I received a PDF today from Dr. John Scherer with an article by Minahan and Norlin called “Edging Toward the Center”. The article was published in the OD Practitioner: Vol 45: 4, 2013

The article is thoughtful, extremely well written and well worth reading. As a matter of fact, I would say it is a” must read”.

The article contains an excellent diagnosis of the issues facing OD in the context of the present economy, mapping out the challenges of working in the private sector as well as the public sector. Furthermore, the authors ask the most cogent and painful questions about the derivate issues between clients and OD practitioner in light of these the present  challenges we face.

And best of all, the article point out how irrelevant some of OD’s behaviours appear  when practiced in the extreme. Table 1 of the article should be on all of our desktops….. an absolutely brilliant description of just how absurd our values, beliefs and actions are when manifested in the extreme.

When the authors spell out “ What is to be done”,  the article falls short of what I expected. For example, the authors suggest to cease “fixating on creating space for “onlys” and other small groups at the expense of the needs of the whole.”  And they suggest that OD be more accepting of the legitimacy of power and the system. And the authors state that OD could stay focused on “strong humanistic and democratic values” , “stay out of content and focus on process ” and focus on “capacity building and development of the system”. Furthermore, OD should  not loose its focus on the  purpose of being a central  building block in the creation on “effective and healthy human systems”.

When I read the initial part (diagnostic section) of the article, I tend to reach different conclusions.

1) In the organizational reality which has been created by the present economic conditions, OD as practiced has been “voted off the island” due to its irrelevance. The values we represent are seen as out dated, not just in extreme, but almost “ in toto”.

2) In the global configuration of organizations in today’s economy, the focus on democratic and humanistic values is far too parochial and thus, almost irrelevant to global organizing.

3) A focus on process renders OD irrelevant in places where process is not the way to get things done, like in about 80% of the countries in the world (where relationships or tradition or authoritarianism play a major enabling role).

4) As far as OD’s purpose as serving as a cornerstone for Impacting human systems, I see this proposed “purpose” as  illusionary omnipotence as well  misguided use of limited energy. This is far beyond the capabilities of OD in our age of economic determinism. I see this as almost a self evident truth.

The Israelis tell a story of someone who goes to a zoo and sees a giraffe with a very very very very very long neck. When s/he leaves the zoo, s/he says to himself, “that cannot be”.

It appears to me that the authors gave us an excellent mirror into which to look, but they themselves were reticent of using the very  mirror they provide.

People may ask me what I recommend?

1) I would reply that only when OD  internalizes the depth of the crisis that we are facing can we turn to solution engineering.

2) Being practical is fine, but let’s agree we need a new operating system, not a bug fix. Now this may sound impractical, but a sinking ship needs more than “some focus”. And unless we have that new OS in place, we will find ourselves working with the lessening circle of  clients who share the somewhat archaic world view of traditional OD.

3) As far as purpose is concerned, I view the propose of a new OD operating system as the creation of a culture-agnostic  platform which enable people of  different values and  communication styles to work effectively in a global organizational configuration, in a spirit of inclusion and cooperation.

This having been said, get your hands on the article and read it.

Signal-to-noise ratio is a scientific measure which compares the level of a pure signal with the level of background noise, expressed in decibels.

I will use “noise to signal ratio” in this post to describe the amount of background noise generated in the organizational domain in which OD is done, as opposed to the OD work itself.

The level of political driven  noise involved has grown over the past years, and at present ,the level of noise is so high it is punishing.

I love doing OD and any burn out I may feel is caused by the noise, not by the OD itself.

Here is a list of major noise generating factors in OD:

1) The HR gateway into organizations, staffed by people like Gloria Ramsbottom, the HR manager we know all too well.

2) The number of coaches, cooking workshops, team building via rope climbing, etc which purport to do organizational development have rendered building a trusting relationship with clients into a steep uphill run.

3) The huge damage done by hacks who have chopped  OD into “products” has forced  OD into a vendor status, at least at the beginning of the relationship.The vendor needs to “please the client”, not to do what needs to be done. Now…..fixing this is OD work, but the low pegging of the vendor status creates horrific noise.

4) Since 2008, no one looks very good; management is hooked on quick fixes, in order to look “less bad” a.s.a.p. This causes huge noise as HR prompted by management pushes for short cuts  to look good and feel wow.

5) In many organizations, there are 4-5 consultants on the same playing field, which leads to lack of change and internecine conflict between consultants.

The birth of OD was rooted in establishing a type of organizational life which would never allow the atrocities of WW2 to occur again, and as such, OD  has a very humanistic bias in its very foundations.

The achievements of OD in establishing a humanistic compass are enormous. And while I believe that Hannah Arendt hit the nail on the head when she claimed how banal evil is, OD does provide a context for preventing certain types of evil from happening again in certain cultures.

But let’s put aside the last war for a moment, and let’s look at the present war. There is basically one dominant economic model –  is global capitalism. Other economic models do exist but they are minor players. Without competition, this dominant economic model gets more hard core, cruel and cut throat. This has impacted the economy and organizational life.

Organizational life is often a cess pool of political intrigue by folks struggling to keep a job by doing everything it takes not to be in the way of the swinging axe of the downsizing department. Everything goes when it is all about survival.

In my experience, jungle warfare within organizations seems to “pay off” by those  skilled in that art. Darwinism is a great key to understanding present organisational politics. And Machiavelli’s insights were never more apt: “Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot” comes to mind.

I believe that in order to be relevant, we OD practitioners need to better understand jungle warfare, have a better grasp of Darwin and reread Machiavelli. We need to ask ourselves what can we change, and what can’t we change. And we need to ask ourselves if the solutions we provide suggest going unarmed into the battle ground. If indeed this is the perception of our work, OD has a real problem of being relevant for the present war.