The Organization Development Practitioner

Who is the OD Practitioner?

O They may be internal or external consultants who offer professional services to organizations, including their top managers, functional department heads, and staff groups.

O They may be those specializing in fields related to OD, such as reward systems, organization design, total quality, information technology, and business strategy.

Who is the OD Practitioner?

O The increasing number of managers and administrators who have gained competence in OD and who apply it to their own work areas.

Competencies of an Effective

OD Practitioner

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Foundation Competencies

O Intrapersonal SkillsO Conceptual and analytical abilityO IntegrityO Personal CenteringO Active learning skillsO Personal stress mgt.O Entrepreneurial skills

O Interpersonal SkillsO ListeningO Establishing trust and rapportO Giving and receiving feedbackO Negotiation skillsO Counseling and coaching

O General Consultation SkillsO Organizational diagnosisO Designing and executing an

intervention

O Organization Development TheoryO Planned changeO Action research modelO Contemporary approaches to

managing changeO Assessing and institutionalizing

change programs

Role of Organization Development Professionals

O PositionO Internal and External ConsultantsO MarginalityO Use of Knowledge and Experience

The Organization Development Practitioner

Professional Values

O Traditionally, OD practitioners have promoted a set of values under a humanistic framework including a concern for inquiry and science, democracy, and being helpful. They have sought to build trust and collaboration; to create an open, problem-solving climate; and to increase the self-control of organization members.

O More recently, they have extended those values to include a concern for improving organizational effectiveness and performance. They have shown an increasing desire to optimize both human benefits and production objectives.

O In addition to value issues within organizations, OD practitioners are dealing more and more with value conflicts with powerful outside groups. Organizations are open systems and exist within increasingly turbulent environments. Those external groups often have different and competing values for judging the organization’s effectiveness.

O Practitioners must have not only social skills but also political skills, They must understand the distribution of power, conflicts of interest, and value dilemmas inherent in managing external relationships, and be able to manage their own role and values with respect to those dynamics.

O Interventions promoting collaboration and system maintenance may be ineffective in a larger arena, especially when there are power and dominance relationships among organizations and competition for scarce resources. Under those conditions, they may need more power-oriented interventions, such as bargaining, coalition forming, and pressure tactics.

The Organization Development Practitioner

Professional Ethics

O Ethical issues in OD are concerned with how practitioners perform their helping relationship with organization members. Inherent in any helping relationship is the potential for misconduct and client abuse. OD practitioners can let personal values stand in the way of good practice or use the power inherent in their professional role to abuse (often unintentionally) organization members.

OEthical GuidelinesOEthical Dilemmas

OMisrepresentationOMisuse of DataOCoercionOValue and Goal ConflictOTechnical Ineptness