Organization Development

“. . . today’s OD aspirants are bright, full of energy, want to learn, yet at the same time rather naïve about human behavior not to mention organizational behavior. Thus the work of OD education and training today is not easy. How do you help a lawyer learn about change leadership? But no complaints really; the raw talent is impressive and motivating.”

On the State of the Field OD in 2014

Organization Development (OD) as we know it today originated in 1959. As previ- ously noted (Burke, 2014a), one of the first labels was not OD but “bottoms-up man- agement.” The vice president for personnel at General Mills, the food company that is still in business today, began an effort to change the culture of the organization. This change effort involved decentralizing decision making, improving communica- tion mechanisms, giving workers more say about how they did their jobs, and, in gen- eral, promoting participative management and employee engagement. The going got tough for the VP and he invited Douglas McGregor of MIT to help out. McGregor brought Richard Beckhard with him and together they developed and expanded what the VP had started. But they did not think that the term bottoms-up management captured adequately what they were doing as change consultants. After considering a number of possibilities, e.g., “human rela- tions training” (too limited), “organization improvement” (too bland) etc., they settled on “organization development” (Beckhard, 1997). As we understand OD today the choice of the term was highly appropriate. When considering part of the definition of development from Webster’s dictionary, we can practically provide a definition of OD. Develop in this case means to: » evolve possibilities; » make active; » promote growth; » make available or useable resources the

organization has; and » move from an original position to one

that provides more opportunity for effective use.

Our OD founders chose their language wisely.

Further with respect to founders of the field, at about the same time as the work being conducted at General Mills, Robert R. Blake, Jane S. Mouton, and Herb Shepard were providing similar consulta- tion at various plants of Esso (now Exxon Mobil). Their work was a bit more defined and structured and based on what became known as the Managerial Grid and later evolved into Grid Organization Develop- ment (see Chapter 6 in Burke, 1994).

The work of McGregor and Beckhard and the similar consultations of Shepard, Blake, and Mouton were independent of one another yet had the same roots – sensitivity training with T-groups (T for training) that began via the auspices of the National Training Laboratories, a part of the National Education Association at the time (1947). These OD founders had all been to the “mount,” Bethel, Maine, and became proponents of what Kurt Lewin had originated theoretically and evolved in terms of practice that not only followed a systems way of thinking but spawned a set of values as well.

Two characteristics of these early formulations of OD are important to note. One was the T-group movement as mentioned above, and the other was the academic base. Early OD was an attempt to use the techniques of and instill the values associated with T-groups into orga- nizations. These attempts unsurprisingly encountered resistance since T-groups

By W. Warner Burke

8 OD PRACTITIONER Vol. 46 No. 4 2014

conducted with strangers for a week or so were significantly different from a T-group with a manager and his or her subordi- nates. Trying to conduct a T-group with a managerial unit was the first attempt at what was to become team building. It was a matter of modifying the techniques yet holding on to the values: communicating with one another in an open and honest manner, providing feedback to one another, bringing to the surface undiscussables and the “elephant in the room,” speaking to power, involving people in decisions that directly affect them and their work, to name a few of these values. It was a matter of dealing with interpersonal issues in an emotionally intelligent mode. But as Beck- hard (1972) pointed out some years later, we had the order of team building issues backwards. We learned that team building begins with goals followed by roles and responsibilities, followed by procedures and processes, e.g., how the group makes decisions, and finally, fourth in priority, interpersonal relationships. In other words, issues of an interpersonal nature may be due to a lack of clarity about team goals, confusion regarding one’s role in the team, or misunderstandings about the team’s procedures, ways of working together, not about interpersonal or personality prob- lems. Thus, it became a matter of trying to instill the values underlying the T-group but doing so in a manner that simultane- ously emphasized business objectives, get- ting work done in a more effective way, and focusing on changes in the organization’s culture that would support both mission and goals as well as changing to better pro- cesses to reach and implement the goals.

The second characteristic was the fact that early OD came from scholar- practitioners who were based at a univer- sity: McGregor and Beckhard at MIT, Blake and Mouton at the University of Texas, Austin, and a few years later Herb Shepard was hired by the school of management at Case Western Reserve University to build a department of organizational behavior, which he did by incorporating into the curriculum, the research, and teaching what he had learned about OD. It became a unique department in the country if not

globally and spawned many OD professors and practitioners.

OD today has lost this earlier charac- teristic. The field is no longer viewed as fol- lowing a science-practice model. Moreover, those in academia who study organization change and development, and in some cases practice OD, nevertheless largely keep to themselves, attending professional meetings such as the Academy of Manage- ment and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, while practitio- ners tend to keep to themselves at, say, the annual meetings of the OD Network. Bar- tunek (2014) has made this case in a recent article for the 50th Anniversary issue of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. Ironically she notes that the opposite has occurred in the domain of management, that is, research and practice in manage- ment has begun to come together – each influencing the other, for example, the more recent movement of “evidence-based management” – whereas in OD scholarly knowledge and practice have drifted apart. This drift could account, at least in part, for the apparent lack of innovation in the field since 1987 (see the recent argument regarding this lack made by Burke, 2011).

The Current State of OD

We have covered thus far what has trans- pired over the past half century. Let us now consider the current state of affairs which will then lead us to a statement about the future.

A way to understand the current state of OD is to consider what we in the field seem to have common understandings about, where we seem to have consensus. Then we should consider our lack of com- mon understandings, e.g., is coaching OD? But first let us consider briefly who the folks are entering the world of OD today.

The Demographics

It used to be, especially in the 1960s, 1970s, and somewhat into the 1980s, that the people who were attracted to OD typi- cally came from the development world – training and development (HRD) – or had been given an OD job without their

knowing exactly what OD was. But com- pared with today, they did have a working knowledge of and some familiarity with organizational behavior, in particular, and the applied behavioral science domain in general. They had heard of Maslow and his needs hierarchy and they wanted to be self- actualized. People who come to the field these days may have heard of the needs hierarchy but do not know who Maslow was; Theory X and Y are mysterious; Lewin – no clue; and usually mispronounce Likert’s name as “like” rather than the correct “lick.” They know about a five-point scale but not where it came from much less its strengths and limitations. In other words, today’s neophytes in OD are incred- ibly diverse. They come from all kinds of backgrounds and work experiences. But they come because they know that organi- zation change is of critical importance, that most efforts at change fail, and they want to know why. In other words today’s OD aspirants are bright, full of energy, want to learn, yet at the same time rather naïve about human behavior not to mention organizational behavior. Thus the work of OD education and training today is not easy. How do you help a lawyer learn about change leadership? But no complaints really; the raw talent is impressive and motivating.

Common Understandings

What do those of us who have been in the field of OD for a few years as well as much longer seem to agree about? What are the understandings and knowledge base that we have in common? Here are a few examples. » We are Lewinians. We may not all know

field theory, but we do know how to conduct a force-field analysis and that FFA does not stand for Future Farmers of America.

» We understand system theory. Organi- zations are open systems and the roots of organizational issues and problems are not individuals who are idiots but systems that are idiotic.

» Our work must be data-based. Other- wise we come across as opinionated with no real basis for our opinions. Our

9On the State of the Field: OD in 2014

data may be either qualitative or quanti- tative, preferably both, and grounded in what the client tells us.

» Our clients have the solutions to their problems. They may not know it at the outset; therefore, our job is to help our clients find the solution not hand a solution to them.

» We are values-based. But there are many values to which we subscribe, and it is important for us to know what our priorities are. Is treating people respectfully more important that resolv- ing conflict? And when does the bottom line or meeting budget demands take precedence?

Lack of Understandings

The following are some examples where we do not seem to have much in common understandings or agreements. Or it may not be a lack of agreement; it may be a lack of sufficient knowledge about what we may need to understand. In any case, a few examples: » Positive psychology. This is a sub-field

of psychology that continues to grow. The first initiative in this arena that affected OD practice was Apprecia- tive Inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). Today there is a much broader set of applicable possibilities from OD, see Cameron’s (2008) treatise for this kind of coverage. The evidence is rather compelling that positive approaches pay off. Can these approaches become a part of OD? Perhaps so.

» Coaching. Is coaching a separate field entirely or a part of OD, or vice versa, or does it matter? As we know coaching takes many forms from dealing with performance issues to career develop- ment. From our perspective coaching is a useful process for furthering an OD effort. OD requires change leadership and coaching a change leader can be key to success. Thus, we view coaching as an important arm of OD work.

» Multirater feedback. Everyone does multirater activities today. In the begin- ning stages, then called 360° feedback, the emphasis was on development and the feedback process was individualized

and private. Although the change has been gradual, currently multirater feedback may be used more often for evaluating performance and less for exclusively developmental purposes. Does this shift violate OD values? What is our stance? Is it possible to use multi rater feedback for evaluative, per- formance purposes and not cause harm to be done to the individual? Who owns the data? These are tough questions and need to be debated among OD practitioners with regard to the stance we as a field that is value-based need to take. Or not take a stance at all, just facilitate, or simply not get involved?

» Evidence-based. Back in the late 1960s when we at NTL were conducting the Program for Specialists in Organiza- tion Development, the participants would, in essence, come to the program with an empty tool kit and ask us to fill it. We would respond by saying something like, “But wouldn’t you like to know where these tools come from, the research and theory behind them?” And the retort was “Not really; just give us the tools and techniques.” This was frustrating. Some years later to deal with this frustration, I created a Theory in Organization Development questionnaire of 40 items (see Chap- ter 4 in Plovnick, Fry, & Burke, 1982). The intent was to arouse curiosity, that is, participants would get 8 scores and perhaps want to know what the

scores meant. Explaining the scores was a not-so-subtle way of teaching the theory that undergirded the tools and techniques. The question here is to raise again the issue of the apparent separation of OD practice and scholar- ship. Is it not important to understand the theory behind the technique of force field analysis? Yes, the academic jargon may be off-putting and boring, but understanding quasi stationary equilibrium is key to knowing how to teach and use FFA effectively and thoroughly. And is it not important to mention and reassuring to know that Lewin’s three-step model of unfreeze-

change-refreeze along with Schein’s elaboration has stood the test of time and is grounded in evidence (Burnes, 2004; Schein, 1987)?

These five common understandings and four lacks of understanding are, of course, selective and limited in number. We could easily have had more than five and more than four in each of two categories. The intent nevertheless was to provide a flavor or brief sense of how we see the world of OD at the present time.

The Future: A Statement of Need Not Prognostication

The need for OD in the world is without question. With the failure rate of organiza- tion change efforts being over 70% the

Therefore it is incumbent on us to keep up, stay informed, and to keep learning. This means returning to scholarly works where OD began, and for its first two or three decades, grew rapidly. Returning to scholarly works does not just mean going back to school, although we educators do indeed like the idea. It means attending conferences where there is a good mix of scholars and practitioners, it means doing some adjunct teaching in OD or OD-related graduate programs, it means writing articles for publication, including writing a book review on occasion, and it means discerning between what is faddish and what is enduring.

OD PRACTITIONER Vol. 46 No. 4 201410

need for expertise becomes apparent. We do know something about organization change. That is without question as well. Yet the rate of change keeps increasing at an exponential pace with most of it being unplanned. OD is about planned change and therefore useful. But we must have a seat at the table and that seat either goes unfilled or is occupied by the great uninformed. For the most part OD folks who sit at the table know what to say, but that knowledge can become limited in a hurry. Therefore it is incumbent on us to keep up, stay informed, and to keep learning. This means returning to schol- arly works where OD began, and for its first two or three decades, grew rapidly. Returning to scholarly works does not just mean going back to school, although we educators do indeed like the idea. It means attending conferences where there is a good mix of scholars and practitioners, it means doing some adjunct teaching in OD or OD-related graduate programs, it means writing articles for publication, including writing a book review on occasion, and it means discerning between what is faddish and what is enduring.

And what must we learn more about? Some suggestions include: » Loosely coupled systems. We need to

understand how to change systems such as networks, universities, partner- ships, strategic alliances, healthcare systems, and professional associations.

» The nature of resistance to change. Perceived resistance may be nothing more than ambivalence, and if there really is resistance, there is energy with people caring about something; apathy is far worse.

» Leadership development. Which is sig- nificantly different from management development.

» Talent management. Competition in the world today is as much about acquiring competence as it is about the bottom line.

» Power and politics. Political and power dynamics are changing in the US and around the world; there is a growing intolerance toward command and control. For an excellent and current analysis see the book by Moisés Naim

(2013), and for a brief summary, see Burke’s (2014b) paper on changing loosely coupled systems.

The first generation of OD thinkers and scholar practitioners are almost all gone, Chris Argyris and Warren Bennis being the latest. It is now up to current gen- erations in the field to generate useful knowledge. Learning is imperative and the five domains mentioned above as sugges- tive areas are important but limited. Learn more about these five and along the way create your own list, and write about those on your list.

References

Bartunek, J.M. (2014). Academic – practi- tioner relationships: What NTL started and what management scholarship keeps developing. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50, in press.

Beckhard, R. (1997). Agent of change: My life, my practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Beckhard, R. (1972). Optimizing team- building efforts. Journal of Contempo- rary Business, 1(3), 23–32.

Burke, W.W. (2014a). Building a loosely coupled system: Origins of the Orga- nization Development Network. OD Practitioner, 46(3) 4–6.

Burke, W.W. (2014b). Changing loosely coupled systems. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50, in press.

Burke, W.W. (2011). A perspective on the field of organization development and change: The Zeigarnik effect. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47(2), 143–167.

Burke, W.W. (1994). Organization devel- opment: A process of learning and changing (2nd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Burnes, B. (2004). Kurt Lewin and the planned approach to change: A reap- praisal. Journal of Management Studies, 41(6), 977–1002.

Cameron, K.S. (2008). Paradox in posi- tive organizational change. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44(1), 7–24.

Cooperrider, D.L., & Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative inquiry in organizational

life. In R. W. Woodman & W. A. Pas- more (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development (Vol. 1, pp.129– 169). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Naim, M. (2013). The end of power. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Plovnick, M.S., Fry, R.E., & Burke, W.W. (1982). Organization development: Exer- cise, cases, and readings. Boston, MA: Little Brown.

Schein, E.H. (1987). Process consultation, Vol.2: Its role in organization develop- ment (2nd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.

W. Warner Burke, Phd, is the Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University where he has been since 1979. He has written or edited 20 books and authored well over 150 articles and book chapters. He has received many awards including the OD Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award and NASA’s Public Service Medal. He was the administrator of the ODN from 1966–1967 and executive director from 1968– 1974. He helped launch the OD Practitioner in 1968. He can be reached at [email protected].

11On the State of the Field: OD in 2014

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