Chapter 3: The Organization Development Practitioner
Specialist OD Practitioner
A growing number of professionals in these related fields are gaining experience and competence in OD mainly through working with OD professionals on large-scale projects and through attending OD training sessions.
*Organization change *Employee development *Strategy development *Management development *Technology integration
Activities of Organization Development Consultants
Specialized knowledge and skills
An organization development practitioner should possess the competencies and skills required for an organization development job. He/ she should possess total awareness and full understanding of his/her organization development functions.
*Indifferent *Gamesmanship *Charismatic *Consensus
Change Behavior of Organization Members
*Misuse of data *Technical ineptness *Misrepresentation *Power and coercion *Conflicts in values and goals
Classification of Ethical Dilemmas
*environmental scanning *external and internal diagnosis *prepares strategic plan *implementation phase *monitors the changes
Functions of Organization Development Consultants
Power and coercion
Happen when organization members participate in organization development interventions under intimidation and compelling circumstances. Manipulations in undertaking tasks, pressures in making decisions and unfair placements ion dependency situations should be avoided.
Values
Have played an important role in organization development from its beginning.
Communication skills
He also needs presentation skills to balance verbal and nonverbal messages, respond professionally to questions, and speak, present and communicate with poise, power and persuasion.
Organization change
He/she can help create an atmosphere for effective communication and ensure that all systems support and not undermine change by influencing organization members to subtly modify or shift their attitudes and shared values positively.
Employee development
He/she can likewise propose human resource development programs that focus on employee well-being and quality of work life.
Organization Development Practitioners
He/she is a synthesis of his/her personality traits, experiences, knowledge, and skills.
Leader
He/she is none person who emphasizes employee growth and satisfaction. He/she is an achiever who aims for goal accomplishment while at the same time, stresses personal, team and inter-group relationships.
Cheerer
He/she is one person who does not emphasize goal accomplishment. Instead, he/she puts importance on employee morale and relationships. He/she seeks to bring about and maintain a warm working environment with employees.
Thinker
He/she is one person who has self-confidence by virtue of his/her knowledge and expertise. He/she is concerned with achieving goals like knowing and solving problems affecting the workplace. He/she is low when it comes to employee morale and relationships.
Safe player
He/she is one person who keeps a low profile. He/ she is someone who does not want to "rock the boat". He/she feels comfortable by simply following the directives of top management.
Negotiation skills
He/she needs marginal skills that will help him/her bring together and reconcile viewpoints among radically opposing organization groups. Traits include neutrality, open-mindedness, objectivity and adaptable information-processing ability.
Independence in the practice of one's profession
Impartiality is necessary in effective change management. The organization development practitioner should not allow himself/herself to be influenced by anybody or anything. He/she has to be objective in his/her analysis of situation, issues and concerns.
Professional Ethics
Inherent in the organization development practice is a high degree of ethical standards.
Organizational behavior
It is requires possession of high ethical standards, foresight to set goals, transformational leadership and the gift to handle power and politics in the workplace.
Management
It requires skills in planning, organizing, leading and controlling. A holistic and strategic perspective of the organizational structure and knowledge of theories on contingency and systems are necessary.
*Individual psychology *Group dynamics *Organizational behavior *Functional knowledge *Management *Cultural diversity *Research methods and statistics
Knowledge of Organization Development Practitioners
Functional OD Practitioner
Managers tend to gain competence in OD through interacting with OD professionals in actual change programs. This on-the-job training frequently is supplemented with more formal OD training.
Conflicts in values and goals
Occur when there is a discrepancy in organizational beliefs and attitudes, when the organizational set goals are unclear, not prioritized and too many and when the means to achieve these goals are ambiguous and incongruous.
Misrepresentation
Organization development practitioners may be accused of dishonesty like putting damaging slants on issues at hand, falsifying and fabricating facts, distorting findings, misleading interpretations and analysis, altering arrived-at conclusions and suggesting wrong and inappropriate change activities.
*Specialized knowledge and skills *Independence in the practice of one's profession *A professional approach as portrayed by emotional balance *A high degree of responsibility with a sense of commitment to the discipline
Professionalism of Organization Development Consultants
Professionalism
Refers to the internalization of a value system that is inherent in the concept and expectation of the profession.
*Behavioral skills *Leadership skills *Communication skills *Negotiation skills *Problem-solving skills
Skills of Organization Development Consultants/Practitioners
Organizational Behavior and Administration - Eric Neilsen
Stated that to bring about change in the corporate culture, there is a need for organization members to share their feelings and ideas and accept personal responsibility.
*Safe player *Thinker *Cheerer *Leader
Styles of Organization Development Consultants
*The organization development consultant has to establish the organization's readiness for change. *The organization development consultant has to identify his/her clients adequately and clearly. *The organization development consultant has to commit and develop a trust relationship with his/her client. *The consultant has to formalize the ground rules with his/her client.
The Organization Development Consultant-Client Relationship
A professional approach as portrayed by emotional balance
The emotional demands of an organization development professional are great. More importantly he/she should be able to recognize and express emotions appropriately.
Organization change
The organization development practitioner can assess the organization's readiness to change and help the organization in overcoming emotional and intellectual challenges.
Employee development
The organization development practitioner can help develop human resources with respect to standardizing recruitment, hiring and selection policies and procedures, develop employee career "pathing", professional growth and enrichment and emphasize rewards and recognition systems.
Management development
The organization development practitioner can help enhance the leadership change skills of management. He/she can help build and reinforce a more positive and collaborative change work environment.
Strategy development
The organization development practitioner can illustrate to the organization how to align strategic planning goals through integration of strategy, objectives, metrics and performance.
Technology integration
The organization development practitioner can share his/her knowledge in information and communication technology production and operations management, systems, development, hardware and software management, total quality management and inventory, and logistics management among others.
Charismatic
The organization members openly share their ideas and feelings although they avoid any form of personal responsibility.
Consensus
The organization members share perceptions and feelings openly coupled with an acceptance of responsibility for decisions made.
Gamesmanship
The organization members take high responsibility for their actions and make their own decisions on how to behave. However, they are not open when it comes to their shared feelings and ideas.
Indifferent
The organization members usually follow established routines. They avoid accepting responsibility for their actions and generally keep their real ideas about self- fulfillment and organizational effectiveness to themselves.
Functional OD Practitioner
The term applies are the increasing number of managers and administrators who have gained competence in OD and who apply it to their own work areas.
A high degree of responsibility with a sense of commitment to the discipline
There are important characteristics that are critical to successful organization development practice. They include dependability, trustworthiness, consistency, dedication, enthusiasm and perseverance. Since organization development
Specialist OD Practitioner
They have formal training and experience in their respective specialties, such as industrial engineering, information system, or health care. They are OD practitioners in the sense that they apply their special competence within an OD- like process, typically by engaging OD professionals and managers to design and implement change programs.
Functional OD Practitioner
They have gained the expertise to introduce change and innovation into the organization.
Values
They have sought to build trust and collaboration, to create an open, problem-solving climate and to increase the self- control of organization members.
Generalist OD Practitioner
They maybe internal or external consultants who offer professional services to organizations, including their top managers, functional department heads and staff groups, OD professionals traditionally have shared a common set of humanistic values promoting open communications, employee involvement, and personal growth and development.
Generalist OD Practitioner
They tend to have common training, skills, and experience in the social processes of organizations (for example, group dynamics, decision making and communications).
Management
This calls for proficiency in supervising the administrative functions of the organization or any unit.
Functional knowledge
This concerns expertise in information technology, project management, logistics, new and emerging corporate and business developments as well as in marketing, finance, production and human resource development.
Misuse of data
This includes mishandling, misinterpreting, and manipulating data or event using them to harm the organization or individuals. It is making use of information to retaliate, take revenge, or place individuals in a predicament under the guise of openness and providing solutions to changes under study.
Group dynamics
This is concerned with managing varied roles in the organization, making correct and favorable decisions, nurturing group development and professionalizing communication processes.
Cultural diversity
This refers possession of the art of accepting understanding, and working with individuals of different cultures, increasing awareness of multicultural dynamics to develop high performance, adapting to cultural differences and similarities, and applying effective approaches to managing conflict in a multicultural work environment.
Organizational behavior
This refers to the ability to understand the organizational culture, the skill to design job tasks, the maturity to handle interpersonal relations and conflicts.
Individual psychology
This requires having a good understanding of the learning, motivation and perception theories. It means knowing how to deal with people individually, understanding their respective idiosyncrasies and drawing out the best in them.
Professional Ethics
This requires the organization development consultant to handle himself/herself professionally and avoid any form of misconduct and client abuse.
Research methods and statistics
This. involves expertise in handling data and information, preparing research designs and using inferential statistics in decision-making.
Generalist OD Practitioner
Those people specializing OD as a profession.
Specialist OD Practitioner
Those specializing in fields related to OD, such as reward systems, organization design, total quality, information technology and business strategy.
*Generalist OD Practitioner *Specialist OD Practitioner *Functional OD Practitioner
Three Sets of Organization Development Practitioner
Technical ineptness
To commit errors like coming up with wrong organization development interventions, proposing organization development interventions when the organization is not ready for the intended change, or implementing organization development interventions that are not aligned with the set objectives of the organization.
Problem-solving skills
Will enable him/her to accurately perform assessments, systematically diagnose problems, clarity goals, set priorities, provide corresponding solutions and make critical decisions.
Leadership skills
Will enable him/her to motivate employees, initiate action, inspire them to undergo change, recognize thoughts, feelings and behaviors associated with change situations and create change work environments where emotional honesty and energy are required.
Communication skills
Will help him/her listen to everyone and effectively share his/her ideas with all concerned key players with clarity and conviction.
Negotiation skills
Will help him/her minimize, if not eliminate resistance, settle conflicts, and bring about understanding, at the least, acceptance, cooperation, and collaboration among the parties concerned.
Behavioral skills
Will make one see things objectively, maintain impartiality at all times, think professionally, speak maturely, and act ethically.
Behavioral skills
he consultant/practitioner needs personal skills that will make him/her look at issues with a high degree of self-discipline, honesty, consistency, and trust, and interpersonal skills that can help him/her build, facilitate and strengthen relationships with everybody.
