Client Independence through UoS - CH digest of 1st Nov 2021

A Diwali opening to the week meant that some of our own moderators were on a tight social leash. So, we missed them. Evenso, thanks to those who came in, we had a very genuine opening up of the theme, and the depth to which it went was a blessing on this forum.?

It began with a lovely metaphor. Some of us can easily recall learning how to cycle as a child. There’s that magical moment when the adult at the bike’s rear lets go, and one is cycling away on one’s own. Stuttering at first and yet enjoying the thrill of becoming independent of the support that we began with. Independent capability is a keeper for several reasons.?

We then recalled the fundamentals of OD itself, so that those who were new on the forum could relate to the client autonomy value in OD facilitation. In going to basics, we recalled how humanism tempered with the spirit of inquiry in science meant that the practice of OD implied a role modelling by the third party agent of the consultant. This is so that all in the organizational system from the sponsoring top management to the common employee could relate to the way of sustainably renewing from within the potential that lay within people in the organisation. We remembered how that was the origin of OD in war ravaged communities, where Lewin, the founders of OD and several other practitioners encouraged safe disclosure in community settings. This enabled members to own up to their own expressions and vulnerably engage in new behaviours that gave them a productive effectiveness that eluded them because of the dysfunctions of war in human institutions.

All in all, these recalls helped us revisit the attitude in self - moving from a ‘can’t do it’ belief to a ‘can do it’ embodiment.?

The particular tensions in contemporary work organizations that found expression included the following.

1. Clients asking of ‘solutions’ assuming the OD consultant to be the ‘expert’?
2. Clients posing ‘time’ as a challenge becoming an obstacle for longer term comprehensive change efforts
3. The context of India being one of power centric hierarchy, seeming antithetical to the OD value of client autonomy

The conversation then veered toward how the OD consultant could deepen competence or capability in holding up the client autonomy as an operational OD value. Here below are the major points that came up in the flow of the conversation

1. The OD consultant’s difficulty in holding up a balance between? ‘sameness’ (read as predictable value in service) and ‘uniqueness’ (read as novelty in offering)
2. Reality being a socially constructed or psychologically processed perception - the utility of a kaleidoscope metaphor broadens the consulting perspective.?
3. Related values like recognising limits in dynamic engagement moments with the client
4. Compassion as a special holding of the space between the change leadership and the employees participating in organizational change
5. The midwife metaphor for birthing new capability that the client then owns and stewards into their future
6. The consultant's own anxiety of dealing with role demise or termination, once the client need has been served
7. Psychological contracting being a special feature of the UoS - where the client buys into the process of OD early in the relationship?
8. The pre-diagnosis being a special consideration in contexts like India, where both client and consultant get to look into the experience of relating to each other in the relationship, even as the scope and nature of work is given early paces through concrete activities.

The CH conversation process as a model of consultative extension, whereby we model psychological safety and openness to be vulnerable in order to experience growth.

Watch out for the next announcement from the Organization Development CH Room