Aging and death are natural-both for people and for organizations. Clearly an organization is not a biological entity, yet enough similarities exist to justify the parallel.
People have life cycles; when someone gets lucky, they are born, grow up, have kids, have grandkids, get sick, and die. This is natural. Yes, to some extent the aging process of an individual can be slowed down. But we all get old, sick and die; that is a best case scenario.
Organizations have life cycles as well. When they are conceived, they are crazy, sexy, innovative and informal-then they proceed along a path of aging as nature takes it course. Most organizations get very sick, get old (or prematurely old) and die, or disappear in acquisitions or disasters such as sudden loss of market. Only few will last a long, long time. Death is part of organizational life. This is especially true now as covid has decimated supply chain, labour supply, motivation and cash flow.
If OD is to be true to its humanistic roots, we must cleanse ourselves from the denial of death. Life of a high quality needs to be prolonged, yet we need to better understand what can change and what cannot change. We need to acknowledge that an organization’s various illnesses and ultimate death are part of its life.
OD needs to beware of over treating (yet another reorg) and over diagnosing (too much feedback when change is impossible). For many aging organizations , there are no “cures” or magic elixirs.
We must accept an organizations’ limitations & ultimate decay, which include containment of pain and eventually hospice. It do believe that there is an organizational parallel to the famed Dr Werner in the French Movie Country Doctor (Medecin de capagne), who deals with an elderly patients death with grace and dignity.
Afterthought
I wrote the above post several years ago. Since then, not only have I aged (somewhat gracefully, I hope) , but there is a pandemic raging-with organizational collapses a-dime-a-dozen, fear of illness and societal/political delay all around us.
There have been several attempts to cope with the pandemic which appear to be part of the denial-of-death which this post originally challenged. What caught my eye from the very beginning was the “back to normal” harpings of the “positive thinkers” and those who grind lemons into lemonade which aggravate the shit out of me.
Periods of sickness are normal, and after many protracted diseases, we are never the same.
I suffer from a very painful lower back pain for most of my life, due to my height and genetics. The pain used to come and go; now it comes much more than it goes. I keep very active, watch my weight, and wouldn’t you know it, the pain is there. However, there are good days and bad days. Good hours and bad hours. The best of times and the worst of times. This is natural. Like a pandemic.
Afterthought: Yalom’s Staring at the Sun is a brilliant guide to overcoming the fear of death. When my mind wanders in the wrong direction, Yalom’s guidance serves me well. People can and do err when fear of death prevails, butchering their lives and others’ due to not accepting the inevitable.
The present “fear” and obsession about the threats posed by AI are a good example of what happens when the inevitability of organizational death is ignored. AI is just another change. It will not make organizations immune from its natural life cycle. It will not save us, or kill us. No. It is just another change.
Organizations are born, get old and die.
Dear Allon,
I read almost articles you wrote on your blog, and impressed by your sharp insights deriving from your world class OD experience. I am HR with 13 years of experience including less than 3 years of OD experience. I hold great passion to be a solid OD practitioner, however it is not a smooth path in China since OD is rare with very immature development. I just quit from my current company which I couldn’t live with its bad culture and leadership value.
I’d like to hear from your advice of survive and thrive in OD?
Rgds/Clare
Dear Clare,
OD generally cannot be implemented in China because OD was designed by Westerners for Western forms of organizing.
For many years, I studied Chinese History with someone who was close to Chou En-Lai. From my many years of studying China, I know that even Mao made an effort adapt Communist values to the Confucian and family infrastructure.
OD has not made this effort so OD has not chance to solve problems of Chinese organizations.
I have done a lot of OD in the Mid East and Europe and Thailand, which also are not western, so I will give you a few ideas.
1) The driving force must be external….how do WE deal with foreign companies, subsidiaries. How do WE deal best with competition?
2) What are the systemic problems that need to be addressed. What can OD do? What can’t it do?
3) Should we train OD people who have this as their major specialty, or should be was managers and make them carriers of OD.
In other words, one cannot DO western OD in China. One can develop OD for China. It helps if you know that you are in the development stage.
Perhaps you can find someone willing to invest in a search for developing answers to these questions.
Thank you for following me. I could try and answer you because I studied Chinese many year BUT, I know OD but VERY BAD in Chinese.
Thanks
Allon
Thought provoking blog as always Allon. Thank you. As is often the case with your blogs I find myself wanting to ask questions to probe deeper. So in this case I wonder: How would we know that it’s time to let the particular organisation die? What are the indicators that it’s declining beyond what is reasonable to try to inject new life? What would ‘hospice care’ look like in this context? Definitely food for thought.
We might consider OD not as something to institutionalize, but as a method of assisting companies/organizations attain fulfilllment of their mission. OD provides us with many concepts and tools from which to choose to use in the various environments we find ourselves. I have a little experience in China, way back in the 1980’s in Hong Kong. The anthropologist side of OD becomes very important to being useful in that environment. If the goal is to humanize or democratize or whatever, trouble is just around the corner. If the goal is to get them to the next stage of development (even “exit?), you should have lots to work on.
Check out the internet for “life stages of organizations” Lots of good stuff around.
This post of yours, Allon, from 2013, is a good one to revisit in 2018.
I notice that the last comment (in 2015) came from Jack Tesmer, who subsequently passed on from this life. He is greatly missed by the OD community. But his passing is a lesson that “all shall pass,” just as your post is saying.
You deal in truth, Allon, and so this post speaks truth: even organizations grow old and pass away. There is nothing wrong about this. It is the natural way of things.
I wonder, in the spirit of Jack’s comment, if there is a “natural OD” that can be discovered and articulated?
Hmm. Is it time to let OD die?
Not if it’s done well
Good post, good question Fred Nichols. I would say it is time has come to let the term OD die. In fact, it might be dead already with the next generation. Any 30-45 year olds here that would reply?
Oops. Grammatical error. 2nd line shd be “.. the time has come to let the term OD die”