r
<rtA5-
ALFRED
P.
WORKING PAPER
SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
BACK TO THE FUTURE:
RECAPTURING THE OD VISION
Edgar K. Schein
V;P
1953-87
November 1987
MASSACHUSETTS
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
50 MEMORIAL DRIVE
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139
BACK TO THE FUTURE:
RECAPTURING THE OD VISION
Edgar H. Schein
WP 1953-87
November 1987
FFR
81988
;
-1-
BACK TO THE FUTURE: RECAPTURING THE OD VISION*
EDGAR H. SCHEIN
Sloan School of Management, MIT
November, 1987
Paper prepared for Massarik,
*
I
F.
(Ed.) Advances in OD ,
1988.
would like to thank Richard Beckhard, Michael Beer, Ed Nevis,
Fred Massarik for specific suggestions that enhanced this
and
paper.
Abstract
believe
early
to
have
1950's,
The purpose of this paper is to restate what
been
this
the
essence of
concept was
the
OD vision when,
first developed.
in
I
the
believe that
I
this vision has been altered, possibly corrupted, by
a
number of
technological, economic, and cultural forces, and that it is time
to restate what OD can and should stand for.
This paper was motivated by two forces.
to contribute to this volume was the
a
questionnaire from
real
the
aspects of OD.
in
my
I
a
specific,
as
It was designed
a
the arrival of
six months ago
I
received
a
colleague who wished to evaluate various
to make my task
had only to check which of
work
initial one;
colleague wishing to do research on OD is
To be more
one.
questionnaire from
that
a
The invitation
consultant,
and
a
to
fairly simple in
number of "techniques"
evaluate what
effectiveness of each of these techniques was.
I
I
thought
used
the
-2-
was invited to participate in the research because of
I
my many years of experience and my previous writing about OD.
cover
such
letter said that the amalgamated
experienced practitioners would
results from
tell
what
us
a
The
number of
these days
OD
consists of and how it is doing.
found
I
myself
very
impatient with
this
questionnaire
but until the invitation to write this paper came,
I
did not
really stop to analyze what my feelings were all about.
then realized
is
that the source of my
What
I
impatience and irritation
was the very format of the questionnaire because it implied things
about OD that
a
I
have nevor accepted and that reflect,
in my view,
real corruption of what was originally a grand vision.
Specifically,
different
grid,"
the
listing
such
as
techniques
OD
"confrontation
building,"
"survey
meeting,"
"process consultation,"
approximately
of
feedback,"
"managerial
meeting,"
"sensing
fifty
"organizational mirror,"
"team
"open
systems planning," "role analysis," "responsibility charting," and
so on made me realize that
at
all,
but as
a
I
did not see OD as
a
set of techniques
philosophy or attitude toward how one can best
work with organizations.
By
"philosophy"
I
mean
a
set of underlying
assumptions
about how things really work and how they ought to work.
"attitude"
on
I
mean
a
predisposition to act in
these assumptions.
Such
a
a
By an
certain way based
philosophy or attitude toward
working with human systems is explicitly articulated in my concept
of
"process
consultation"
(Schein,
1969,
1987a),
and
j_t
i^
the
att i tude that makes speci fie techniques such as team building or
.
-3-
survey feedback effective
not the techniques themselves
,
The focus on process rather than content reflects
assumption that how organizations work,
work
how managers manage,
organized and carried out makes
is
the success of whatever it
is
the
how
crucial difference to
a
the organization or worker is
that
The great discovery underlying OD was that one could
doing.
effectively intervene in work, group, and organizational processes
without manipulating the content at all, and the group would
become more effective.
The
why
reason
was
this
so
is
that
human
systems
develop not only their own beliefs, values, and ways of doing
things
become
that
people
have
entrenched and difficult to change,
need
a
to
solve
their own problems.
that
but
The
great
discovery of the early OD practitioners was that one of the best
ways to intervene
themselves,
a
in
human systems was to help them to help
concept that fitted well with other change theories,
particularly those that emphasized "second order changes," "double
loop
learning," or
Schon,
"deutero-learning"
(Bateson,
Argyris
1972;
&
1978).
In
other
words,
the
essence
of
OD was
the
underlying
theory about the learning and change process, the philosophy and
attitude that one had to figure out how to help the client system
to help
that
The use of any given technique did not guarantee
itself.
it
was
being
used with
the
right
attitude or
assumptions,
hence the identification of OD with particular techniques implies
from
the
was, and,
outset
in my
a
misunderstanding
of
what
opinion should continue to be.
the
"essence"
This
of
essence
OD
was
-4for many of us a new vision of how one could work with and improve
human systems, but my fear is that such
vision and the attitude
a
that it generated is being lost in the mass of technologies that
today connote OD.
In the remainder of this paper
out
some
assumptions
my
of
I
would like to
underlying
this
1)
spell
conclusion,
2)
speculate on why the field of OD has drifted away from its
original vision, and
3)
propose how we might go about recapturing
or even evolving this vision.
Reflections on the Past
My
first
exposure
OD
to
occurred
Relations Training Workshops in the
raid
the
in
late
to
Bethel
1950's.
Human
What
I
remember most clearly is that we were involved in "leadership
training,"
which
by
we
meant
that
the
training group's
ultimate
purpose along with the lectures and large group exercises, was to
teach leaders how to be better leaders,
i.e.
how to manage human
systems more effectively.
The most dramatic learning for me was the discovery of
group process
,
and the insight that such process could not only be
analyzed and understood, but that one could intervene in process,
and,
thereby,
painful
side
"direction."
make
of
In
groups more effective.
this
fact,
learning,
that
I
also
"intervention"
remember
did
the
not mean
what most of us who learned how to become
"trainers" discovered is that the methods used by therapists,
particularly
were
far
those
more
influenced
effective
as
by
Rogerian
non-directive methods,
interventions
than
suggestions.
-5-
directions, and other forms of "active" leadership.
remember vividly the universal question asked by every
I
training group in the early stages of
don't you tell us what to do, Ed?
know what will work."
did make
a
as
a
group:
"Why
You have run groups before and
also remember that in most cases where
I
suggestion or gave advice or directions that the group
did not follow it
to
I
life
its
Our theory of how to intervene clearly needed
.
be modified,
therapists had already learned from their
as
direct experience working with individuals or groups.
In my early
thing
happened.
I
consulting experiences the same kind of
would
be
brought
in
to
give
advice
and
suggestions, only to find over and over again that the client did
not really want that.
If
group or larger system were involved,
a
one could count on one part of the group to be dependent and
wanting advice, while another part was counterdependent and would
do
everything
mads,
in
its
power to subvert whatever
leading generally to
a
fruitless debate or conflict within
One also learned that
the group.
faction that was dependent,
suggestions were
if
one allied oneself with the
that wanted
to
take
our advice,
one
would make matters worse because the client now was no longer the
whole group or organization, but some faction within it.
We
also
how quickly
learned
groups and
larger
systems
within organizations developed their own behavior patterns, norms,
and basic underlying assumptions about themselves, about the world
and
about how to operate within it, what we called even then the
group's
"culture"
deliberately
(Schein,
placed
in
1985).
"cultural
Thus
training
islands"
in
programs
order
to
were
help
.
-6-
trainees to gain perspective on their back home culture. But,
because people get very committed to their cultural assumptions,
we realized that real changes in such assumptions required
high
a
degree of motivation and involvement on the part of the trainees.
One could not impose new assumptions on individuals or groups.
accumulated
The
learning
from
experiences
such
constitutes for me the essence of 0D-- that change
i
n
human
systems will not come about without the active involvement of the
members of the system who will undergo the change
system has to come to terms with
processes,
ambivalence,
its
to help make this happen,
culture
factions within
the
conflicts and power struggles.
own
its
client
The
political
and
it,
and
role of the OD consultant
The
its
is
not to take sides or line up with those
who are willing to take advice.
Lewin
the
had
articulated
this
well
as
"action
research,"
involvement of the subject in the research process itself
(Lewin,
The so-called
1948).
"laboratory method of training" was
based on the fundamental assumption that learning and change could
only result from learner involvement
Schein
&
Bennis,
1965).
The job of
the
(Bradford,
trainer,
et
1964;
al,
leader
teacher,
was to create the conditions that would make such involvement
optimally possible, and to act as
process was under way.
a
facilitator once the learning
This meant that one had to manage process,
not content, and one had to learn how to be
of
we
a
catalyst in
forces that could not be predicted at the outset.
a
field
Every group
ran was different and required different kinds of process
innovations.
In
every group these innovations would result from
-7the
efforts
joint
the
of
We all had
to
trainer/consultant
and
group members.
the
learn what we meant by "process," how
groups worked on things instead of the content of what they worked
on.
Two groups might be solving
one
group
choose
would
procedures,
while
another
brainstorming session.
giving
that
every one
on
a
free-form
One group developed norms of politely
turn
a
to
talk,
while another developed
confrontive
and
One group would meet until
was
it
norms
arguments
among
finished,
while
another set very clear time deadlines for each meetings.
group would develop
a
but
parliamentary
adopt
and
decided
group
interruptions
legitimized
members.
chairman
a
assigned problem,
same
the
formal agenda and work
its way
One
through it,
while another would bounce back and forth between periods of work
and play.
The skill of the group trainer would be to "go with the
flow,"
observe
to
intervene to
learned
mak-3
processes
carefully
and
to
f
acil itatively
each group more effective in its own terms.
slowly that
one
could
not
impose
processes on
"correct"
groups, but had to help each group to do its own best.
really needed to change its processes in
the only way to accomplish
this
insight
for
a
We
If
a
group
more fundamental way,
that was to help the group to achieve
itself.
One
could
not
double-loop
force
learning, one could only facilitate it.
Taking these insight into the organizational realm meant
that
1)
organizational
systematically,
thus
opening
processes
up
new
had
research
to
observed
be
areas,
and
2)
the
assumption had to be made that every cl ient system and situation
.
-8-
would be different and the cruc ial skill of the OP consul tant
wou Id
f acil
i
be
his
or
he
r
capac i ty
to
i
nte rvene
innovat i vely
and
tatively around whatever issues might arise
For many readers
will undoubtedly have stated the
I
obvious, and many OD practitioners agree and believe themselves to
be operating precisely from such assumptions.
But, unfortunately,
for many others what OD has become today is
change"
that
programs,
consists
that
application of
the
of
imposed
is
from
the
top
"technology of
a
specific
with
tools
and
help
of
the
consultants, and that pays only lipservice to client involvement.
For
example,
conducting
in
survey-feedback
a
intervention how many OD practitioners today will actually go
through the process of developing the questionnaire with the help
of
participants?
abandon doing
the
How many such practitioners would actually
survey
if
they
discovered
in
their
early
interviews that it might not be the right intervention after all?
Having convinced the client that
not many of them find
it
a
survey would be useful, would
easier to take
a
previously standardized
one off the shelf and assume that with all the research behind it,
it
probably would cover the right issues for most clients?
How many consultants who are hired to do team building
will do
fact,
a
thorough investigation of whether team building is,
relevant or timely?
had some years ago with
I
a
will never forget
a
fateful
lunch
in
I
plant manager and his OD specialist
where our task was to do the detailed design of the previously
decided upon off-site team building exercise that was to take
place one month hence.
-9-
asked
I
the
routine question of
were expected to attend the meeting.
to make
a
how many
participants
The plant manager in order
count reviewed the candidates, and as he did so, he
suddenly became aware of the fact that he did not really believe
in the competence of two of the potential attendees.
encouraged
I
him to think out the consequences, and he realized that to have a
team
building
inappropriate.
session
would
time
this
at
dangerous
be
and
We both agreed that focusing on helping these two
to succeed or else replacing them was the correct OD intervention,
and cancelled the team building meeting.
My focus shifted to
helping the plant manager figure out how to assess these two
people fairly.
In
reviewing
this
later,
both
the
plant manager and
thought that my routine question turned out to be
"intervention"
in
that
it
focused squarely on an
a
critical
issue
that had
not been sufficiently thought through b^ the client
this
type
of
experience
ov'er
questions asked in complete
in
the
areas.
client
that
In my view
take us
and
over
again,
I
.
that
have had
routine
innocence trigger thoughts and
into brand
I
ideas
new and highly productive
the OD philosophy requires that the consultant
be sensitive to such new areas and pursue them as needed,
even if
that means giving up agreed upon programs or activities.
My
vision of OD that grew out of experiences such as
this was articulated as "process consultation," the effort to help
a
client system to become aware of its own processes and to become
skilled
enough
to
intervene
in
those
processes
so
that
its
own
immediate effectiveness increased, but, even more importantly, its
1
-10-
ability to continue to solve its problems in the future increased.
The OD vision must include,
passing on one's skills
in my view,
commitment to
a
observing and intervening
in
in
process.
An organization must be able to continue to help itself, not just
to benefit
to be able
from an outside OD consultant's help.
This
impl ies that the intervention skills must increasingly be learned
by
management
the
itsel
that
so
f
organization becomes increasingly
a
development
the
normal process of
the
of
leadership
and management implemented inside the organi zation by managers and
internal consultants (Schein, 1987a; Beer
order
In
to
provide
such
&
help
Walton, 1987).
OD consultant
the
must
accept the client system wherever he or she finds it to be, must
become enough involved in what is going on to be able to perceive
what kind of intervention will be catalytic and
above
must
all,
providing
a
commitment
learn
ready made
to
not
answer
managing
any given
trust
to
to
any
the
level
it
is
and
is
the
that
is
It
contingencies
unpredictable
,
technology as
given problem.
ultimately the essence of the attitude, and
of
itative
f aci
the acceptance
theoretical assumption that all human systems are at some
unique
and
unpredictable
that
is
the
essence
of
the
philosophical underpinning of OD.
Forces Undermining the Vision
I
it
believe that there are four sets of forces that make
difficult
to
sustain
the
attitude
and
to
maintain
the
philosophical assumption articulated above:
1)
Economic Forces.
Consultants who have to make
a
.
-11-
living
from
OD
must
work
develop
pactitioners who want to make
to
that
OD
sell.
living in this new speciality have
a
have something to put into their brochures that distinguishes
them from other professionals.
as
products
easily
describable
and
Attitudes and philosophies are not
salable
questionnaires,
as
organized
approaches to meetings, and pre-designed programs.
Clients who want to achieve changes also are subject to
economic forces in that they want the "most change for the buck,"
and
therefore collude with the sales conscious consultant
looking
for
that
technique which will
promise
the
most
for
in
the
least money.
2)
some
very powerful
tools
that
Once
the
applied
to
use
such
T-group as
it
a
tools
do
create client
involvement,
As with any new technology,
insight, and skill learning.
temptation
OD practitioners have invented
Technological Forces.
across
method of
all over the place,
the
learning
board
is
had
been
the
overwhelming.
invented,
we
including inside organizations
where its use as an intervention was highly questionable, to give
but one historical example.
Today we see
a
similar indiscriminate
use of survey-feedback and team building technologies, and in the
area of organi zatinal culture we see evolving new technologies for
"quick and dirty" diagnoses of complex cultural issues even from
practitioners who claim to eschew "quick fixes" (Kilmann, 1984).
3)
Cultural Forces
Clients (in the U.S. in particular)
are product and activity focused.
done
to whom,
and
they are
They want to know what will be
suspicious of silent consultants who
mostly sit around and do very little, even though they will
,
-12-
acknowledge
were
the
that
few
interventions
well timed and effective.
productivity,
putting
their
clients,
philosophy
and
clearly counter-cultural position.
culturally with
consultant made
the
Our culture values activity and
attitude
the
that
into
a
order to feel more at one
In
many
OD
of
practitioners
OD
try
to
be
active and try to prove how productive their technologies will be.
4)
Research
Forces
.
Once
OD
programs
began
to
be
utilized, academic researchers moved in rapidly to determine
whether or not the claims for improvement from T-groups and other
OD technologies could be sustained with hard data.
But the
culture of research dictates that one must measure things, and, in
order
to
measure
them
those
reliably,
things must
entities that can be compared and contrasted.
discrete
be
So we began to see
research projects that compared the relative effectiveness of
different OD techniques,
techniques were,
in
never questioning
fact,
being
applied
whether
in
any
these
of
terms of
the
OD
philosophy and attitude.
The most absurd version of this corruption occurred when
in a number of studies things like survey/research,
team building,
and process consultation were compared with each othe r
these were separable and discrete activities.
the
process
consultation
As
I
underlies
philosophy
as
if
argued before,
many
other
techniques so the research was measuring totally incomparable
things.
Furthermore,
the
notion
that
OD
projects
characterized by the primary use of one technique
face
of
most of my experience.
If
I
think of
could
flies
companies
in
I
be
the
have
-13-
worked with, over
variety of
a
period of time
"techniques"
in
will have used
I
whole
a
response to what was going on,
would be impossible to describe the relationship
in
and
it
terms of any
one of these techniques as being "primary."
The same research/measurement phenomenon has occurred in
field of therapy and education, where our obsession with
the
different techniques has obscured the more important result that
successful outcomes have more to do with general variables such as
teacher
or
(Frank,
1974).
therapist
attitude
client
and
or
motivation
student
Attitudes and motivation are, of course, harder to
measure than ratings of whether or not
given OD project involved
a
primarily team building or survey research,
difficulties should
not
stand
in
the
such measurement
but
way
research
doing
of
appropriate to the phenomenon under consideration.
At
the
theoretical level another force has been the
assumption coming from
make
a
number of change theories that one must
structural and behavioral
ultimately
influence
attitudes,
(Festinger, 1957; Haley, 1984).
it
is
interventions first,
values,
If one
and
if
one
is
to
assumptions
works from this assumption
natural to look for incisive and clever ways to manipulate
behavior
change,
particularly
if
with
this
assumption
goes
the
further one that such change will be "quicker" than the often
drawn out
therapeutic
process of
building
awareness
and
working
issues through.*
*I
am indebted to my colleague Ed Nevis for this observation.
-14-
To
extent
the
that
above
the
forces have
been working
over the past several decades, we have corrupted and subverted the
original OD vision, and, worse, possibly adopted technologies that
are
in
fact
less effective
might be alright
being OD.
if
but
did not
we
But more and more
easier
then
I
to
label
This
sell.
those
situation
technologies as
see us using the OD label
in a
broad manner that suggests inclusion of everything from surveys to
sensitivity training to behavior modification, with hardly
to the problem of developing
client
action
involvement,
a
nod
the right attitude to facilitate
research,
and
genuine
contingency
thinking around intervention.
Evolving the Vision
;
Fusion with the CI inical Perspective
The ultimate
to evolving it lies
in
answer both to recapturing the vision and
fusing the assumptions and attitudes of OD
with the assumptions and attitudes of clinical work, particularly
that portion of clinical work that deals with individual and group
therapy (Schein, 1987b).
Therapists
attitudes
the
and
have
learned
situational
from decades
contingencies
research
that
surrounding
the
of
therapeutic situation (e.g. how motivated the client is, how much
trust or faith the client has in the therapist or the therapeutic
process) are more predictive of outcomes than the particular
techniques employed, and that with each client situation one must
be
prepared to adapt one's techniques to what one finds
1974)
.
(Frank,
.
-15-
The OD consultant should
essentially the same
take
perspective when he or she engages some segment of an organization
and develops gradually a diagnostic sense of what may be going on,
using
rather than confrontive
exploratory
1987a).
the concept of
In using
interventions
(Schein,
"consultant" here,
am not
I
limiting the discussion to the traditional outside consultant who
can take
a
genuinely neutral stance toward any given problem.
Increasingly
have
I
learn how to be
learn
to
take
conceptualizing
a
a
found
part
that
any manager's
of
job
is
to
consultant to his or her own work group, to
neutral
the
stance
problem,
and
toward
how
the
subordinates are
ultimately to take the attitude
that the most effective way to manage is to "help the subordinate
to succeed"
(Schein,
1987a).
Another area of potential fusion between OD and clinical
philosophies lies in the use of conceptual models that involve us
in
thinking about pathology and health.
Both clinicians
consultants must be concerned with what
is
prepared to locate and enhance that part of
healthy and capable of learning.
a
health,
and
and
OD
must be
given system that is
And, paradoxically, one will not
know what the healthy parts are before one has attempted some
interventions and observed the response.
shift gears and go in
skill of both the good
again
the
purveyor
line
of
manager
such
a
The ability to then
different direction becomes an essential
therapist and
in
skills
the
the
OD practitioner.
organization becomes
and
thus
the
true
the
Here
ultimate
developer
of
organizations
OD practitioners should also learn from their clinical
-16-
colleagues
equivalent
the
do
to
"pathology
of
conferences,"
systematic analyses of projects that are not working or that have
gone
colleagues who can provide
neutral
with
wrong
perspective.
During projects OD practitioners should use training consultants
or
consultants
shadow
they
maintain
to
critical
a
audience
what
for
Such activities would not only enhance the
are doing.
theories that underlie our notions of planned organizational
change,
but
would
force
us
re-articulating
keep
to
our
philosophies and to test our attitudes.
The equivalent
activities
for
line managers
practicing
OD would be to develop helping relationships with their peers and
bosses who could
function
as
resources
and
"trainers"
or
shadow
consultants vis-a-vis any given project that the manager
performing.
One
of
my
most
successful
interventions
organizations is to get groups of managers at the same
get
level
is
in
to
together to share problems they are having in supervising or
managing their groups,
and
to develop
an
attitude that they can
help each other with such problems.
Our models of organizational health must become broader
and more comprehensive
thinking
openness,
to
(Bennis,
1962,
1987).
We cannot limit our
narrow notions of power equalization,
trust,
full
communication,
teamwork,
and
participation,
all
the
"motherhood" concepts that have come to pervade our field.
other
As we
have become more cross-cultural we have learned that many of these
concepts are considered to be narrow American values, not general
guides to organizational health.
In
this regard one of
the weaknesses of
research on OD
.
-17is
that we do not yet have
expect OD to accomplish.
a
clear enough concept of what we
What do we mean when we
organizational effectiveness has improved?
say
that
When research on
T-groups was first begun we ran into the paradox that training
seemed to reduce self-insight, just the opposite of what had been
The answer, of course, was that during training people
predicted.
came to realize how little they had understood themselves prior to
training, so
a
comparison of before and after self-ratings of
self-insight produced
had
a
lower score after training because people
a
more accurate assessment of how little they knew about
themselves
The same kind of thing can happen when organizations are
studied before and after OD interventions.
It
should also be
pointed out that measures of effectiveness have to be judged
against
a
trend,
not
in
terms of
a
steady state.
It has been my
experience with some client organizations that they were on
steep downward
trend with
a
respect to some critical effectiveness
variables, and what the OD interventions did was to slow down the
decline.
But
the
before
and
after measures would
still
show
a
decline from initial to final state.
Impl ications for OD consulting
If
we pursue
this vision,
by which
I
mean that we take
the assumptions underlying process consultation seriously and
adopt the attitude
I
am advocating,
approach to actual OD projects?
we
what does this mean
for our
For example, does this mean that
abandon learning all of the many techniques that have become
-18-
associated with OD?
Instead,
Not at all.
am advocating a
I
concept of organization development that involves the consultant
or
manager
in
a
more
a
number of interrelated features:
characterized by
A
1)
organic
set
understanding
full
techniques would be applied
if
processes
of
can
be
of
the
OD
each
how
of
that
one took seriously the underlying
assumption that one can only help the client to help him or
herself, and the assumption that every case is unique and requires
its own particular pattern of interventions.
For
example,
used
we
if
the
technique
survey-
of
feedback, we would have to know how to develop, conduct, and feed
back
the
results of
survey by means
a
that
typically quite
are
different
from
approach.
From an OD perspective one would work bottom up sharing
frequently
the
advocated
top-down
cascading
with each level the data relevant to that level and getting that
level to decide what should be passed upward to the next level!!!
time"
or
2)
The development of the ability to work
"on
line" without preconceptions of what
in
"real
elements of
a
change strategy would be most relevant as the project progressed.
The ability to observe the moment to moment interaction
between
the
client
and
the
consultant
becomes
central
a
skill,
comparable to the analysis of transference and countertransf erence
in
This would imply as well the willingness to
psycho-analysis.
terminate
forward.
at
any
time
Contracts
if
and
the
client did
agreements
to
not
pursue
feel
a
ready
whole
to move
series of
steps would be avoided, so that each step could be evolved both by
the
consultant and the client of the moment.
The OD consultant
-19-
should always be sure that the client is owning responsibility for
the interventions that are being made, which means that the client
has to be involved on line as well.
A
3)
commitment
to
contingent planning,
willingness to adjust to new data,
responses
interventions
to
what may be going on,
a
as
a
a
readiness to interpret client
further
diagnostic
readiness to provide
at every step of the process,
implying
a
indicators
of
number of options
and a suspension of judgment of what
is the best way for the client to operate.
This
consultant
helping,
is
but
suspension
of
committed to
is
not
a
judgment
implies
that
OD
set of values about process and
committed
to
operational
organizations such as power equalization or openness.
a
the
major change program one could lay out goals,
a
values
for
In planning
strategy, and a
variety of options, but one should only plan the first step or two
in
detail,
and that
first step might be something minimal
meeting with key members of the client system.
At
like a
that meeting
next steps could be discussed and committed to.
4)
A commitment to dynamic organizational
theories that
lead one to constructive concepts of organizational health and the
fostering of self-correcting and self-managing processes
1980,
1985;
Argyris
&
Bennis,
1962,
1987).
(Schein,
Theories such as those of
Schon (1978) which emphasize double-loop learning,
theories of organizational change that take culture seriously, and
theories of
learning
and
adaptation that
take
into
account what
has been learned anthropologically about change will serve us
better than some of the traditional organization theories
in
use
.
-20-
today
Concluding Comment
In conclusion,
what
I
as an OD consultant,
am going to do or what
the situation.
I
I
do not really know
I
should do until
I
am actually in
should share this insight with my contact client
and encourage initial contacts that are only minimally structured.
I
offer to attend some meetings or continue to meet with the
contact client to talk out what
is
needed.
As
I
get a sense of
the client organization's history, culture, and future aspirations
it
becomes
clearer
much
what
ultimately produce optimal results.
kinds
If
of
a
interventions
might
client is not willing to
engage at that level, the prognosis for the success of the project
is low anyway.
Ultimately OD should be organizational therapy and the
training
of
the
practitioner
OD
should
enough
include
clinical
training to insure that he or she will understand the tensions and
anxieties that accompany changes in human systems.
a
technology that
competent to handle
can
a
implemented
be
by
Treating OD as
anyone
who
becomes
few of the tools but who does not understand
the philosophy or the helping attitude,
is not only likely to be a
waste of time but downright dangerous.
This assertion
is
paradoxical because
I
also said
have
that ultimately the practitioner of OD will have to be the line
manager inside the organization.
To be consistent,
I
would have
to argue that line managers need more clinical training,
is
precisely the argument
I
wish to make.
and that
What line managers
.
.
-21learn from consultants is to take
line
managers
follow
this
up
a
clinical perspective, and good
by
learning
more
about
the
psychological dynamics of superior-subordinate relationships and
group action.
to
There is nothing more valuable for
line manager
a
learn than the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of
inter- personal dynamics, and there is no more important skill for
a
manager to acquire than the clinical skill of handling people
and groups.
managers,
line
If
inside
consultants,
outside
and
consultants can recapture the OD vision and implement it, our
organizations will have
a
chance to maximize their effectiveness
over the long haul in this increasingly competitive world. Let us
put OD back on the firm footing where
it
superficial
who
games
with
organizations
belongs and stop playing
have
much
too
much
at
stake to be treated superficially or to be subjected to the latest
technological fad.
REFERENCES
Argyris, C.
Schon,
&
Addison-Wesley
,
D.
A.
Organizational learning
1978.
Bateson, G.
Steps to an ecology of mind
Beer,
Walton,
M.
&
Reading, Ma.:
A.
E.
N. Y.
:Ballantine
,
1972.
Organization change and development.
Annual Review of Psychology, 1987, 38, 339-67.
Bennis, W. G.
Toward
a
truly scientific management:
The concept
.
.
.
.
.
.
)
.
.
-22of organizational health.
General Systems Yearbook
1962,
7,
269-
282.
Bradford,
P.,
L.
Gibb,
J.
theory and laboratory method
Festinger,
R.,
&
Benne,
K.
T-group
N.Y.: Wiley, 1964.
A Theory of cognitive dissonance
L.
(Eds.)
D.
Evanston, 111: Row
Peterson, 1957.
Frank,
J.
Persuasion and heal ing
D.
.
(Rev
Ed
.
.
.
N.Y.:
Schocken,
1974.
Haley, J. Ordeal therapy
Kilmann,
H.
R.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
Beyond the quick
f
ix
1984.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
1984.
Resolving social conf 1 icts
Lewin, K.
Schein,
E.
H.
N.Y.: Harper Row,
Process consul tat ion
Reading,
1948.
Ma.: Addison-
Wesley, 1969.
Schein,
E.
H.
Organ i zat ional psychology
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
Schein,
E.
H.
3d
Ed
Englewood
1980.
Organi zat ional
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985.
,
cul ture
and
leadership.
San
.
.
.
-23-
Schein,
E.
H.
Addison-Wesley
Schein,
E.
,
E.
H.
&
,
Vol
.
2
Reading, Ma.,
1987. a.
The cl inical
H.
Park, Ca.: Sage,
Schein,
Process consul tat ion
1987.
Newbury
b.
Bennis, W. G.
through group methods
perspective in field work
Personal and organizational change
N.Y.: Wiley,
1965.
'*5U OBI
Date Due
NOV
2 2
19(
3
bae
^QBO 005 131