Practicing Organization Development (A guide for Consultants) - Part 24 pps

Practitioners of OD need to be knowledgeable about key human resource management systems that promote organizational and individual performance and sustainability—for example, performanc

15 Commitment and skill for continuously reflecting on one’s personal role as an instrument of the work, and doing one’s personal and pro-fessional homework as needed to be fully available for the job of cat-alyzing wisdom in organizations and communities

16 Ability to quickly scan a situation and produce innovative interven-tions that deal with that particular set of system dynamics

17 Skill in the use of action research to learn on-the-fly and not just reapply techniques from another era

E Use of Technology and Virtual Interventions

18 Proficiency in using virtual, online approaches or a blended online/onsite approach to address business challenges of geographically dispersed organizations through such means as conference calls, interactive web-sites, and collaborative planning tools

19 Knowledge of, and ability to use, practical and scalable (that is for any size groups) tools and systems that facilitate systemic thinking and action and efficient communication and collaboration

20 Cutting-edge knowledge and application ability regarding computer-based information management and communication facilitation and the ability to stay current with continuously and rapidly evolving technologies and best practices in those areas

F Coaching for Whole-Systems Leadership

21 Coaching skills to work with top-level managers in reformulating their management philosophies and styles

22 Ability to help leaders be congruent with emerging organizational forms that are self-organizing and in which most operational and change processes are self-managed at the periphery rather than at the core

23 Skills for developing transformational leaders who are capable of championing change and transforming organizations

G Dialogic Reflection and Action

24 Ability to use and promote reflection, dialogue, and exploration to understand issues, differences, and values dilemmas and not rush to find a single problem solution

25 Ability to facilitate conversations to create meaning and action—not only understanding

H Accelerated Methods and Large-Group Work

26 Skills in facilitating collaboration, decision making, problem solving, planning for the future, networking, teamwork, and team building, all

with new methods that are faster and more effective; ability to train others throughout the organization to use these skills

27 Deep knowledge and skill in the design, management, and facilitation

of large-group interventions

I Purpose and Strategic Assessment

28 Ability to identify and monitor both strategic and tactical metrics to assess whether objectives are met

29 Knowledge and skills to design and build outcomes measurement into contracts and to build client appreciation and funding for this part of the work

J Multidisciplinarity

30 Multidisciplinary skills from areas such as future studies, economic analysis, public policy formulation, and systems thinking

31 Awareness and acumen in operations, marketing, business, and finance, in addition to process skills

K Knowledge Management

32 Understanding of the challenges of managing knowledge in an information-rich, fast-changing organizational environment

33 Knowledge, skills, and social technologies for designing and imple-menting effective methods for generating and disseminating valid rele-vant knowledge in organizations

L Appreciative Integral Change

34 Knowledge of the psychosocial dynamics of change so as to awaken and build on people’s natural disposition toward development; mini-mizing resistance by working on the positive side of the process

35 Skills in building high-performance organizations that are also a great place to work and in articulating how this results in a win/win situa-tion for the organizasitua-tion, the organizasitua-tion members, and customers; how a focus on both performance and people leads to competitive advantage

The reader may now want to compare his or her own earlier notes about future competencies with those on this list Your own list has likely included many items prioritized by the Delphi group You may have items on your own list that the Delphi panel did not have

Many of these competencies are not entirely new They may be the same as—

or extensions of—core competencies generally accepted as important in current

OD practice (see Chapter Five) What is important in this analysis is that these competencies are particularly highlighted by our strategic and future-responsive consideration of emerging trends, their possible impact on organizations and managers, and the consequent intervention strategies that will be needed in the years ahead

Self-Assessment and Professional Development

It is now possible, having reviewed and participated in this Delphi process, for the reader to engage in a self-assessment process (See Appendix II, and the accompanying CD, for a full self-assessment instrument keyed to this chapter.) Looking over the list of future competencies generated in Phase 4, consider the following questions:

1 Which items on the list of emerging competencies are most important

in your own practice? Circle the number of those competencies that are most relevant to you

2 For those items that you have marked, how prepared are you? Mark items with a plus (+) in which you believe you have a high degree of competence or mastery Mark items with a check (✓) if you feel ade-quately competent, although there is room for improvement Mark items with a minus (–) if you sense a significant deficiency in your level of preparation

3 For those items that you have marked with a minus or a check, con-sider what professional development activities or programs would give you the required preparation Develop whatever concrete plans make sense to you for engaging in that learning Commit to those plans by writing a professional development plan for yourself that includes goals, activities, and time lines

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR OD PRACTICE

In this chapter we have highlighted the ways in which our world is in a state of accelerating change and increasing complexity There is more interdependence among organizations, industries, government agencies, and economies, and many of these systems seem to be more tightly linked so that changes in one reverberate quickly among the others

The effectiveness of OD in such an environment depends on our ability to work with whole systems: bringing diverse relevant stakeholders together and creating transformative contexts in which dialogue, reflection, and learning lead

to new visions, new possibilities, and new collaborative action based on shared purpose Often this may mean linking across organizations, across communities,

across public/private domains, using a range of intervention methods as appro-priate Our world, communities, and organizations are often in conflict at mul-tiple levels, and we must be prepared to assist our clients to address these conflicts and differences effectively We will need to draw from and implement

a variety of approaches, appropriate to a given situation, to build common ground, resolve or manage differences, and increase client capacity to perform effectively

As technology continues to accelerate communication and to generate mas-sive amounts of information, the capacity of organizations to manage their knowledge capital will become even more critical Internet-based and wireless communication have already led to the emergence of virtual teams and virtual organizations with distributed information processing and decision-making nodes around the globe There is therefore a growing need for virtual leader-ship and virtual facilitation as well as for methods and technologies that develop responsive organizational strategies, implement accelerated changes, and mon-itor operations and performance across distant locations and different time zones

As populations and job markets continue to shift, there is also a critical need

to manage our human capital well This will require a closer integration of OD and human resource functions Practitioners of OD need to be knowledgeable about key human resource management systems that promote organizational and individual performance and sustainability—for example, performance management, succession planning, compensation and reward systems, and var-ious human development strategies A strategic partnering of OD and HR specialists, an increased understanding and valuing of one another’s knowledge and skills, and a willingness to collaborate will enhance the effectiveness of both and, ultimately, the organization

This massive complexity, information overload, and turbulent change make

it increasingly difficult for management systems based on centralized decision making and command-control methods to respond adequately, let alone cre-atively, and to guide organizations successfully The contribution of OD has his-torically been significant for such issues and will become even more relevant in the future For example, using the models developed by Emery (1967) and Trist (1978), we can support shifts from top-down command-control models toward flexible-adaptable horizontal coordination among those who are closest to the information and the work requirements while maintaining a clear orientation

to the strategic directions of the organization We can help organizations to create structures, processes, and work arrangements that unleash the human intelligence available to them

As we engage these change efforts with client organizations, we must under-stand the centrality of cultural processes and structures, because culture is the implicit medium within which change emerges and stability is maintained in

any group, community, or organization The assumptions, beliefs, values, and expectations that people embody in the work environment create and maintain the shared reality of the organization They manifest in the form of work arrangements, production technology, reward systems, shop layout and building architecture, decision-making methods, and marketing strategies One cannot engage any aspect of an organization without touching its culture, and yet cul-ture is implicit and generally unconscious

For OD practitioners, culture is the medium and the palette for all our inter-ventions, and we need to be aware and intentional in how we engage it When

we use interventions that develop a shared vision among stakeholders (Weis-bord & Janoff, 1995) or the methods of appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider, 1990) that build on past success experiences, we are explicitly working with culture But also when we coach leaders in whole-system thinking and when we help

to redesign work arrangements or to introduce new technology, culture is involved and affected OD, in this sense, is about facilitating the evolution of culture, and OD practitioners are culture workers The future will call on us to become even more adept at doing culture work

To do all this, in a world of organizations that is spinning wildly into accel-erating and turbulent change, the personhood of the consultant becomes even more important (see Chapter Twenty-Five) In addition to all the concepts and methods we must be able to draw on, OD practitioners should maintain suffi-cient self-awareness, interpersonal sensitivity, and behavioral flexibility to be able to perceive accurately and respond appropriately In the white-water envi-ronment of modern organizations (Vaill, 1989), in which a rich array of subtle cues must be perceived, processed, understood, and responded to in the moment, one should draw on a capacity for judgment, and even for intuitive understanding, to respond adequately or even masterfully If we have unfin-ished psychological homework, it can block that capacity or lead us to be inap-propriately reactive At our best, we bring our personal clarity and emotional intelligence to the work—we use ourselves as the instruments of the work This has always been true of OD, and it will be even more important in the complex organizational environments now emerging The future will require us to call forth important new competencies It will, for the same reasons, require that

we maintain a clear focus on those competencies and values that have been at the core of this work from the beginning

By no means are we suggesting that OD practitioners try to “be all”—that is,

be experts in all areas The field of OD is already far too extensive for any one person to represent But knowing the range of knowledge and skill sets that may

be required enables us to bring together appropriately diverse consulting teams that can serve the client organization effectively in these increasingly complex and demanding environments Furthermore, we can continue to use our capac-ity for engaging the wisdom and expertise of “those in the room” and facilitating

the empowered dialogue and learning that is possible through genuine consul-tant-client collaboration

We have tried here to raise awareness of future possibilities and their impli-cations for OD practitioners We challenge ourselves to make conscious, thoughtful choices about those areas of competence we may need to sharpen and expand to enhance effectiveness as practitioners

FUTURE-RESPONSIVE LEARNING IN THE COMPETENT PRACTICE OF OD

The material in this chapter is based on deliberations that took place some months before the publication of this edition and therefore reflects the best of what our Delphi participants could perceive of the possible future at that time

It is a snapshot of a global and organizational reality that is actually more like a moving picture that continues to unfold The reader’s engagement and respon-siveness along the way may help to update the material to the date of reading But the task is a continuing one—for OD practitioners and their client organi-zations What new trends will become evident next month or next year? The future-scanning activity described in this chapter may, itself, be adapted

as an intervention process with client organizations When an organization operates in the kind of complex, fast-changing environments that we have been considering here, a robust future-scanning capability can support the organiza-tion’s strategic ability to adapt, grow, compete, and thrive in the present and future

We also suggest that there is an important meta-competency for OD practice

in our changing world: the ability to carry out this future-scanning process con-tinually and to build this future awareness into our client organization This means that we must maintain a future-responsive awareness as part of our own continuing professional development as OD practitioners so that we are always considering present choices and practices in the context of emerging futures

Notes

1 We appreciate the research assistance provided us during this study by Patricia Andrews and Theresa Rhodes while they were graduate interns in the psychology

MA program in OD at Sonoma State University.

2 We gratefully acknowledge the generous support for this project provided by Lenny Lind, president of CoVision, whose WebCouncil environment (www webcouncil.com) served as the communication medium for this Delphi project.

3 A complete listing of the prioritized items for all four phases of the Delphi confer-ence can be found at www.sonoma.edu/programs/od/delphi/

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PART TWO

STEPS TO GUIDE PLANNED CHANGE

Part Two consists of chapters that describe steps that can be useful in guid-ing planned change:

Chapter Eight Marketing OD, by Alan Weiss Chapter Nine Pre-Launch, by David Jamieson Chapter Ten Launch: Assessment and Action Planning,

by D.D Warrick Chapter Eleven Implementation and Continuing the Change Effort,

by W Warner Burke Chapter Twelve Evaluation, by Gary N McLean and Stephen H Cady Chapter Thirteen Separation, by W Warner Burke and Ann Van Eron