Seth Kahan

Seth Kahan is an American author and Change agent specializing in business innovation. From 1996 to 1998 he was a member of the team that spearheaded knowledge management in the World Bank and helped champion organizational storytelling as a legitimate knowledge management practice. In 1999 he became the Communications Manager for a worldwide IT systems renewal effort working with the World Bank's president, James Wolfensohn. From 2000 to 2002, he worked with the president on broader communications initiatives.

Since 2002, Kahan has worked with over 60 CEOs and executive directors. He developed strategy for the Peace Corps under director Gaddi Vasquez and provided change leadership at Royal Dutch Shell. In 2008 Kahan helped leaders of nonprofit organizations respond to turmoil in the economy and changing business models.

In 2010 his book on organizational transformation, Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out, presented a model of communication, involving a shift from a transactional view of information exchange to a collaborative construction of shared understanding.

Personal history

Kahan was born in New York City on July 9, 1959. He graduated with a BA in Mathematics from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana in 1980.

From 1978 to 1992 Kahan wrote, directed, produced, and performed experimental theater. He led ensembles of up to forty musicians, dancers, poets, and actors. His specialty was creating improvisational art that engaged the audience bringing them into the event. He also did a number of original one-man shows and was a professional storyteller from 1984 to 1996 with a focus on ritual, human transformation, and rites of passage. This work evolved into his organizational change work, enabling him to build engagement in multicultural, decentralized, and multi-disciplinary organizations.

Kahan is the author of two books Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out (Jossey-Bass, 2010) and Building Beehives: A Handbook for Creating Communities that Generate Returns (Performance Development Group, 2004)

His articles on leadership, innovation and knowledge management have appeared in The Washington Post, Knowledge Management, Fast Company, American Express Open Forum, Executive Update and Associations Now.

Published works

  • Bringing Us Back to Life: Storytelling and the Modern Organization, Information Outlook 2001
  • Building Community at Work, Executive Update, October 2001
  • Communicating Change, Executive Update, June 2002
  • Visionary Leadership, Executive Update, April 2002
  • Encouraging Community, Executive Update, January 2004
  • Turning a Meeting into a Community, Executive Update, September 2004
  • Engagement, Identity, and Innovation: Etienne Wenger on Communities of Practice, Journal of Association Leadership, Winter 2004
  • Creating a Poverty Grading System at the Marie Stopes Clinic Society - Managing Knowledge to Improve Reproductive Health Programs, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, 2004
  • Sharing Knowledge at the AIDS Competence Programme - Managing Knowledge to Improve Reproductive Health Programs, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, 2004
  • How to Build Performance Communities, Associations Now, November 2010
  • The Right Kind of Change, Associations Now, November 2010

Awards and honors

  • Research Fellow, The Center for Narrative Studies, 2002
  • Member of the knowledge management team at the World Bank which was benchmarked as one of the world’s Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises, 1998 and 1999.
  • Visionary, the Center for Association Leadership, 2002
  • Thought-leader and Exemplar in Change Leadership, Society for Advancement of Consulting®, 2006

References

  • Cross, J; Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2007.