The Organization Development Practitioner

The Organization Development (OD) Practitioner

• An OD practitioner acts as an agent of change for organizations needing assistance.

What is Organization Development?

• Organization Development (OD) is an applied field where practitioners use knowledge of social systems and change.
• ODPs work collaboratively, constructively, and are guided by humanistic, democratic, client-centered, and socio-ecological values.
• OD practices aim to enhance organizational effectiveness and health through planned interventions.
• OD is a planned, organization-wide effort managed from the top, using behavioral-science knowledge to improve organizational effectiveness through process interventions.
• OD is rooted in Lewinian principles, systems theory, data-driven approaches, acknowledges that clients possess their own solutions, and operates on fundamental values.

Organization Development and Human Relations

• OD is a specific application of Human Relations knowledge and practice.
• Most adults spend much of their lives working, and this work primarily occurs within organizations.

What is an OD Practitioner?

• OD practitioners collaborate with teams, units, and entire organizations to enhance capacity and cohesion.
• OD practitioners can be external consultants or internal employees.

What does an ODP do?

• ODPs address problems within an organization's social system that members can't resolve themselves.
• ODPs guide members to understand and overcome issues, acting as detectives, counselors, leaders, teachers, and helpers.

The OD Knowledge Base

• OD draws on the behavioral science of social systems, social change, and the role of a change agent.

OD Values

• OD is based on humanistic philosophy, democratic principles, client-centered consulting, and a social-ecological systems orientation.
• The Humanistic Philosophy supports that people have the resources to fix problems if empowered, derived from Carl Rogers's theories.

Professional Organizations that Support the OD Profession

• These include ODNet, Canadian Organization Development Institute, and the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP).
• Demand for change management expertise is growing, particularly in the USA, Canada, and Britain.
• ACMP and ODNet each have approximately 2,000 members.
• LinkedIn groups focused on change consulting, organizational change, and organization development have significant membership numbers.
• The average salary for an ODP is $77,000 USD, or $100,500 CAD.
• Most job postings typically require 5 years of experience or a Master's degree.
• OD is often considered to be an important part of a Human Resource Professional’s skillset and role
• Organizations like McGill, the City of Ottawa, Queens University, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nestle have internal OD teams.
• Large consulting firms like Deloitte, Accenture, and IBM also employ OD professionals.
• Further professional organizations include the International Society for Organization Development and Change, the International Organization Development Association, and the Institute of Organization Development.

The HR OD Concentration and HIS MA Program

• Faculty research interests include health practices transformation, individual and group change processes, conflict resolution, community-based research, and trauma responses.

In Summary

• Organization Development is designed for students who want to use behavioral science to solve problems and act on opportunities within organizations.
• The goal is to create safer, more congenial, cohesive, and productive workplaces through collaborative and humanistic approaches.

Creative Tension

• Based on Peter Senge’s model in The Fifth Discipline, creative tension is the energy for change that's mobilized by noting a gap between current reality and desired outcomes.
• Holding onto a clear vision alongside an honest assessment of the current state allows tension to propel movement towards the desired state.
• A common aspiration includes a shared vision, mission, and values, establishing creative tension when combined with the understanding of current reality.

Understanding Current Reality

• It's essential to understand why the current reality exists.
• Stakeholders may agree on superficial challenges, but failure to see underlying systems hinders effective solutions.

Developing Shared Understanding

• Developing shared understanding involves creating a shared picture of the desired future and understanding reality at a deep level.
• This process cultivates a sense of responsibility for the entire system.

Achieving Alignment

• The process leads to alignment among stakeholders and a commitment to collective goals.

Four-Stage Change Process

• The process includes stakeholders building a foundation for change, clarifying current reality, choosing aspirations, and bridging the gap through interventions and learning.

Stage 1 Steps

• Engage key stakeholders, establish common ground with a shared vision, and build collaboration capacities.

Stage 2 Steps

• Identify individuals to interview to gather the history of the current situation, improve the information quality, develop a systems analysis, engage people in analysis, surface mental models, and create catalytic conversations.

Stage 3 Steps

• Identify arguments for the status quo and the costs of change, compare these with the reasons for change, create solutions that balance both, and make an explicit choice.

Stage 4 Steps

• Propose and refine high-leverage interventions with community input by increasing awareness, "rewiring" relationships, shifting mental models, and reinforcing purpose through updated plans.
• It is also critical to establish continuous learning and outreach through engaging stakeholders, developing an implementation plan, refining data, and expanding stakeholder involvement.

Important Notes

• The process is not linear, and lessons from Stage 4 feed back into Stage 1.
• Allowing ample time for the process is critical.
• The shortest distance between two points is indeed a circle.

Summary of Chapter 5

• Systemic change is propelled by integrating diverse stakeholder engagement with systems thinking tools via a four-stage process.
• The stages include building a foundation for change, facing current reality, making an explicit choice, and bridging the gap.

Key Stakeholders

• Key stakeholders are individuals and organizations affected by an issue, can contribute to change, or can derail efforts if not aligned.
• Diversity among stakeholders is crucial for innovation.

Engaging Key Stakeholders

• A convening organization must clarify who should be involved and how to facilitate their collaboration.
• Include key decision-makers, activists, beneficiaries, and a professional facilitator.
• A stakeholder map is a tool for guiding engagement.

Challenges To Be Addressed

• Ongoing processes are more effective than one-time events.
• Inviting reforms to existing systems can alienate individuals, therefore systems thinking is important.
• Reformers can blame powerful stakeholders, and doing so is bad.

Establish Common Ground

• Establishing common ground includes understanding why people convene, a shared sense of direction, and agreement on current reality.

Focusing Question

• A focusing question helps define systems analysis boundaries.
• The purpose of systems mapping is to answer a question, providing actionable insights, not to map an entire system.

Build Collaborative Capacity

• Develop people’s abilities to work with one another.

The Ladder of Inference

• This is an excellent tool and is commonly used in Change Analysis
• The Ladder of Inference outlines how people selectively use data, make assumptions, draw conclusions, make recommendations, take action, and reinforce initial assumptions.
• In the ladder of inference, data is selected, and meaning is added, assumptions are made, conclusions are drawn, and then actions and recommendations are advocated.

Summary of Chapter 6

• Begin building a foundation for change by involving stakeholders.
• Address resistance, establish common ground, and build collaborative capacity.
• Cultivate responsibility for the problem and its solutions.

Why Community?

• Humans are social beings and derive a sense of belonging and identity from community.
• A strong sense of belonging is associated with better health.
• Communities form collective visions of society and act as a vehicle between state and citizens.

Community

• Defined as both elusive and frequently invoked concept in Canada and throughout the world.

What is Community Development?

• Community Development involves planned evolution of all aspects of community well-being, where community members address common problems through collective action.
• Community nurtures the soul while society provides structure.

Shifting the Context (P. Block)

• Communities are built on capacities and assets, not deficits.

Asset-Based Community Development

• Asset-Based Community Development focuses on skills, talents, and capabilities available within local residents and organizations.
• The goal is accenting strengths to meet community needs as defined by the people themselves.

Principles for Transformation

• These involve building social fabric, strong associational life, citizen-led convening, small group transformation, and social constructivism through communal learning and language.

Other Elements…

• Emphasizes self-help, mutual support, enhances local problem-solving capacity, and promotes collective action.

CD Practitioners Work On…

• Identifying and strengthening community assets, building capacities, increasing participation, facilitating networks, implementing community planning, and fostering change.

An Example of a Basic CD Project

• CD assistance results in designing consultations on how to transition out of a certain type of work.

An Example of a More Complex CD Project

• A CD practitioner facilitates job opportunities and understanding for those recovering from mental health difficulties through community-based solutions.

Where Do We See Community Developers?

• Municipalities, sectors like education, health, urban planning, organizations, seniors, recreation, and international development, and organizations like Community NS.

Some Jobs That Use a CD Lens

• These occupations include community development practitioners, officers, program officers, volunteer coordinators, youth coordinators, social entrepreneurs, community researchers, housing development officers, community organizers, liaisons, environmental stewards, and municipal/First Nations officers.

In the Community Development 1 Course You Learn…

• You learn to identify and reflect on community capacity-building processes, understand links between social issues and power structures, and appreciate community involvement.

In the Community Development 2 Course You…

• You apply community development approaches and processes, acquire skills in community development work, critically assess the relationship between social contexts and underlying systemic structures of power, and explore and engage in the reflection and action necessary for social change.

In Summary

• Community development focuses on strengthening communities to improve the well-being of members.

Tasks of Facing Current Reality

• These involve establishing systems interviews, organizing information, and developing a preliminary systems analysis.

Establish Systems Interviews

• Systems Interviews require identifying stakeholders with diverse views and should be conducted in personal interviews because they uncover reasoning and build direct relationships.

Organize Information

• Organize information by listening for what is curious, distinguishing measurable data from how people interpret this data, identifying key variables, and looking for recognizable story lines or archetypes.

Develop a Preliminary Systems Analysis

• Developing a Preliminary Systems Analysis is done using system archetypes and analogies to create catalytic conversations.

Some Archetypes

• Include "Fixes That Backfire," "Shifting the Burden," "Accidental Adversaries," and "Limits to Growth."

How to Balance Simplicity & Complexity

• Balance simplicity and complexity through archetypes, analogies, interdependence mapping, and computer modeling.

Systems Mapping

• It is important to engage stakeholders to build or refine the map as much as possible, and this allows people to learn and stimulate conversations about the issue.
• Systems mapping promotes collaboration by illuminating personal responsibility, interdependence, time delays, unintended consequences, and local versus system-wide optimization.

Chapter 7 Summary

• Learn from diverse stakeholders, organize information effectively, and use system archetypes to understand complex problems.
• Develop a systems analysis that balances simplicity and complexity.

Even Though Systems Maps Can Build Understanding, People Do Not Necessarily Embrace The Insights They Offer

• Systems maps may challenge people to take more responsibility for the current system than they believe is necessary and people are often not sure how to convey the message from the system maps to stakeholders who have not been initially exposed to it.

Challenges Can Be Met By:

• Engaging people to develop their own analysis, surfacing mental models, and creating catalytic conversations.

Engaging People in Developing Their Own Analysis

• Engaging People in Developing Their Own Analysis builds ownership and ensures accuracy.

How Do We Know If The Map Is Accurate

• The map should answer the focusing question and explain key variable trends over time to establish accuracy.

Create Catalytic Conversations

• Catalytic conversations should deepen awareness, cultivate acceptance, and develop new alternatives.

Deepening Awareness

• You can prompt catalytic conversations by asking questions like:
  • What new insights have emerged about why the program persists despite our best efforts to solve it? How do we see things differently?
  • What is surprising?
  • How is our group in part responsible, albeit unwittingly, for the issue?
  • What challenges do these dynamics present?
  • What new opportunities do they offer?

Cultivating Acceptance

• Move from blame to responsibility, independence to interdependence, and short-term to long-term thinking.

Developing New Alternatives

• Ensure people are aware of why previous solutions have failed and have accepted responsibility for these failures, so that they are open to considering new ways of thinking and acting.

Summary of Chapter 8

• Motivate people to act on systems thinking insights by engaging them in analysis, making systemic insights accessible, identifying mental models, and catalyzing new conversations.
• Ensure that these conversations deepen awareness, cultivate acceptance, and develop new alternatives.