Gervase R. Bushe, Ph.D.

Professor of Leadership and Organization Development 
Beedie School of Business 
Simon Fraser University 
Vancouver, Canada 

Phone: 1-778-782-4104 
Email: bushe@sfu.ca 
Web: www.gervasebushe.ca 
www.clearlearning.ca 
www.dialogicod.net 

Gervase Bushe (pronounced Jervis Bush) wants to create a world in which collective intelligence is more potent than collective emotion; a world in which the diversity of experiences in any group are a source of collective good, not collective strife. His research, consulting and writing have sought to develop models and tools that help people co-construct a social reality where collective intelligence, collective creativity and collective well being are common experiences. Based on a belief that business is the one institution that is able to consistently create collaborative relationships across conflicted or impenetrable boundaries, his work has focused on business organizations. If we can create highly developed business organizations, perhaps these processes will seep into the world at large. 

Gervase has 40 years of experience in a wide variety of organizational change and development projects. He has a wide-ranging interest in all aspects of human and social relations from the intra-psychic to the sociological. Gervase works with leaders who want to create great teams and organizations. 

Gervase’s skills in leadership development are widely sought. His best selling book, Clear Leadership, is now in its second edition. Using a social constructivist approach, it identifies what gets in the way of collaborative working relationships and the skills required to sustain them. Through his company, Clear Learning Ltd. (www.clearlearning.ca), he licenses others to deliver his highly experiential and developmental training programs that significantly improve people’s ability to lead people and facilitate change. He has trained managers and consultants on four continents.

Recently he has worked with Bob Marshak to identify the underlying similarities in a variety of newer organizational change processes that violate basic tenets of organization development.  The have labelled this Dialogic OD, to distinguish it from classical Diagnostic OD, and argued that Dialogic OD theory and practice have emerged from a convergence of social constructionist social theory,and complexity science. 

As a writer with over 100 paper,chapters, and books, he has won numerous awards for his research,including the Douglas McGregor Memorial Award twice in both 2007 and2009. In 2017 HR Magazine in the UK ranked him the 7thmost influential HR Thinker in their annual rankings of the top 30. A chapter on him and his work is in the Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers.

Gervase received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University. He was trained in laboratory education methods at the Sir George William’s Centre for Human Relations and Community Studies in Montreal and is a certified T-group facilitator and OD consultant. 

GervaseBushe’s manuscripts on Appreciative Inquiry are available for downloading at http://www.gervasebushe.ca/appinq.htm

GervaseBushe’s manuscripts on Dialogic Organization Development are available for downloading at  http://www.dialogicod.net

Gervase R. Bushe, Ph.D. Files & Links