Practicing Organization Development (A guide for Consultants) - Part 19 docx

Clusters with good agreement between both analyses include 1 self-mastery, 2 ability to evaluate change, 3 ability to clarify data needs, 4 managing transition and institutionaliza-tion,

Sectional Analysis

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Table 5.4.

Be mindful of process (2)

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number of items that were common to both clusters and the final list of items proposed to represent the competency concept The final set of clusters includes labels that are both specific to a phase of the planned change process as well

as generic skills that an OD practitioner should have For example, the “keep information flowing” competence ensures that communications should remain open during all phases of the change process

The final set of competencies consists of twenty-four clusters and 104 items Several competency clusters were nearly identical from the first analysis to the second and were retained in their original form This lends some confidence to the integrity of the final proposed competencies Clusters with good agreement between both analyses include (1) self-mastery, (2) ability to evaluate change, (3) ability to clarify data needs, (4) managing transition and institutionaliza-tion, (5) integrating theory and practice, (6) staying current in technology, (7) the ability to work with large systems, (8) participatively creating a good imple-mentation plan, (9) understanding research methods, (10) managing diversity, (11) clarifying roles, (12) addressing power, (13) keeping an open mind, (14) managing client ownership of the change, (15) being comfortable with ambi-guity, (16) managing the separation, and (17) focusing on relevance and flexi-bility In other words, more than half of the final competencies were reliably formed in both analyses Another five competencies emerged as combinations of clusters from the two analyses

DISCUSSION

The results from Table 5.4 allow us to address the two research questions driving this chapter First, is there any underlying structure within Sullivan’s list of OD competencies? Second, what utility does the refined list have for OD practitioners?

Underlying Structure of the Competencies

The data generated and analyzed in this study strongly support an underlying structure in the Sullivan list of competencies In both analyses, the data were reduced to a smaller and more meaningful set of required skills and knowledge The final analysis suggests that twenty to twenty-four competencies adequately describe the requirements of successful OD practitioners

Utility of the Competencies

Finding an underlying structure within a list of 141 competencies is not all that surprising One of the primary purposes of factor analysis is to simplify and reduce complex data sets into their essential themes As a statistical bludgeon,

it has little trouble performing its task The real issue is whether the proposed

structure has any more utility than other competency models or provides bet-ter guidance to the field

For this purpose, we compared our final competency list with the models generated by Worley and Varney (1998), Worley and Feyerherm (2003), and Shephard and Raia (1981) The Worley and Varney list was developed with sup-port from the Academy of Management’s OD&C Division and therefore repre-sents a primarily academic view The Worley and Feyerherm list was derived from interviews with veteran OD practitioners and researchers and therefore represents the view of founders of the field The Shephard and Raia list was published in the early 1980s and therefore represents an historical baseline from which to compare the development of the field The four lists are compared in Table 5.5

Self-knowledge and self-awareness and understanding showed up in three of the four competency studies Only the academically oriented study did not include self-awareness The founders of the field and the early competency list strongly supported self-understanding That importance was reiterated in the present study

Consulting process competencies, especially competencies around the abil-ity to diagnose and understand a system, design and execute interventions, and work with large systems, were included in all of the lists The competency of managing the client’s development also is in this section because we see the transferring of knowledge and skill from the OD practitioner to the client as a part of the consulting process This specific competency was a central value in the early history of OD, but it isn’t included in Shephard and Raia’s list nor on the competencies described by the founders of the field It is included in the academics’ list and has always been a core item in the development of Sullivan’s list It could easily be listed independently or included with other competency categories, such as integrating theory and practice, and this classification war-rants further discussion and research by the field How important is the ability

to transfer knowledge and skill to the client, and what is its relationship to other competencies?

All lists have competencies associated with academic knowledge and skills

in organization behavior, management, and organization theory as well as spe-cific knowledge and skill in OD The current study possesses one competency within this category not found in any other list—the ability to stay current with

technology Worley and Feyerherm specifically noted the lack of awareness and

mention of technology in their interviews with founders, and the academics do not mention technology either, although one might argue it is implied under the functional knowledge of business competence In a related theme, three

of the four lists identified experience and knowledge about business as a com-petence Only Sullivan’s list contained no items related to this dimension The other three lists note that knowledge and experience represent sources of insight into client issues and opportunities

154 PRACTICING ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT, 2ND EDITION

Table 5.5.

Table 5.5.

All lists contain research methods competencies Clearly, practitioners and academics, both new and old alike, see the ability to use appropriate data col-lection, analysis, and other design knowledge and skill as critical to the conduct

of OD

As an applied behavioral science, OD has always been concerned with inter-personal skills As with the self-mastery competencies, the only group not specifically mentioning interpersonal skills is the academic list The competen-cies in the current list are slightly richer in content and description than the other two Shephard and Raia’s list is very inclusive but somewhat generic, and the Worley and Feyerherm list has a mix of generic and interpersonally charged (for example, “consulting is saying the tough stuff”) competencies

All four studies indicate that OD practitioners should have knowledge and skills in collateral areas relevant to OD practice Reflecting advancements in our theories and knowledge about change, competencies related to systems think-ing show up in all four studies, although in much more specific and central ways in the three most recent competency studies Similarly, the three most recent studies, reflective of a strong globalization trend in business and society, note the importance of working with diversity and having an appreciation of cross-cultural differences

The current study and the competencies noted by the founders of the field suggest that OD practitioners be good at integrating, balancing, and applying both theory and practice together as well as staying focused on the relevant aspects of the change process The academics and the early OD practitioners did not raise issues of relevance and the integration of theory and practice

CONCLUSIONS

Two initial conclusions are suggested by this comparison First, the present com-petency list is only marginally different from other lists, suggesting a certain amount of convergent validity in our understanding of OD competencies and providing a solid basis for recommending OD practitioner development Sec-ond, the relative stability in the competency list over the past twenty-five years presents a challenge to the field to move forward

Validity and Practitioner Development

The conclusion of convergence should be comforting to new entrants to the field or

to current practitioners looking for development guidance For several years now, fragmentation in the field and the lack of an agreed-on competency model have frustrated OD students and practitioners looking to improve their skills An emerg-ing consensus represents a positive and hopeful sign So where does one begin? The statistical process used in this study has at least one practical benefit: It orders the results in terms of their importance Importance in this case means

that if an OD practitioner masters only the first competence, it will do more to move that person toward effective OD practice than any other competence

As shown in Table 5.3, self-mastery is the most important competence for an

OD practitioner to develop Those familiar with the history and current state of the field will recognize this as a controversial recommendation Some OD prac-titioners fear that giving personal growth and self-awareness such prominence will return the field to the days of T-groups and sensitivity training They would

be wrong, and their interpretation highlights one of the key reasons the field is fragmented: Too many groups both inside and outside of OD confuse the tech-nology of OD practice with the characteristics of effective practitioners Self-mastery is a competency, not an OD intervention As an applied behav-ioral science, OD values helping organizations and their members change, increasing effectiveness, and improving the system’s capacity for future change through people It is grounded in theories of change and technologies of inter-vention and is often facilitated by a practitioner, change agent, or consultant The practitioner’s position in relationship to the client system determines, in part, the extent to which these valued outcomes are achieved If practitioners unconsciously position themselves as experts, inappropriately substitute self-development for organization self-development, or create interventions they believe the client “should” have, the likelihood of successful change, improved effec-tiveness, or learning is diminished Under these circumstances, criticisms of the field are well-founded and lead, understandably, to a belief that OD is a “touchy feely” process that is irrelevant to the strategic issues facing an organization This difficult task is a function of the practitioner’s self-knowledge, not the change intervention; it is a role-modeling task carried out by the practitioner, not the goal of the engagement

Thus, self-mastery is the most important competency an OD practitioner can have and, rather than a source of irrelevance, provides the basis for delivering powerful results Viewed not as an intervention in the system, but a character-istic of the person doing the work, self-mastery allows the practitioner to access and apply theories and models in a customized rather than a “canned” fashion;

to create with the client system a future it desires rather than one imposed on it;

to confront the client’s resistance or contribution to the current situation rather than conspire with the client that it’s “other people’s” fault; to transfer knowl-edge and skill to the client system rather than breed the client’s dependency; and

to ensure implementation responsibility rests with the client rather than believ-ing the system has to be told what to do and how to do it Customizbeliev-ing a change management process to the client’s situation, focusing on implementation and effectiveness, and thinking about helping the client to learn are the relevant and practical results that derive from this most personal competency

This conclusion does not give OD practitioners license to gather clients into

a circle to share feelings or to use coaching as a mask for therapy It does say

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that every OD practitioner has the duty and responsibility to have an ongoing personal growth plan and to engage in an appropriate course of personal and professional development The goal of such a plan is to become clearer about their strengths and weaknesses, their psychological and behavioral idiosyn-crasies, and their motivations for wanting to practice OD For some that will mean deep therapy; for others, a T-group experience will be amazingly insight-ful; and for still others, journaling will represent a profound journey into self-awareness In fact, there are a variety of paths a practitioner can take to sharpen his or her self as an instrument of change (Fletcher & Bailey, 2003; Peterson & Hicks, 1996)

If the first recommendation about self-mastery was the most controversial, the second recommendation—to develop the ability to apply research methods—is surely the most surprising Three of the top ten competencies in Table 5.3 are research related: the ability to evaluate change, to clarify data needs, and to apply research methods appropriately Although this competency was mentioned

in many prior competency lists, its importance in this list may reflect a recent trend in the field More client organizations are asking for project justification and for evidence that OD processes will add value to the organization The ability

to collect data appropriately, analyze and draw conclusions from that data, and evaluate the effectiveness of change provides practitioners with a rationale and a vocabulary to do so It also represents an interesting counterpoint to the self-mastery competence The successful OD practitioner today must not only under-stand the self, an admittedly intrapersonal and “soft” skill, but must balance that skill with a cognitive, intellectual, and “hard” skill in research methods The rational and positivistic approach of statistical thinking aligns well with today’s short-term, logical, and analytic cultures in many organizations

A third and final recommendation for practitioner development is the most obvious OD practitioners must be competent in change management technolo-gies The competencies of managing the transition, keeping information flowing, integrating theory and practice, working with large systems, and creating a good action plan all speak to the ability to implement change Curiously, diagnosis, long a staple in the OD repertoire, did not specifically make the top ten list, although “keep the information flowing” and “clarify data needs” were part of the diagnostic section of the survey Diagnostic competencies, although not specifically identified as such, are thus not ignored in the list Future revisers and studies of this list might consider making diagnosis a more explicit competence These three competencies represent a starting point for practitioner develop-ment To assist readers in building their own personal and professional devel-opment plans, an assessment tool, based on this research, is available at www RolandSullivan.com Another can be found in Appendix I at the back of this book These competencies also can potentially serve as useful guidelines for curriculum development and governance of the field

Challenges to the Field

The second conclusion for this study is that the list of competencies challenges the field to move forward The results of this study suggest that there are about twenty competencies of effective OD practitioners, and there is considerable agreement about those competencies across studies, samples, and time Some competencies have evolved to reflect an increased understanding of human sys-tems and the skills and knowledge necessary to change them according to a set

of values espoused by the field Other competencies have remained relatively stable over time, reflecting some of the more enduring aspects of OD practice and philosophy

The positive aspects of that result were discussed above But this result also challenges the field on two counts First, if there is relatively good agree-ment on the competencies, is more competency research necessary? Second,

if the competencies have not evolved dramatically, has the field matured or stagnated?

To the first challenge, we propose restricting future OD competency work to

a more limited agenda That is, there are a number of pressing issues facing the field that warrant increased attention, including a better understanding of the relationship between change and performance, better measures of change, and more development and sharing of intervention technologies Among the sug-gestions for future research in the competency arena, we would support targeted work in three areas First, how are external trends, including technology, glob-alization, and environmental sustainability, likely to affect OD competencies in the future? The chapter by Eisen, Cherbeneau, and Worley in this book begins that process, but it is worth expanding Second, do OD practitioners differ in their abilities in these areas and do those differences correlate with some measure of practitioner effectiveness? This will be a difficult piece of research because it requires that both successful and unsuccessful practitioners be identified Third,

do competencies differ by the practitioner’s position? Are internal consultants different from externals; do line managers differ from full-time OD practitioners; and do international practitioners differ from domestic ones?

To the second challenge, the competencies reflect both a “forward to the past” and a more integrated view of OD practice The list is most similar to Shepard and Raia’s (1981) list and may therefore reflect a more traditional view

of OD—some might say it’s an old paradigm view We see it as an evolution The field began in the 1950s as part of the human relations influence in orga-nization theory (Scott, 1981) and had a strong personal growth component It expanded in the 1970s and 1980s to embrace more content-oriented concerns from work design, structure, and strategy It moved away from its original roots and in many ways has become a fragmented field (Church, 2001) The cur-rent list therefore reasserts the roots of the field by noting the centrality of self-mastery as a competence of effective OD practitioners, not an OD intervention,

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