Natalie believes that transparency is foolishness; it betrays human weakness and weak people get screwed. So she always keeps her cards close to her chest. She is seen as non cooperative and “needs some training in communication skills”.
Nir believes that all systems are corrupt and or inefficient, and the only way to be effective is to bypass the system. Nir is labelled a cowboy who needs to be coached on being a game player.
Ngai is certain that emotions need to be hidden at work, especially if there is a conflict. The best way to deal with a conflict is to wait until it goes away, or ignore it so that it does’t get worse. Ngai keeps all her emotions to herself and she has been given feedback on her introversion in team meetings. She was told to “better advocate” her departments agenda.
Anil believes that his boss should be consulted on any deviation however minor from procedures otherwise he is showing disrespect. Thus, he often says to his peers that “I need to consult my boss”. Anil is seen as a shirker.
My claim is that OD does not accept or respect any of these deeply cultural-related behaviours since OD efforts will always focus on changing these behaviours. We all agree that conversion therapies for homosexuality are both evil and nonsensical. But there is no agreement that OD’s non acceptance of cultural differences is any better. So yes, OD is the very first not to show respect to more than half of the world population.
The question being asked is how to achieve results and performance with these differences.
yossi
Has China achieved nothing?
Has India achieved nothing?
Does authenticity pay off?
Do transparent people get promoted, or fucked over?
The answer is in constant dialogue. And willingness to test basic
assumptions whether they are relevant
Or mediated dialogue
Or restructuring
Or process change
Sometimes inauthenticity – for example – pays off. But usually it doesn’t. Did you catch up on this recently-published Stanford research?
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/narcissistic-ceos-weaken-collaboration-integrity
Great article. Thanks.
Nice to hear from you
RE: “My claim is that OD does not accept or respect any of these deeply cultural-related behaviours since OD efforts will always focus on changing these behaviours.” “So yes, OD is the very first not to show respect to more than half of the world population.’
That is bulls**t.
HROD may not but traditional OD does. Maybe the people that you refer to do not do OD, but are doing something else like pseudo OD, or current HROD… or some other form or something… everyone says they know and do OD, but few people actually do OD.
The founding fathers of OD would no doubt accomodate the many changes that have occurred in the global workforce.
The only way to gain success is by changing everybody.
I say the only way to gain success is by changing nobody
Allon, I would say that OD is not about challenging or changing these cultural attributes but rather about facilitating ways to reconcile them & enable them to work together constructively. That would seem to encompass understanding the differences more than homogenizing them.
The change proposed by OD is always in the direction of openness, authenticity, direct feedback and anti authoritarian.
… and this from a passive aggressive stance …
Absolutely…with a smile