Co-optation awareness and prevention training in change management

Workshop: Ethical Discretion and Consensus-Building in Change Management

Avoiding Co-optation and Cultivating Ethical Leadership in Organizations

Executive Summary

This workshop is designed to equip professionals with the skills to navigate ethicaldecision-making in change management while avoiding the pitfalls of co-optation.

Co-optation—integrating adversaries into decision-making processes to neutralize them—poses significant ethical and strategic risks.

The training leverages theories from Philip Selznick, Michael Harmon, Carl Rogers, H. George Frederickson, and Joseph Nye & Anne-Marie Slaughter to explore how discretion, soft power, and ethical consensus-building can guide organizational change.

The Target Model of Discretion, originally developed for law enforcement, is adapted here for broader organizational settings to help individuals and teams assess the competing factors influencing their discretionary decisions. Participants will gain practical tools for identifying co-optation attempts, fostering genuine collaboration, and using soft power ethically to drive change while maintaining professional integrity.

Through five structured modules, participants will:

Understand the concept of co-optation and its ethical implications.

Learn how dyads and small groups influence decision-making.

Explore the Target Model of Discretion and how it applies beyond law enforcement.

Develop ethical strategies for navigating power dynamics in organizations.