Organization Development

“... crossword puzzles present a good metaphor for the work we do as OD practitioners. We look for clues that will bring together the people in organizations who need to be connected.”

By Eric J. Sanders and W. Warner Burke

This article extends the celebration of  two anniversaries: 50 years of building a  community of organization development  practitioners by the Organization Develop- ment Network (ODN) and 100 years for  the crossword puzzle (Chaneski & Kagan,  2013). There is a connection between these  two events, as what we do as OD practitio- ners is bring people from different parts  of the organizations we serve together, just  like the clues in a crossword puzzle. 

Making connections is indeed how  the idea of this article came about. The  authors are the first Executive Director  of ODN, Warner Burke, and one of the  present ODN Regional Connectors, Eric  Sanders. We first met at Benedictine  University  several years ago, and had the  pleasure of talking a bit more in Novem- ber 2013, as Burke visited Benedictine  again and  Sanders provided transporta- tion from Burke’s hotel to the campus.  When I (Sanders) picked Burke up the  first evening, he was sitting in the hotel  lounge, sipping a martini and working on  a crossword puzzle. He said that was his  usual way of relaxing at the end of the day  and we chatted for a few minutes, and then  went to the university. Later it occurred to  us that crossword puzzles present a good  metaphor for the work we do as OD prac- titioners. We look for clues that will bring  together the people in organizations who  need to be connected. In that light, let’s  examine our work. 

1 ACROSS. Individuals who join things together through intervention: C O N N E C T O R S

In an interview on NPR, Shane Mueller, a  psychologist at Michigan Tech, talked about  research he did regarding the mental func- tions used when people solve a crossword  puzzle (Cole, 2013). The key to success was  not vocabulary or seeing patterns, although  both of those skills are clearly useful.  The key was the ability to make decisions  quickly. The best crossword solvers can see  what the outcomes of a decision might be,  choose a path, and follow it. 

 Ultimately, what we do in OD is much  like that. We hold diagnostic sessions  with our clients, jointly make decisions  about how we might best help them  help themselves, mutually carry out the  agreed-upon actions, and then evaluate the  results. Generally a large part of whatever  intervention we offer includes facilitating  conversations—making connections— between individuals and/or groups. These  are people who work together and ought to  be speaking with each other, but frequently  do not. In a recent project, a client of mine  (Sanders) observed that one of the key  values I added was serving as a liaison  between the business people and the  technical people in the organization. Part  of that work was simply rearranging the  conference room during a meeting so that 

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C 1 O 2 N N E C T O R S R P G L A T 7 O G E T H E R

D 3 E V E L O P M E N T I Z A T

P 4 R A C T I T I O N E R S O

B 5 R I N G

35Connectors: Organization Development Practitioners Bring People Together

people involved were closer to each other.  As both of us have told many students, part  of working as an OD practitioner is being  willing and able to move furniture. Simply  reducing the physical distance between the  people changed the way they interacted,  and helped them connect with each other. 

Gladwell (2000) expands this connec- tor role by adding two other roles: mavens  – those who know where everything is in  the organization and who knows what; and  salesmen – those who are really good at  selling ideas. Cross, Ernst, and Pasmore  (2013) expand the connector’s role further  still. Their additional categories can be  especially helpful in working with loosely  coupled systems:   » Connector – similar to our thinking and 

Gladwell’s.  » Expert – knowledgeable organizational 

members (similar to Gladwell’s maven).  » Broker – serves as a liaison between 

individuals and units and facilitates  collaboration.

 » Energizer – stimulates others with  enthusiasm and ideas (similar to  Gladwell’s salesman).

 » Resisters – those who block change and  tend to drain energy from others. 

While it is useful for the OD practitioner  to perform these roles, it is perhaps more  appropriate to find those organizational  members who have these skills and  encourage them to act accordingly—except  for resisters, of course. That can be done  through a variety of interventions, includ- ing coaching, offsite retreats, focus groups,  and team meetings, especially leadership  team meetings. The key is to find a way  to work together with the client to ensure  these connecting roles are performed.

2 DOWN. A group formed for a particular purpose: O R G A N I Z A T I O N

Trick question time: Where do must OD  practitioners work to successfully help their  clients? Or to put it more academically,  what is the unit of analysis one is to help,  if not change? You might be working with  a specific team or business unit, but that is 

only a subset of whom you are truly serv- ing. You need to be able to connect the peo- ple in the group to the entire organization  and its strategy for them to fully succeed.  As I noted (Burke, 2005) when comparing  “organization development” with “organi- zationAL development” (emphasis added): 

… organization is a noun; organi- zational an adjective. Organization  development (OD) means the develop- ment of the organization, the entity as  a whole. Organizational development  means some aspect of development.  Organizational is a modifier of devel- opment – modified development,  implying that the organization as a  whole is not the focus. Instead, the  focus is on some part, some dimen- sion, some element of the organiza- tion, not the total system. (p. 1)

In his autobiography, Robert Blake (1992)  said that the work that he and Jane Mou- ton did on conflict resolution between  and within teams showed them that the  mechanics of communication and other  basic skills was not enough to reduce  conflict. Teams in organizations compete  for limited resources. When that competi- tion becomes internecine conflict, what is  needed is a shared superordinate goal – an  organization-level objective. Only then can  the competing groups set aside their con- flicts and achieve a larger purpose. 

Recall that Dick Beckhard’s classic  definition of OD says: 

Organization Development is an  effort (1) planned, (2) organization- wide, and (3) managed from the top,  to (4) increase organization effective- ness and health through (5) planned  interventions in the organization’s  “processes,” using behavioral-science  knowledge. (1969, p. 9)

Each phrase in that definition has impor- tant meaning. Our interventions have  to be carefully constructed (even while  improvising, we need to know where we  are taking the clients), and must have the  welfare of the entire organization in mind.  That is not to say that we cannot or should 

not work with individuals or groups within  a larger system. It is only to say that we  have to balance the multiple organizational  levels we service simultaneously. You must  see the trees AND the forest. Neither one  alone is enough. Last, but not least, we  work to change the organization’s pro- cesses (broadly speaking) through skillful  applications of behavioral science knowl- edge. There is definitely an art to what we  do, but that art is supported by many years  of research. 

3 ACROSS. Gradual advancement through progressive stages, growth from within: D E V E L O P M E N T

The clue above is one definition of the  term development from the Oxford English  Dictionary (2015). Development involves  change, and the emphasis on growth from  within is critical in our work, as well as  movement through iterative phases, a  topic we will address further below. We  employ sociotechnical systems change  methods to help the people in the organi- zations we serve change themselves. This  may involve a minor tune-up or a radical  overhaul of the system. The key is that we  help the organization change itself. As  McGregor and Beckhard were consulting  with General Mills in the late 1950s, they  had to come up with a term for what they  were doing to change work structures and  decision-making processes with input from  the shop floor. They did not want to call it  “bottom-up management,” “sociotechnical  systems,” or “organization improvement,”  and eventually came up with the term  “organization development” (Beckhard,  1997). The idea of development, like the  emergence of an image on photographic  paper when exposed to the right chemicals  and the right intensity and duration of  light, is a core part of what we do. 

How do we go about doing develop- ment in organizations? In 2013 we lost two  of the giants in our field, Edie and Charlie  Seashore. Charlie Seashore was known for  asking good questions of his students and  clients. One of those key questions was  “How do you see your role in this group?” 

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(Fortune & Langenegger, 2013, p. 3). As  OD consultants, that question may have  multiple answers for us in any given group,  depending on our and the group’s objec- tives. More than likely, we will answer it  using Edgar Schein’s Process Consultation  (1999) model. Our work involves develop- mental processes through which we help  clients learn to help themselves. As we  do that, we move between the key roles  consultants play:   » Expert: selling and telling the solution 

to their and the organization’s self-  diagnosed problems; sometimes includ- ing execution in what is effectively a  staff augmentation role. 

 » Doctor-patient: where the OD practi- tioner comes in quickly to assess the  organization, determines what ails it,  prescribes a solution for the client to  implement, and then leaves the client  to make the necessary changes.

 » Process consultation: where the OD  practitioner works collaboratively  with the client to understand and act  on the client’s situation, as defined by  the client. 

In the first two roles, there is little true  knowledge transfer, because the client  self-diagnoses the problem and brings in  the consultant to fix it. Thus the consultant  owns the problem and its solution. Only in  process consultation does the consultant  truly work to develop the client, so they can  be successful on their own. The client owns  the problem, and we jointly use an action  research process to create a solution to it.  Our ultimate goal is to work ourselves out  of a job. And the best OD practitioners do  that regularly. 

4 ACROSS. Individuals who regularly do activities that require skills: P R A C T I T I O N E R S

Returning to the research on crossword  puzzles, Mueller and Thanasuan (2014)  constructed an experiment to determine  how people make good decisions quickly.  They note that in many expert domains,  people quickly recall a large amount of  knowledge to solve problems under new  constraints. Using crossword puzzles, 

which provide semantic (word) clues and  orthogonal (placement and contextual)  clues, they were able to develop and test a  recognition-primed decision model. They  found that the best crossword-solvers were  able to rapidly assess the clues given in the  situation, while working within the con- straints given (word length, letters already  present, etc.) and come up with solutions. 

Is not that what we do with our clients  every day? We recognize situations in their  organization’s milieu, and then work with  them to find the best solutions given the  constraints that people, time, and place  put on us. Sadler-Smith and Shefy (2005)  discussed this kind of decision-making as  “intuition-as-experience,” where leaders  choose the best course of action because  they have seen similar situations previ- ously, and immediately know what to  do. This is juxtaposed with “intuition-as- feeling” where one may take some environ- mental clues, and then uses “gut feeling”  to choose the correct response. We use our  heads and our guts with our clients, and  help them (and ourselves) learn solutions  along the way. Charlie Seashore put it  this way: “…the Use of Self is putting into  action our best intentions to move towards  some desired new state of affairs” (Sea- shore, Nash, Thompson, & Mattare, 2004,  p. 50). He was known also to encourage  us to use his version of the 80-20 Rule: “It  is 80 percent about them and 20 percent  about you” (Fortune & Langenegger, 2013,  p. 50). So long as we keep that focus in  our work, we are likely to be helpful to  our clients. 

As noted above, we are practitioners.  There is both art and science to the work  we do. Through an iterative process of  action research (Coch & French, 1948;  Beckhard, 1969; Coghlan & Brannick,  2010; Burke, 2014), we and our clients  collaboratively learn possible solutions to  the issues they face. This involves action,  practice, and reflection to capture the les- sons learned. To be successful in OD, we  need to do all three. 

5 ACROSS. The opposite of takes: B R I N G S

Edie Seashore studied with Doug  McGregor when he was the President of  Antioch College, and recalled at more than  one ODN conference how she learned to  consult from him. She also published the  story in OD Seasonings (2006) entitled  “Just One Good Idea.” In her own words: 

After graduation, I stayed in touch  with Doug when he would come to  New York on his consulting trips.  During dinners together, he contin- ued to mentor me in the lessons of  organization consulting. At one of  these dinners, I asked Doug to tell me  what he did at Standard Oil of New  Jersey that was worth all the money  they were paying him as an organiza- tion consultant. His answer has been  his legacy to me. After a long moment  of reflection, he said: “I listen, and I  listen, and I listen, and then I come  up with one good idea that will impact  their organization and their lives and  I’m worth every penny they are pay- ing me.” I carry this part of Doug’s  legacy into all of my experiences, but  especially into my consulting work  and it continues to pay off. I have at  times modified his method slightly, by  giving my one good idea to the client  before I’ve listened, and listened, and  listened, which seems to work for an  extrovert. (p. 1) 

We have both shared this methodology  with many students over the years, and  have applied it in our own consulting work.  Our goal is not to come to the client with  a “canned” solution to whatever might ail  the organization, but rather to truly listen  to them, and leverage our knowledge and  experience – along with theirs – to bring  them to their own determination of the  best course of action. We do not go there  to take data or money, although those are  useful outcomes that may accompany a  project; we go there to mutually discover  “just one good idea,” and help them find  the best way to accomplish their goals. 

37Connectors: Organization Development Practitioners Bring People Together

6 DOWN. Human beings making up a group that are linked by a common interest: P E O P L E

What is it that distinguishes human beings  from other animals? We would like to think  that it is our conscious use of thought  and of guiding our behavior with distinct  values. Organization Development is built  on a set of humanistic values that most OD  practitioners embrace. These values have  been discussed since the founding of the  field in the 1960s (e.g., Argyris, 1962) and  were an important part of the Addison- Wesley series of books on OD edited by  Edgar Schein, Warren Bennis, and Dick  Beckhard. That series launched in 1969  with titles including the Beckhard (1969)  work cited above and others by Bennis,  Blake and Mouton, Lawrence and Lorsch,  Walton, and Schein (Schein, 2014), and  later included my own overview of the  profession (Burke, 1994). As the profession  grew, Spier, Sashkin, Jones, and Goodstein  (1980) and Kegan (1982) surveyed OD pro- fessionals and found consistency in their  attitudes and practices of OD, although  there was no formally defined code of  values and ethics for the profession. Such a  statement of values and ethics was drafted  over the course of the next decade by  Gellermann, Frankel, and Ladenson (1990)  with the help of many others. They have  since been reconfirmed for the Organiza- tion Development Network with input  from hundreds of OD practitioners (Eggers  & Church, 2003; Church, Shull, & Burke,  2014) and include the following:   » Respect and Inclusion—equitably 

values the perspective and opinions of  everyone.

 » Collaboration—builds collaborative  relationships between the practitioner  and the client while encouraging collab- oration throughout the client system. 

 » Authenticity—strives for authenticity  and congruence and encourages these  qualities in their clients. 

 » Self-awareness—commits to developing  self-awareness and interpersonal skills.  OD practitioners engage in personal  and professional development through  lifelong learning. 

 » Empowerment—focuses efforts on  helping everyone in the client orga- nization or community increase their  autonomy and empowerment to levels  that make the workplace and/or com- munity satisfying and productive. 

Applying these values allows us to focus  on the people side of the socio-technical  systems in which we work, and help them  to succeed in those organizations. 

7 ACROSS. With each other, considered as a whole: T O G E T H E R

Another key aspect of being human is  the fact that we are social beings. The  adage “two heads are better than one” is  a folk confirmation of this essential truth.  Regardless of the organizational structure,  people in organizations must work together  to be effective. How we come together in  organizations varies widely, and that is  where OD practitioners have a role. 

As OD came of age in the 1960s, the  client was usually a hierarchical organi- zation or a tightly coupled system such  as General Motors or British Airways.  With the flattening and decentralization  of organizations since that time, we are  increasingly dealing with loosely coupled  systems (Burke, 2011) such as the network  structure of Boeing’s supply chain for the  787 (Boudreau, 2010). This presents a new  challenge for OD practitioners, and a new  way of applying ourselves and the various  tools in our chest. It acknowledges the  importance of sponsorship by senior lead- ers, but does not exclude bottom-up change 

efforts, or even those driven by external  stakeholders. All parties are part of the  organization, so all should have a voice and  a role in its strategies and practices. Large  group interventions are obviously useful  here. These interventions might be hard to  implement in a tightly coupled, hierarchi- cal system, but are less challenging in a  loosely coupled system. The key in either  system is the relationship between the  stakeholders at all levels, and the ability of  the OD consultant and the organization’s  leader(s) to nurture and maintain those  relationships. It is about our skill as con- nectors, bringing the people together. 

Weick (2001) gives a model that helps  provide a proper focus for working with  loosely coupled systems:   » focus more on change as a continuous 

process rather than episodic;  » assume that change will most likely 

occur on a small rather than large scale;  » emphasize improvisational initiatives 

more than planned ones;  » be more accommodative than con-

strained; and  » operate more locally than in a cosmo-

politan manner. 

Table 1 compares how we can apply these  five criteria to our use in OD interventions. 

For an attempt to extend this line  of thinking, see my recent article on the  topic in The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science (Burke, 2014). The key point in this  context is that our work to bring people in  organizations together has developed over  time, as the organizations we serve have  changed. 

In the present world, episodic change  or a series of punctuated equilibria, as 

Table 1. A Comparison of Changing a Loosely Coupled System (LCS) with a Tightly Coupled System (TCS) (Burke, 2011)

Dimension for Comparison

Process for Changing an LCS

Process for Changing a TCS

Focus Continuous Episodic

Scale Small Large

Type of initiative Improvisational Planned

Consulting process Accommodative Constrained

Locus of change Local Cosmopolitan

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presented by Gersick (1991) and Romanelli  and Tushman (1994), is difficult to imple- ment, and besides, given the pace of  change in the world today, even tightly cou- pled systems need to deal with continuous  change. It is hard, but it is the reality that  we now live with. Lewin’s (1948) model of  Unfreezing, Moving, and Refreezing never  quite sets in the final institutionalization  phase, but rather cycles back into unfreez- ing again. That is more akin to Bridges  (2004) transition model: Endings—The  Neutral Zone—New Beginning. The new  beginning may end much more quickly  now than ever before for all firms. 

Small scale and large-scale changes  occur frequently for many firms now. The  small-scale changes tend to be faster, but  even that is no guarantee. However, the  technology and interventions used to deal  with them have changed dramatically.  Through the use of new technology, it is  possible to have virtual events that include  thousands of participants. Richard Boy- atzis recently conducted a Massive Open  On-line Course (MOOC) that had 90,000  participants. It’s staggering to think of that  possibility. Likewise, today firm members  are more likely to work remotely from  each other than ever before. The use of  audio and video conferences, in addi- tion to e-mails and instant messages has  increased dramatically in recent years,  although research has shown that remote  teams work best when they have periodic  in-person meetings with plenty of time  allowed for informal conversation (Adams,  2001). Large-scale changes are executed  through small groups, and they can com- municate with both the central office and  with other groups easily now, wherever  they may be located physically. Apprecia- tive inquiry summits and other large-group  events routinely accommodate hundreds  and even thousands of participants, bring- ing many people together to affect strategic  change together. Thus, the line between  large-scale change and small-scale change  is blurring. People in groups of many sizes  and configurations are coming together to  initiate, execute, and support change. Our  job is to help them find ways to build that 

togetherness and change successfully in  organizations of any size or structure. 

Summary and Conclusion

As organization development practitio- ners, we play a critical role in suggesting,  planning, and facilitating conversations  among people in all kinds of systems. In  our function as connectors (and the sub- roles that includes) we help our clients see  relationships between people and processes  that they might have otherwise missed.  While our direct clients may be individuals  or groups, our focus must always include  the entire organization, as we are work- ing with a sociotechnical system and need  that global perspective to be most effective.  Development—facilitating growth from  within—is also at the core of what we do.  Through the use of self, as practitioners we  apply our talents and tools to help others  on a regular basis (and improve ourselves  also in the process). We strive to bring one  good idea to the table, or better still, to  develop that idea collaboratively with our  client. While our clients are technically  institutions, we work with people based on  a set of humanistic values that honor and  empower them to be their best selves in  that context. And no matter how tightly or  loosely coupled the organization, we strive  to help our clients come together to man- age change that is coming at them more  rapidly and continuously than ever before. 

Combining all the above, we OD con- sultants serve as connectors, like the clues  and junctions in a crossword puzzle, to  bring the people in our client organizations  together, so they are more likely to succeed  in achieving their common interests. Some  organizations (and people) are easier to  work with than others, but we can appre- ciate those differences and work within  them; because that is who we are as OD  practitioners. Then, at the end of a chal- lenging day, we might choose to relax with  a crossword puzzle. And depending on the  client, perhaps a martini or two. 

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Eric Sanders, MA, MBA, is an organization development economist: a consultant who helps leaders and their organizations achieve measurable results through developing their people. After twenty years in retail, he has worked for over ten years as an OD scholar- practitioner. He has taught economics and OD at several schools, including Benedictine University and Loyola University Chicago, and is currently a doc toral candidate in OD at Bene- dictine, researching the strategies and tactics scholar-practitioners use to help clients and also generate new knowledge. He can be reached at eric.sanders@ ODeconomist.com.

W. Warner Burke, PhD, is the Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia Uni- versity 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 includ- ing the OD Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award and NASA’s Public Service Medal. He was the executive director of the ODN from 1968–1974 and helped to launch the OD Practitioner in 1968. He can be reached at burke1@ exchange.tc.columbia.edu.

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