The Unique Power of Organization Development

I was having dinner with a client in Chicago during an organization development project that was going well. At some point, my client looked up at me and said, “I’m glad you’re not one of those OD people.” After recovering from my surprise, we had an excellent discussion about what organization development is and how it differs from other change management processes.

My client is not unusual. Too many leaders have either an erroneous or insufficient understanding of organization development and how it could benefit their teams and organizations.

In this article, I will summarize how I helped my client understand organization development and why it is the most powerful technology for managing change in human systems. You will see how organization development overcomes two faulty belief systems that are endemic in western society and cause significant missteps in organizational life.

The two faulty beliefs are…

1. Individuals are the primary unit of society and our organizations.

This causes leaders (and everyone else) to see individuals as the drivers of success and problems. Many leaders talk about their teams, but individuals are the predominant focus of rewards and accountability. How many organizations do you know that reward teams consistently?

Individuals are not the primary unit of organizations or society. Small groups such as teams and other human systems are. Only human systems, primarily individuals working together in small groups, have created anything of sustainable significance.

2.?Conflict is something to avoid

Avoiding conflict leaves many conflicts unresolved; unresolved to continue either openly or passive aggressively. Either way they become major distractions from team and organization goals wreaking severe damage to both productivity and engagement.

A Definition of Organization Development

• The technology of working with leaders and their teams to improve productivity and employee engagement through…
• Root-cause problem solving and systemic change of group norms and organization culture using…
• Coaching, collaboration, consensus-building, and conflict resolution.

Working with Leaders and Their Teams to Improve Productivity and Employee Engagement

What leader does not want to improve productivity and employee engagement? Many leaders think that OD practitioners facilitate retreats, deliver training, or carry some client-identified solution.

?Those tasks are certainly within the skill set of organization development practitioners, but only within the context of systemic analysis. The analysis most often will point to systemic issues that the leader has not identified and that the requested solution will not resolve.

Systemic analysis allows us to solve problems at their root decreasing the likelihood of recurrence.

Root-cause problem solving and systemic change of group norms and organization culture

This is the area that makes organization development the most potent of change management technologies. All organizations have been developed by, are run by, and maintained by some set of human systems—the teams and other employee groupings that direct and do the work of the organization, technology notwithstanding.

As much as an organization may attend to their mechanic, electronic, and financial systems, they are dependent on their human systems.

Like all systems, human systems are synergic. Their behavior cannot be predicted from the purposes and skills of the system’s individual members.

Put a bunch of bright, knowledgeable, and friendly individuals together. There is a no initial way of knowing if their synergy will be positive as they gel into a high-performing team that invents the next great breakthrough. Or if their synergy will be negative as they waste time and energy complaining, blaming, power struggling, or other non-productive behaviors.

Without an understanding of the synergic dynamics of human systems, creating effective teams will continue to be the mystery in many organizations. Without this understanding, group norms and organizational culture manage individual behavior rather than the other way around.

It is the rare organization that focuses its primary feedback loops and accountability structures on its human systems. Leaders talk a lot about being team-based, but rewards and accountability for individuals dominate.

?As human systems become more effective, so will their individual members and the organization. Diagnosing and working with human systems is the special skill the organization development practitioners bring to solve problems at their systemic roots and create great teams and organizations.

?Coaching, Collaboration, Consensus-Building, and Conflict Resolutionnbsp;

These are the skills organization development practitioners have to help leaders and teams improve.

• The skills to coach leaders to a) Make peace with and manage their egos. b) Understand human systems and the impact their behavior has on them. c) Manage their behavior and belief systems in ways that will build stronger, more cohesive, and more productive teams.
• The skills to facilitate teams with their leaders to use collaboration and consensus to develop the strength of alignment and engagement needed to improve productivity to accomplish team and organizational goals.
• The skills to facilitate resolution of the conflicts that bedevil human systems everywhere. We help with the conflicts that are obvious or have devolved into passive aggression.
• Our focus is to resolve them systemically as conflicts impact the entire system, not just the obvious combatants. This helps the systems to develop the skills needed to resolve future conflicts with greater ease.

In closing, the organization that has training in human system leadership and conflict resolution is rare. That rarity highlights the need for organization development practitioners to fill the gap that our society’s focus on individuals and conflict avoidance causes. We have the skill to swim uphill against stuck group norms and organization culture so that healthy change can occur.

?That is why organization development is the most potent technology for helping organizations improve their team’s and their organization’s productivity and engagement.

?