Introducing Rodrigo Joglar: Our Consulting Exchange Intern from Our Global Partner in Chile

My name is Rodrigo Joglar. I am an organizational psychologist and a consultant with CDO Consulting Group, a pioneer company with more than 30 years of experience in organizational development and training in Chile. CDO is Barnes & Conti’s global partner in Chile.

At this point in my life, I am spending a month in Oakland, California… Why? Well, in 2009, Kim Barnes came to visit us in Chile. She brought with her the Exercising Influence program, and worked with our consultants to apply the program in Chile. That same visit presented a tremendous opportunity to share experiences and visions about OD, training, and how could continually improve ourselves in the disciplines that we teach and offer to our costumers.

That time of reflection spawned an internship between CDO and Barnes & Conti; a professional development opportunity where one consultant from Chile could spend one month in the San Francisco Bay Area, serving as part of the local team of Barnes & Conti. In this internship, we could examine their best practices, learn about their specialties, join their day-to-day operations and their regular routines.

The goals and dynamics of this internship would be to find new paths for developing innovation. Our company in Chile could learn skills to create value from diverse, new, and original ideas, which is one of CDO’s principal organizational goals.

This whole process has become a reality just last week. I have been here since this past Saturday, and the experience has already been very powerful and rich. So far, I can confirm the importance of developing innovation in organizations in a simple but deep way. The innovation management process always meets resistance, but it also needs and generates creativity, respect, commitment, efficient execution and leadership. The innovation process of Barnes & Conti clarifies—step by step—every part of the path we need to travel in order to succeed in our innovation process, from its beginning—in the ideas creation —until the successful execution of a new project.

I have three weeks to keep on learning as well as giving of my own consulting experience to Barnes & Conti in whichever ways I can. I hope that this can be only the first of other exchange experiences. Projects, such as this internship, are great opportunities to build bridges and relationships in a world that demands new connections and a global vision of business.