Bio: Nick Zeniuk

Nick Zeniuk is a consultant whose work focuses on helping clients achieve desired business results using organizational learning/action research tools and methodologies. Nick is a founding member of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL)and a former elected member of the Board of Governors. He is a co-steward of the Global SoL Network and the SoL Knowledge and Innovation Network. In the latter role he collaborates with Dennis Sandow and Humberto Maturana in knowledge creation and innovation projects through action research at the U.S. Department of Defense Hewlett-Packard and others. He is a former executive at Ford Motor Company, experienced in managing complex product development programs. He is also co-author of the “Team Learning Lab”, “Project Based Learning” ( for “Management Learning” in the UK )and contributor to The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and The Dance of Change. Nick was a leader and primary mover in creating organizational learning at Ford and collaborated with Peter Senge and the late W. Edwards Deming in building the 1995/98 Lincoln Continental which set company performance records in multiple measures of quality, timing, and cost saving. This program is the subject of the recently released book, Car Launch: The Human Side of Managing Change (Kleiner and Roth, June 1999). Nick’s leadership and success in building high performance teams has been featured in Fortune, Personnel Journal, Automobile, and on PBS Television and National Public Radio. Nick has collaborated with Daniel Goleman and a chapter in Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence, includes a description of Nick’s work at Ford.

Nick Zeniuk is a public speaker and frequent presenter at seminars and conferences for various corporate, academic, and public organizations. Nick is on the Virtual Faculty with the University of Michigan and Executive Committee for the International Conference on Thinking. He is an author of various articles in Managing the Rapids, The Systems Thinker, Reflections, and Ford’s Engineering World. Nick’s “results oriented” experience, directing up to $3 billion of investment for various Ford programs worldwide, contributes significantly to his consulting outlook.

Nick is among the pioneers who, working with the MIT Center for Organizational Learning, first introduced “Learning Labs” at Ford as an interactive-learning format for enhancing managerial and team effectiveness. As a leader of the executive team that brought out the 1995 Lincoln Continental, a “superb luxury car” (Automobile Magazine), his introduction of these principles resulted in a development program that met or exceeded all product and business objectives while achieving extraordinary results. The project saved $60 million in launch rework (two-thirds of budget), improved development timing by four months and exceeded engineering and procurement schedules by 200%. They achieved the most trouble-free production launch in recent history while exceeding segment sales objectives and outselling competition. Nick Zeniuk, with collegue Dennis Sandow have introduced “Action Labs”, based on Maturana’s and Senge’s work, as a format for engaging the leadership to institutionalize performance improvements that naturally evolve in “autonomous” systems. Nick and his associates customize Action Labs and Learning Labs around unique client initiatives and business issues and help develop internal competencies for supporting, integrating and sustaining organizational change. Clients have include CIGNA Insurance, Fleet Financial, Visteon, Harley Davidson, United Technologies, Tellabs, Pratt & Whitney, various US government agencies(FDA,NSA,DOD,etc.) and other profit and non-profit organizations around the world.