ISI Fellows: Feng & OD in China

A monthly series of blog posts featuring the Fellows of Fielding’s Institute for Social Innovation

Established in 2002, the Institute for Social Innovation (ISI) supports research, professional development, and organizational consulting projects that aim to produce more effective, sustainable, or just solutions than current approaches. Learn more about the ISI below.

Jane Feng, PhD

Jane Feng, PhD

This Fielding ISI Fellow researches Practicing Organizational Development in China: applying seeing, thinking, and reframing as a way of intervention.

This consulting project engages key leaders in organizational transformation from a state of rapid to sustainable growth through revamping HR systems and resetting management routines.

Bio: Dr. Feng is a practitioner in the field of HR/OD in China. She has been working for 15 years in senior roles for Coca-Cola, Intel, and PepsiCo. Currently she is a partner in Ward Howell International, a global management consulting firm, leading OD practice in China.

Professionally, Dr. Feng was trained with NTL (National Training Laboratory) in the 1980s. She became the first Chinese member in 1998, and from 2004-2008 served on the NTL board as the first non-US board member.

Research: Dr. Feng conducts her research via consulting projects. She adopts a mindset-centered approach when working with the client. Mainly influenced by Robert J. Marshak’s work, she leverages mindset as the guidepost for applying seeing, thinking, and reframing in her practice.

Working mainly with general managers and human resource managers, and interacting with people across organizational levels, Jane delivers results by addressing the client’s mindset through diagnosing, in-sync, or altering that result in the change of the client system.

Findings: The mindset-centered consulting approach proves to be effective with the annually renewed engagements from the client for three years. By now, the client has revamped the key HR processes and systems. The annual organizational diagnosis reveals that the changes are well received with impact. And department heads are supportive to most of the changes.

Benefit: “We have benefited a lot from multi-year engagements and projects of Ward Howell International,” says one general manager. “During the projects, we worked as true partners tightly together to improve our HR system to support the quickly growing organization specified in technology and engineering sector. I am very satisfied with the very good working results as well as the high professionalism shown by the consultants.”

Future Plans: Practicing OD in China by applying the mindset-centered approach in seeing, thinking, and reframing with more clients to refine my approach for results.

About the Institute for Social Innovation

With a mission to turn knowledge into action, Fielding’s Institute for Social Innovation (ISI) taps Fielding faculty, students, and alumni across the globe to create opportunities for professionals to create sustainable change in their workplaces and communities. ISI also serves as an incubator for Fielding programs; the university’s successful Evidence Based Coaching program was born out of the ISI in 2005.

The ISI Fellows program for Fielding alumni provides IRB and grant seeking support, jointly sponsored continuing education offerings through alumni consulting businesses, expanded library access, and membership in the Alumni Association. In these and other ways, Fielding engages with alumni to further their professional accomplishments. Applications are solicited annually in March.

Learn more on fielding.edu.