s 2020 Emerging Practitioner Award and author of four articles in the OD Review. He received an MS in Organization Development from American University and a BA in History from Swarthmore College.

Christopher Carroll (Right)

Christopher serves as Advisor to the Borough President and Policy Advisor in the Office of the Manhattan Borough President. He has worked in New York City government since 2013, with experience in communications, legislation, politics, campaigns, labor negotiations, and government affairs. Prior to joining the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, Christopher led the New York City practice of the government affairs firm Yoswein New York, working on issues including educational funding, justice reform, transportation, energy infrastructure, and e-commerce. Before working in government affairs, he was the Chief of Staff at Local 802, American Federation of Musicians, where he led legislative and strategic planning initiatives in addition to serving on negotiating teams for major ensembles. Christopher is a graduate of Bard College where he received a Bachelor’s of Music Performance.

In this session we will take an Action Learning approach and challenge participants to design a purpose-driven elected office while working within the confines of the inherent system.

Description:

When Mark Levine won the Manhattan Borough Presidency in Nov. 2021, he chose to design the Office with a clear purpose – to promote equity, climate resiliency, and public health. Organization Design has a deep history in government agencies but is little used in political offices. This is our chance to leverage our field’s knowledge and practice to impact public life. While organizaiton design has a strong foothold in government agencies, it is rarely used in political offices where traditional structures, processes, and roles remain, often a result of legislation and chartering.

In this session you will be invited to dive in and make design recommendations for imbuing purpose into the Office of the Borough President while meeting the unique constraints of New York City government. We will explore how we aligned purpose to strategy and offer a framing of Galbraith’s Star Model in this system through two important considerations:

1) the role of Organization Design in connecting purpose to performance

2) if we are going to design purpose into organizations, there is no starting point more important than the political sphere, as it is through politics that society is designed