Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change: A Third Edition

WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT OD

Our OD “grandparents”—Taylor, Lewin, Bion, and McGregor—handed this fundamental truth down to us, each in his own way:

Finding out what is actually happening (research)—and why it is happening (diagnosis)—and getting all that data “on the table” where it is seen and discussed by stakeholders in a safe environment, has the power to change people and systems (action).

It is this principle that differentiates the field of OD from other efforts to help or fix social systems. Every subsequent OD theoretical model, exercise, and/or practice engages clients in participative reflection on the process(es) governing what is happening. The next section describes what OD’s subsequent generations—now “elders” themselves—have ...