Practicing Organization Development (A guide for Consultants) - Part 29. Organization development (OD) is about planned change. As change has turned into the only constant, many managers and other people are pursuing change strategies with vigor. OD is a major strategy for leading and managing change at the individual, group, intergroup, organizational, interorganizational, and large systems levels. This book is about what it takes to be an effective change manager, change leader, and OD consultant | PRE-LAUNCH 251 employee empowerment and respect for human dignity. Although the consultant s values should not singularly drive the OD intervention the client and consultant may not work together effectively if their values are incompatible. Without some alignment unhealthy conflict is likely to result over the intervention s goals and means and that conflict may influence decisions and affect the results of an OD engagement. One client was interested in improving the effectiveness of his department. However when the consultant suggested group meetings with employees at different levels to get their input the client was adamant that the consultant only needed to talk to the managers. There were clearly incompatible values related to participation manager roles and systems thinking. Clients often experience mixed feelings including desire fear inadequacy and vulnerability about a change effort. Consciously or unconsciously these feelings can lead the client to resist closure on contracting. Consultants can either be helpful in dealing with these feelings or aggravate them. In addition if clients find it difficult to understand or work with consultants additional barriers are created. Feelings of satisfaction and comfort during OD interventions are affected by how clients want to be included and informed how they want to receive inputs from consultants and what consultants want from their clients. Many of the feelings experienced by clients and consultants are associated with their feelings of vulnerability interpersonal needs availability to one another their priorities and their levels of commitment to the change effort. Margulies and Raia 1978 have also stressed the importance of the consultant-client fit and described the quality of the relationship as dependent on their value systems the consultant s competence and ability to help the client with the perceived challenge the client s experience with other consultants expectations about the consulting role and .
