William M. Snyder

Profile

Bill Snyder has worked for over 30 years on large-scale change efforts to democratize the workplace and promote organizational learning in the private, public, and non-profit sectors, with organizations such as AT&T, Colgate-Palmolive, McKinsey & Company, the Veterans Administration, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Annie E. Casey Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, and the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard.

He has co-authored a book and other widely cited publications on communities of practice--groups that foster learning, innovation, and capability-building among practitioners who share a passion for what they do. Over the last 15 years, his work has focused on civic stewardship initiatives to promote collaborative learning and innovation at community and city-wide levels (overview, slide presentation).

Bill draws on his expertise in collaborative learning systems to support community-organization engagement in civic contexts. Initiatives include participatory action research for youth development (description); a multi-neighborhood community of practice on health; and resident-led efforts to promote measurement and innovation for community wellbeing (description).

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Selected publications

Organization Learning Disorders: Conceptual Model and Intervention Hypotheses (Human Relations, 1998)
Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier (Harvard Business Review, 2000)
Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge (Harvard Business School Press, 2002)
Organizing for Economic Development in Chicago: A Learning Systems Approach (Technical Report, 2002)
Communities of Practice: A New Tool for Managers (Collaboration:Using Networks and Partnerships, Rowman & Littlefield Pub., 2003)
Communities of Practice in Government: Leveraging Knowledge for Performance (The Public Manager, 2003)
Our World as a Learning System: A Community-of-Practice Approach (Create a Learning Culture, Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Addressing Cancer Health Disparities Through a Regional Cancer Collaborative (Medical Care, 2008: pp. S74-S83)
Amplifying Youth Voice and Cultivating Leadership through Participatory Action Research (Education Policy Analysis Archives, 2019, v. 27, Research for Justice)

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A.B., Harvard College; Ed.M., Harvard Graduate School of Education; Ph.D., University of Southern California (Organization Learning, 1996)

Visiting Scholar, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Learning Innovations Laboratory, 2006-2007

Board member, Hunt Alternatives