The present pandemic has provided a rich platform for Organization Development professionals to hone their diagnostic skills.
I want to point out the major points that should warrant consideration in organizational diagnosis. All these points have been amplified by the present plague, but have “been around” for a long time. Corona has merely dusted them off and brought them to the surface.
- It can take an awful long time to cope with serious problems.
- Some problems have no solutions whatsoever. None. Nada. שום כלום
- Skills needed to get you to the top are not predictive of the ability to cope effectively with a senior job; quite the opposite can be the case.
- There are no objective experts who cannot be contradicted by another objective expert.
- A rich and diversified web of co-existing cultures presents obstacles in reacting quickly to rapid change.
- Followers have ridiculously exaggerated expectations from leadership.
- Uncalled for positivism can be poisonous. Delivering bad news without sugar-coating is a skill all but absent in present-day leadership; promising only blood, sweat and tears apparently ended in World War 2.
- Faced with proof positive that something does not work, a system will strive to return to the past and try not to reinvent itself.
- Compromise is not necessarily meeting in the middle. It may turn out to be totally sacrificing today for tomorrow.
- What most/many people choose to do and believe is not necessarily the guide to making good decisions.
I believe that all of these factors serve as underpinnings/tools/building blocks critical to our mindset as diagnosticians.
Great list, Allon. I especially like # 2, 8, and 10. As a friend of mine once wisely said years ago, many of our present problems have no solutions. It’s because they are not actually “problems.” Problems have solutions. Instead, what we have are predicaments, dilemmas. By definition, for these kinds of situations (like racism, poverty, etc) there are no solutions. Instead, there is room for improvement.
That’s easy for you to say, Allon. But what do you do with or about each of them?
AMEN (again), brother. . .