Organization Development in the 21St Century: An Organizational Behavior, Organization Development and Process Consultation Guide

Copyright © 2011 Robert W. Hotes

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-0145-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-0146-0 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 3/4/2011

I am grateful to my parents, Norbert and Florence Hotes for teaching me to work diligently and to strive know how to deal with people in kindness, and to my wife Lynn and my daughters Joellyn and Julie who continue to teach and inspire me.

Contents

Introduction:

Organizational Behavior and Behavioral Change

Big Idea One:

The Challenge of Organizational Behavior:

Developing Organizations

Big Idea Two:

Firming up the soft side of management

Big Idea Three:

Orientations for OD Practice

Big Idea Three:

The Social Aspect of Working Together

Big Idea Four:

Developing Skills: Active Listening

Big Idea Five:

Where is the Science in OD?

Big Idea Six:

Models and Assumptions for the Consulting Relationship

Big Idea Seven:

About Motivation and Performance in the Twenty-First Century

Big Idea Eight:

An Introduction to Technologies and Strategies

Big Idea Nine:

Organizational Work and Economics

Big Idea Ten:

Keys to Effective and efficient Consultant Practice:

Some major characteristics of effective and efficient consultants

Big Idea Eleven:

Change Agent Roles by Other Names

Big Idea Twelve:

Leadership Qualities for the OD Consultant and Other Change Agents

Big Idea Thirteen:

Skills and Abilities Important for OD Practice

Big Idea Fourteen:

Helping Managers in the Facilitation of Change: Considerations for Organizational Behavior

Big Idea Fifteen:

Important Skills for Management Professionals and OD Interventionists

Big Idea Sixteen:

What OD Consultants Should Know About Finance and the World Economy

Big Idea Seventeen:

Organization Development and Large-Systems Change

Big Idea Eighteen:

Mindfulness and Behavior Management: Business Design for Creating a Sustainable Future: Management as Designing

Big Idea Nineteen:

Forgiving in Global OD Practice Must Derive from Mindfulness and Spiritual Principles

The Next Big Ideas

Appendix A: Sample Statement of Understanding

References

Introduction:

Organizational Behavior and Behavioral Change

This guide has a rather long title. The book has a very simple purpose, however. It is presented as a guide for those individuals who are working in the field of Organization Development (OD), and those who aspire to work in that field. The guide is especially designed for those who are entering the field of OD and who may benefit from the application of the skills and technologies underlying Process Consultation (PC) as articulated by Edgar Schein.

The book reflects the present author’s experience in the field of Organizational Behavior (OB) and in the practice of applied psychology and Organization Development (OD). It was written based upon experiences in teaching OD and human resources management in several universities. But principally it reflects the author’s experience as a practitioner of the disciplines involved in learning and change within organizations. It is intended as a guide to the understanding and application of process consultation.

The scope of the book is modest: it is a practitioner’s guide with some underpinnings of philosophical reflection. After all, enlightened practice is successful practice. The title reflects the author’s conviction that the field of applied organizational behavior, otherwise known as Organization Development (OD), is facing a period of stress leading to evolutionary change. Another underlying conviction is that the successful practice of OD depends upon the engagement of the change agent or consultant as a complete and genuine person. OD is more than the application of knowledge and skills. The most significant tool that the change agent can bring to bear is the commitment of his or her personality to the process of facilitating organizational change.

Those who are able to modify or, in some cases, abandon old rust belt methods of Organizational Behavior and OD will meet the challenge and become the new dragons of organizational change. Those who will not learn new paradigms and methods will suffer the fate of the dinosaurs.

Big Idea One:

The Challenge of Organizational Behavior:

Developing Organizations

Change will take place whether we like it or not, and not all change is good

This book is about you and your practice in the field of Organization Development and applied organizational behavior. Because it is a practical guide designed to assist you in your practice as a professional, the book is divided according to Big Ideas discussed, rather than into formal chapters. A central theme is that of sustainability and the role that Organization development (OD) professionals can play in addressing the requirement of this organizational reality. For the purpose of discussion in this book, OD is considered to be Organizational Behavior (psychological science in organizational life) put into practice. OD practitioners who are dragons are those who are able to change the shape of their practices to meet current and future needs. They are the fire breathers of OD’s present and future. The dinosaurs are those who cannot or will not change not only their practices, but their understanding of what OD is, can be, and should be. Guess what will probably happen to them.

OD practitioners in this century will have to assist client organizations that are experiencing change that, may call for resizing rather than growth. For individuals within these corporate bodies change may mean reinventing themselves after the elimination of jobs and the demolition of career paths. As helping professionals, OD workers will have an opportunity to make a major difference in the lives of individuals, organizations, and society.

Many professionals who do OD are not formally trained in the literature or the techniques of the field. In fact, there has always been debate among both scholars and practitioners regarding whether or not OD is a separate and identifiable profession, or simply a set of skills that any manager or trainer can acquire and use. There are those practitioners who claim that OD is and must be an identifiable field of study and practice, with a code of ethical behavior and a distinguishable body of knowledge. Evidence would indicate that they are correct. There are also those who are equally convinced that the practice of OD should belong to anyone who is willing to invest the time and energy to acquire the skills that are necessary to become an effective catalyst for change within organizations. Evidence supports that opinion as well.

Experience indicates that a practitioner does not have to have the title of OD Specialist or a similar designation to do OD work. In fact, many of the most effective OD practitioners may never have had such a title in their entire careers. But they have mastered and have successfully applied OD techniques and strategies, leading to managed change within organizations. Often these interventions have been framed as training and development or survey feedback conducted by human resources (HR) functions. But in their application and effect such interventions may go beyond organizational learning and result in profound cultural change.

Organizational change may occur at both macro and the micro levels. OD practitioners and workers are often oriented to change within firms and organizations that serve segments of a population on a local national or an international scale. But as recent events in the Middle East have demonstrated, large systems experience change that can be either evolutionary or revolutionary. At this writing (2011) the results of revolutionary changes that are taking place in Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco, Libya, Jordan Syria and throughout the Middle East cannot be assessed. But it appears that changes will be revolutionary in nature. Perhaps changes in other nations such as India, China and Brazil will be evolutionary in nature. The point is that change will take place both at the micro and at the macro levels, and OD practitioners may be involved in interventions at both levels. Consider the following scenario:

In the final years before the deposition of the Shah (King) of Iran, cores of Western companies had significant operations in the country. Under the rubric of transferring technologies from industrialized nations to developing economies, firms established a strong presence in the major cities of Iran, including Teheran, Isfahan and Tabriz, among other cities. Employees form the Western companies included senior management and middle management with a predominantly middle-class orientation. Most had been educated and spent most of their careers around the U/S. military establishment in the post – World War II era, and had not been exposed to any cultural realities apart from the occupied districts of Japan, Germany and Italy. Accordingly, it their cultural awareness and understanding may be said to have been low. Many of the employees sent to the Middle East had no understanding of Muslim culture. And a significant number were veterans of the Vietnam War with substantial tendencies toward substance abuse.

Amalgamated Equipment Corporation (not the company’s real name) maintained a significant corporate presence in Iran prior to the deposition and exile of the Shah (king). This was a very profitable operation, and, with the cooperation of the Iranian government, the company was able to double bill the Iranian Army for spare parts. In exchange, the company provided American ex-GIs who actually maintained the technology for the Iranian government, under guise of providing instruction to the Iranians. This was, of course, illegal under the terms of the contacts.

In the month prior to the deposition of the Shah, there was a marked rise in tension between the foreign American and European workers and the native Iranian population. This conflict centered on a lack of understanding and respect on the part of the foreign technical workers for the culture and religion of Iran. Little or no orientation to Islamic and Iranian customs and law was provided in preparing counterpart trainers for their mission.

A key incident occurred when an executive of one of the major U.S. firms in Iran struck and killed an Iranian citizen while the executive was driving while under the influence of alcohol. Use of alcohol and inebriation is a violation of cultural norms in many Middle Eastern societies, and to cause death while inebriated may be considered a capital crime. The U.S. executive faced imprisonment in an Iranian jail for an undetermined period of time. And, while enforcement of the maximum sentence was unlikely, the maximum sentence under law for a crime of that nature might have been capital – that is to say, the penalty of death.

In order to save the executive, local Iranians were bribed to take the blame for the accident. This was arranged through the offices of an official of the Iranian secret police under the Imperial Iranian regime, SAVAK. One particular individual employed by that agency was responsible for saving the vice president from imprisonment and humiliation.

After the fall of the Shah’s government, members of SAVAK were proscribed for death. The individual who engineered the escape of the American Vice President threatened to expose the Vice President and the other officials of the company for graft, corruption, and violating U.S. treaties, unless to he and his family were brought to safety in the United States. In order to do this; the company had to find a job for the individual in the United States, although he was not qualified for any technical employment. Therefore the company brought him and his family to the U.S., had an American worker train him, and then laid the American worker off.

As the details of this incident became known to workers in the American Company through rumor and the observation that the Iranian worker had no skills, a significant morale problem began to develop in the department to which the Iranian worker was assigned. As an internal OD consultant working for the HR department, you are assigned to fix the problem.

What the Shah didn’t know and the US wouldn’t tell him

In the years leading to the deposition of the Shah of Iran the United State and its allies provided millions of dollars of technical aid and support to the Iranian government. In theory, at least, it was supposed to be an arrangement of mutual benefit. The US had recently ended its operations in Vietnam. There was a significant amount of cold war military technology available. It was not cutting edge. But it was beyond what was available to other governments in the Middle East. The Cold war was still a reality. The Russians were supplying Iraq, a historic enemy of Iran, with materials and support. So, in a mutual arrangement, the Shah of Iran’s government purchased a large amount of military and related technology from the West, principally from the United States. But there were problems. These systems included aircraft and other materials that were relatively sophisticated, although not state of the art. Iran was a pre-industrial society with a codified social structure. First, the average soldiers in the Shah’s military were not technologically literate. Second, certain aspect of Iranian culture made participation in manual labor less that desirable for all but the lowest grades within the Iranian armed forces.

A solution was found that seemed to promise a win-win outcome: Let American ex-military technicians train Iranians to operate and maintain the equipment on site in Iran. After all, just as there were lots of redundant military systems and spare parts left over from the US experience in Vietnam, so there was also a significant amount of redundant talent consisting of technically trained individuals who were having difficulty re-integrating into civil society. Why not screen and employ them, train them how to be technical instructors and turn them loose on their Iranian counterparts? The hi-tech companies could get rid of both their surplus inventory and capacity and surplus human resources all at the same time. Companies could charge extra for the training services. The Western personnel would be called counterpart trainers. They would train and the Iranians would perform the duties.

It all seemed very logical and profitable. But there were a few overhead considerations. Many of the Vietnam-era veterans who were had no teaching experience. So they would have to be trained to train. And there would have to be some sort of selection process. Here were many more applicants than there were jobs to be filled. So many of these technology companies developed training organizations, to recruit, select, train and export contract employees whose mission it would be to train Iranian operators and technicians to use the imported technology. Tax structures made spending time in overseas assignments that supported Western strategies very profitable.