9. Planning and Managing Change

It is easy to write, if not to assume, that diagnosis is one activity and intervention (that is, planning and implementing change) is quite another. In practice, however, this is simply not true. As Schein (1969) pointed out, merely entering a human system to conduct a diagnosis is an intervention.

It is helpful to our understanding, nevertheless, to consider the phases of planning and managing change as following diagnosis and feedback. Thus, once a diagnosis has been made and feedback has been provided to the client, it is time to plan the appropriate steps to take so that problems identified in the diagnostic phase are addressed and a more ideal future state for the organization can be determined. Guiding this ...

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