Handbook for Strategic HR

CHAPTER 41

Creating Change by Changing the Conversation

Robert J. Marshak and David Grant

If all transformation is linguistic, then we create a new future by having new conversations.

—Block, 2008, p. 36

IN RECENT YEARS interventions to “change the conversation” have become an important focus for Organization Development (OD) practice. Whether used to shift attention from problem-based to more positive orientations, change the methods or topics of inquiry and dialogue, or bring more and different voices into the room, the expectation is clear: changing the conversation leads to organizational change. The emphasis in OD practice on changing the conversation parallels and has been influenced by the linguistic turn in the social sciences since ...