Roger Harrison reently died at his home on Whidbey Island, offshore from Seattle in the USA. He is greatly appreciated by Learning Consortium and its individual consultants for being one of the inspirations of our flagship programme, Focus on Influence. He was also a friend, mentor, consultant and coach to many of us as individuals. So every graduate of Focus on Influence and anyone who has been helped in their interpersonal communication by one of us, is likely to have received some wisdom which originated in Roger’s pioneering work.
Roger is recognised as one of the pioneers of Organisation Development, which all of us use in our professional life and has become a stable formula for organisation change. Of particular interest to us, and to alumni of Focus on Influence, is that he created, with David Berlew the Positive Power and Influence Program, which inspired a great number of colleagues to work with managers about power and its positive use in organisations in order to create positive working relationships as well as task success.
Focus on Influence owes a great deal of debt to Roger’s original work, and to his later work on organisation culture and love in organisations. Ever modest, he willingly shared his research and work with a wide community so that it could be used to enhance organisational wellbeing. We are truly standing on the shoulders of a giant.