Professor David Brubaker has consulted on organizational development and conflict transformation in the U.S. and in a dozen other countries. He is also director of Eastern Mennonite University’s MA in Organizational Leadership and MBA programs. (Photo by Andrew Strack)

David Brubaker: How does an organization move ‘beyond hospitality to inclusion’?

How does a congregation or organization move “beyond hospitality to inclusion”?

Professor David Brubaker has consulted on organizational development and conflict transformation in the U.S. and in a dozen other countries. He is also director of Eastern Mennonite University’s MA in Organizational Leadership and MBA programs.

In a May 30 blog post for Congregational Consulting Group, Brubaker discusses the difference between welcoming and inclusion. Welcoming requires “no adaptation,” while inclusion requires adaptive culture change.

Inclusion is an adaptive process whereby the newcomers adopt many of the ways of the established group, while at the same time the established culture stretches and evolves to reflect the gifts and needs of the newcomers. Read more here.

Brubaker’s expertise moves beyond the faith-based environment into the world of business and nonprofit. He has provided presentations and trainings on coaching through organizational change, organizational culture, and development of management systems that include assessment and intervention.

Learn more about his life experience in this profile and his work with the Cooperative by Design consortium.

He has trained or consulted with over 100 organizations, including in Africa, Asia, Australia, Latin America, North America, and Europe.

Brubaker is the author of Promise and Peril: Understanding and Managing Change and Conflict in Congregations, published by The Alban Institute and co-author with Ruth Hoover Zimmerman of The Little Book of Healthy Organizations, published by Good Books.

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