On Friday, September 26, Ichak Kalderon Adizes, one of the world’s leading management experts, was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa by Kazan Federal University. The ceremony was held in the historical events hall of the university.

Over the course of more than 40 years, Dr. Ichak Kalderon Adizes has developed and refined a proprietary methodology that bears his name. The Adizes Methodology enables corporations, governments, and complex organizations to achieve exceptional results and manage accelerated change without destructive conflicts. Leadership Excellence Journal named him one of the Top 30 Thought Leaders in the United States, and Executive Excellence Journal put him on their list of the Top 30 Consultants in America.

In recognition of his contributions to management theory and practice, Dr. Adizes has received 17 honorary doctorates from Universities in ten countries. He is honorary Chancellor of the University of Fredericton, Canada, received the 2010 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, holds the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel from the military and has been made an honorary citizen of two Eastern European countries.

Dr. Adizes is a Fellow of the International Academy of Management and has served as a tenured faculty member at UCLA. He was a visiting professor at Stanford, Tel Aviv and Hebrew Universities and taught at the Columbia University Executive Program. He also served as Dean of the Adizes Graduate School for the Study of Leadership and Change, and is currently an academic advisor to the Graduate School of Management of the Academy of National Economy of the Russian Federation.

Dr. Adizes is founder and president of the Adizes Institute, based in Santa Barbara, California, an international consulting company that applies the Adizes Methodology for clients in the public and private sectors. The Adizes Institute was ranked as one of the top ten consulting organizations in the United States by Leadership Excellence Journal.

In addition to consulting to prime ministers and cabinet-level officers throughout the world, Dr. Adizes has worked with a wide variety of companies ranging from startups to members of the Fortune 50. He lectures in four languages, and has appeared before well over 100,000 executives in more than 50 countries.

He has written 17 books that have been published in 26 languages. His book Corporate Lifecycles: How Organizations Grow and Die and What to Do about It (subsequently revised, expanded and republished as Managing Corporate Lifecycles) was named one of the Ten Best Business Books by Library Journal.

And now, Dr. Adizes is Honorary Doctor of Kazan Federal University, by the decision of the KFU Academic Council. “I am happy to be honoured by your great university that has traditions of over 200 years,” he said with emotion. 

Dr. Adizes following the tradition delivered a lecture “Leadership and Integration. Change Management without Chaos and Conflicts”.

He focused on the methodology he had succeeded to develop that helped to change the practice of management and the management education. Dr. Adizes explained how to manage change without a destructive conflict because whenever there was a change, there would be conflict. From his point of view, conflict is indispensable. But people are afraid of change because it can be destructive. The methodology is how to convert - not to eliminate - the conflict from being destructive to being constructive.