How to Od... and Live to Tell About It: A Practitioner's Guide to Organization Development

By William Becker

Organization Development, or OD as it is often referred to, is something of a sexy field that is part of the family of the Human Resource discipline, including training, coaching, mentoring, business strategy, change management, etc.

The Title

When being trained as an OD Practitioner at such institutes as National Training Laboratories (NTL) and some universities, one may hear the analogy that people fear change because it can mean the end of something with which we are familiar. Thus the concept of "death" (loss of job, status, position, group esteem, etc.) is part of the psychology noted in ones education in the field to help practitioners understand others angst over taking risks accompanying change. The title is, therefore, an obvious pun on "Overdose"/OD and living to tell about it relates to how to avoid unneeded risk for the practitioner and the client.

Benefits of the Book

The book is useful because it:

- Is a new and unique perspective on OD

- Is theoretically substantive and not academic

- Provides practical actions and tools

- Invites various approaches to OD

- Is humorous/wry for a serious subject

- Integrates theory with practice

- Balances client and consultant relationships

with business and organizational goals

- Demonstrates key points with short cases

- Gives the reader the whole loaf

Reviewers Comments

"Its not easy for someone with such a wealth of experience to distill it into a short tome. Bill has done his work and our profession a great service."(Nadine Pearce, Sr. Manager of OD, Nabisco)

"Bill Beckers new book provides a practical and intelligent guide for those who want to help organizations become better at doing what they are trying to do." (Nancy Brown, Consultant to Organizations)

"An excellent book! Its really good stuff! Bills approaches to various topics and ways of describing them are really useful. The books organization is also superb." (Donna Deeprose, Author, Speaker, Trainer)

"The book validates a lot of what I do and I definitely learned some things about organization/structure and conceptual/operational how tos"...It sparks my creative juices, and is a catalyst for new ahas relative to consulting models, theories, and concepts that OD practitioners may not have access to in one book." (Karen Massoni, OD Consultant and Professor of Organizational Dynamics at The New School)

"This book has something to add to the practice of OD, especially since it pulls so many theoretical strands together, socio-technical systems, chaos theory, expectancy-valence theory, large group change, specific future search processes, and situational leadership." (Victor Rhodd, OD and Employee Development Consultant, New York Power Authority)

"It reads like a combination diary and practitioners tool kit by weaving in and out of personal views and some really good case examples." (George Truel, Author and OD Practitioner)

"If you are going to read this book-and I strongly recommend you do....Beckers book is not a theoretical work. It is about the experience of OD, about the essential conditions that must be adhered to in order to do it profesionally, and about some of the mechanisms and guideposts that can be helpful in navigating through the huge complexity of a large-scale organizational change....it is worth reading. (Robin Stuart-Kotze,PhD., International Management Consultant and Professor)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 12, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462835386

William Becker

William Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project and the co-editor (with David Orr, Andrew Gumbel, and Bakari Kitwana) of Democracy Unchained (The New Press).

Book preview

HOW TO OD

...AND LIVE TO TELL

ABOUT IT

A Practitioner’s Guide

to Organization

Development

William Becker

Copyright © 2002 by William Becker.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

14916

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

A Word To The Living

Introduction

Action I

Determine Your Degree of Readiness

Action II

Initiate the Discovery Process

Action III

Determine Whether Alignment Is By Compliance or Commitment

Action IV

Diagnose the Three Domains and Your Client’s Degree of Readiness

Action V

Write the Rx and Validate mmitment

BEST BUILT COMPANIES

Description of Best Built Development Events

Action VI

Facilitate Solution Implementation

Action VII

Intervention, Follow-up & Personal Reflection

Resources For Action

References

DEDICATION

To my wife Letty who showed me the way out of personal Chaos to Renewal, which has allowed me to focus on organizational Chaos, and to our daughter Alexandra Justine Aurelia who has brought me great joy and pride, and broadened my personal understanding of the need for balance between Control and Freedom!

Acknowledgements

How would you like to try an OD weekend at NTL? asked Doug Marr, former Congregational minister and then head of human resources for a 20 billion dollar investment sector of a major insurance company in 1975. I cavalierly told him I didn’t use drugs and asked what he meant. Doug’s ability to assess people’s capabilities and help them develop their talents is legendary. My first act of acknowledgment and thankfulness must go to him. Even in retirement as Chief Operating Officer from Lee Hecht Harrison, Doug continues to do his missionary work with the Huntington’s disease Society, a testimonial to his acting on his life-long values.

Marvin Weisbord, Peter Block and Tony Petrella, a triple threat on any scale, provided through their practices a three-dimensional model that helped me understand the major components of organizational consulting and how they fit together. While all three perform the same services with great acumen and TLC, they each modeled their own component of OD. Marvin helped me see the holistic view of organizations and their functioning parts through his Six-Box Model and later through his Future Search Conference methodology. Peter, through his humor and attention to innovative learning designs, provided me the ability to design programs and processes that helped me avoid a number of near after-life experiences. Tony brought out the importance of keeping focused on the business results required to help an organization, not only in his designs and facilitation but also in his demeanor. All three taught me the importance of being myself and always proceeding with honest curiosity. Sandra Janoff, Future Search co-guru with Marvin, with her high energy, encouragement, and clarity on the application of theory, has enabled me to ask my dumb questions.

The model of Marketplace, Liaisons, and Internal Operations is liberally borrowed from William E. Smith, PhD., Director and Founder of Organizing for Development, an International Institute. The model is used in a more limited scope than the one exploited by Dr. Smith, and some of the labeling of domains has been changed; however, attribution of the model must go to him. His original model serves as a platform for a primary tool used in my practice.

Nancy Brown, independent consultant to organizations and occasional NTL and workshop leader, has continued coaching me and extending her warm and insightful friendship since helping me learn the basics of OD at an extended NTL program. I learned from Nancy the importance of being thorough in my response to others’ inquiries and treating them as I would family members. Experiencing George Truell’s thorough and patient approach to creating productive work teams and how he educates managers of the need for their balanced approach to control and freedom helped me grasp a deeper understanding of the dynamics of empowerment with accountability. There are others, of course, including Brendan Reddy, Kaleel Jamison, Neal Clap, and Jacquelyn Rainocheck—all OD practitioners who helped me grow personally and professionally through their workshops and discussions. I humbly pay tribute Peter Vail, Bob Tannenbaum, and Jerry Harvey for their many humorous and informative articles and books that have educated me and validated my own experiences.

Without a doubt the concepts of C.K. Prahald and Gary Hamel relative to strategic intent and core organizational competencies and William Pasmore’s writings on Sociotechnical Systems all have helped me integrate and reconcile in my mind and actions the need for balancing the financial, task, and human factors of organization development. If Tom Peters did one thing for me it was be a role model for speaking out loudly with passion and conviction for the things I believe in. For me, he made theory walk the pavement.

I hail the colleagues who have given generously of their time and talent over the years and shared their belief, energy, and actions in the risk of potential deaths of projects on which I have asked them to accompany me, and who have taught me a near-unending list of things about adult learning theory and practice: Peter Rogen, guru on presentation skills, has helped me to think before I speak and to express my ideas in a thoughtful and clear way. Victoria Axelrod, with whom I created the Alignment Conference process described in the Resources for Action section of this book, has provided me intriguing opportunities to create original interventions and has liberally shared her erudite insights, and a lot of fun times in working together to help others grow. I am also indebted to Donna Deeprose, whose steel trap mind always finds illogic to mend; Mark Morales, who reinforces in his practice all the principles of adult learning theory; Karen Massoni, who introduced me to my first adjunct professorship and who has taught me the true meaning of friendship; Nadine Pearce, a student who taught me and one of the more delightful, humorous, and talented OD practitioners I know; Bill Rainford, who in the classroom is always measured and has mastered the loopback technique; and Victor Rhodd, truly an OD practitioner‘s practitioner, who has the patience of Job and the wisdom of Buddha and came along at a time in my career when I most needed his talent and wisdom.

Finally, my deep appreciation to my editor, Roz Gold, a colleague for nearly two decades, who has one of the most creative minds and group facilitation skills I have ever experienced. Roz lit up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center when I asked her to help me with this book, and without hesitation integrated into her busy schedule the awesome task of bringing sense and sensibilities to this work. Thank you, Roz.

Preface

A Word To The Living

This book provides an additional perspective for internal and external Organization Development (OD) practitioners, an inside look at the practice of OD for people in Training and Development who see it as a possible career path, and insights for end users (clients) about what a thoughtful OD process looks like and can provide, and most important, some ways to do OD without ‘losing’ anyone in the process!

OD means many things to different people. Bill Berliner, VP of Management Development at the New York Power Authority awarded me a plaque when I moved on to other challenges, which tagged OD as the field of Odious Developments.

One of the most odious developments we face is death, especially when we are not ready for it. What we do with odious developments, professionally and privately, influences the quality of our work and personal lives and determines whether we become ghosts of our true potential.

As I learned early in my career at National Training Laboratories (NTL) in Bethel, Maine, the Mecca of OD training, much of our work lives, no matter what type of job we have, is driven by avoiding failure or loss—death of a sort. When we fail at work, we lose or at least fear losing self-confidence, credibility, respect, chance for promotions, and even our jobs. The anxiety might be described as the fear of dropping through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs from self-realization to basic safety and security issues. Some of this anxiety is aggravated by old management techniques that are still pervasive in many organizations. Few organizations promote learning from the bumps we experience from taking risks, no matter what positive results we realize. Though in my career having personally beat the average life-span as an internal OD practitioner of two years by three-fold, life expectancy as OD professionals within organizations is something equivalent to what George Burns used to say when he reached his late 90’s: I only buy very ripe fruit.

For readers who may be unfamiliar with why OD is characterized as values driven and to help define what a professional OD practitioner’s behavior should look like, I have included below the working statement of the Credo of the National Organizational Development Network.

It is my intent and therefore my hope that whoever reads this book, be they practitioners, line managers, professors, or students, will walk away with a better understanding of and greater appreciation for what practicing OD is about. To assume the responsibility of helping an organization become different, better, and more productive is awesome. I hope this book can help those who take on such a responsibility benefit from the descriptions of my experience, and find useful some of the guidelines and practices shared so that they will not fall into the trap of ‘killing’ themselves or their clients.

For me, OD is systemic, task and socially oriented, always different, ever changing, empowering, energizing, highly collaborative, and emotionally and financially rewarding. I hope that others are fortunate enough to experience it in a similar way.

Organization and Human Systems Development Credo (July 1996)

Our purpose as professionals is to facilitate processes by which human beings and human systems live and work together for their mutual benefit and mutual well being. Our practice is based on a widely shared learning and discovery process dedicated to a vision of people living meaningful, productive, good lives in ways that simultaneously serve them, their organizations, their communities, their societies, and the world.

We are an interdependent community of professionals whose practice is based on the applied behavioral sciences and other related sciences, a human systems perspective, and both human and organizational values. We serve people at all system levels, ranging from individuals and groups to organizations, communities, and ultimately the global community. **

We believe that human beings and human systems are interdependent economically, politically, socially, culturally and spiritually, and that their mutual effectiveness is grounded in fundamental principles, which are reflected in the primary values that guide our practice. Among those values are: respect for human dignity, integrity, and worth; freedom, choice, and responsibility; justice and fundamental human rights; compassion; authenticity, openness, and honesty; learning, growth, and empowerment; understanding and respecting differences; cooperation, collaboration, trust, diversity, and community; excellence, alignment, effectiveness, and efficiency; democracy, meaningful participation, and appropriate decision-making; and synergy, harmony, and peace.

We believe further that our effectiveness as a profession, over and above our effectiveness as individual professionals, requires a widely shared commitment to and behavior in accordance with certain moral-ethical guidelines. Among them are: Responsibility to Self-acting with integrity and being true to ourselves; striving continually for self-knowledge and personal growth; Responsibility for Professional Development and Competence—developing and maintaining our individual competence and establishing cooperative relations with other