Chapter 3

CHAPTER
3
THE
ORGANIZATION
DEVELOPMENT
PRACTITIONER
Learning Objectives
Discuss the roles and characteristics of OD
practitioners
Describe the competencies required of

effective OD practitioners
Understand the values and ethics guiding the

practice of OD
Organizational Development Practitioners are
people who are entrusted with the job to carry
out the planned change process in the
organization. These are the people with the WHO IS THE
ultimate responsibility to development and ORGANIZATION
create organizational wide effectiveness DEVELOPMENT
through challenging and changing its current PRACTITIONER
practices. OD Practitioner normally refers to
people who do Organizational Development.
These are the people who support in favor of
the change initiative and assist others to WHO IS THE
implement Organizational Development ORGANIZATION
interventions. Normally the Organizational
DEVELOPMENT
Development Practitioners are either the OD
PRACTITIONER
Specialist or Leaders and Managers who bring
change in their work domain.
COMPETENCIES OF AN EFFECTIVE
OD PRACTITIONER
“Competency 1: Systems Change Expert
•Systems Change Leader — who can
comfortably work within a whole system and
advise on strategies for organizational
change, transformation, and alignment.
•Culture Builder — who fosters
commitment and engagement based on an
environment of trust and promotes the health
and vitality of the organization.
•Innovator — who sponsors, develops, and
can challenge the organization to create
strategies for disruption, breakthroughs,
transformation, and innovation.
Competency 2: Efficient Designer
•Efficient Designer — who strives for
simplicity and designs strategies,
interventions, and processes to facilitate a
desired business outcome with the client and
end-user in mind.
•Process Consultant — who increases
leadership and organizational capacity,
facilitates group dialogue and decision-
making by creating a non-threatening
environment.
•Data Synthesizer — who operates as an
integrator connecting multi-stakeholder
views and translates salient information to
create clarity and commitment.
Competency 3: Business Advisor
•Strategic Catalyst — who thinks
strategically, takes initiative, and acts to
achieve results tied to the organization’s
goals.
•Results-Oriented Leader — who
understands and applies the principles of
customer service, sets challenging goals, and
measures impact and project return on
investment.
•Trusted Advisor — who effectively
develops trusting relationships and
partnerships through integrity and
authenticity and is clear about the outcomes
that are important to key stakeholders.
Competency 4: Credible Strategist
•Credible Influencer — who empathetically
relates to clients, understands their needs,
and has the knowledge to translate the
business reality into terms that can be agreed
upon and committed to by the client.
•Collaborative Communicator — who
communicates clearly and concisely, and
tailors communication in ways that meet the
needs and motivations of client groups at all
levels.
•Globally Diverse Integrator — who can
effectively work within diverse cultures, and
creates an inclusive environment for people
of all identities to feel valued, respected, and
able to contribute.
Competency 5: Informed Consultant
•Exemplary Consultant — who cultivates meaning,
working relationships, and commitment with stakeholders
to effect change, and demonstrates an understanding of
client expectations, effectively contracting for goals,
outcomes, and resources.
•Emotionally Intelligent Leader — who effectively reads
stakeholders, seeks out different perspectives, and uses
emotional intelligence to guide appropriate action, and
understands and reflects on one’s own personal values,
boundaries, feelings, biases, triggers, and ethics to manage
their impact on the work.
•Life-Long Learner and Practitioner — who
demonstrates leadership in a specialized area of OD, stays
up to date on methodologies and tools, and leverages best
practices to drive results in line with the organization’s
needs. The website has about a dozen specific theories
listed, including appreciative inquiry, culture change,
diversity and inclusion, organization design, the science of
decision making, systems theory, and team development.”
Knowledge of OD Practitioners
• Individual psychology
• Group dynamics
• Organizational behavior
• Functional knowledge
• Management
• Cultural diversity
• Research methods and statistics
Skills of OD
Consultants/Practitioners
• Behavioral skills
• Leadership skills
• Communication skills
• Negotiation skills
• Problem-solving skills
THE PROFESSIONAL OD PRACTITIONER
Role of OD Professional Positions
• OD professionals have positions that are either internal or external to the
organization.
• Internal consultants are members of the organization and may be located in the
human resources department or report directly to a line manager. They may perform
the OD role exclusively, or they may combine it with other tasks, such as
compensation practices, training, or employee retentions.
• External consultants are not members of the client organization, they typically work
for consulting firm, a university, or themselves. Organizations generally hire
external consultants to provide a particular expertise that is unavailable internally,
to bring a different and potentially more objective perspective into the organization
development process, or to signal shift to power.
Functions of OD Consultants
Activities of OD Consultants
• Organization Change
• Employee Development
• Strategy Development
• Management Development
• Technology Integration
Styles of OD Consultants
• Safe Player
• Thinker
• Cheerer
• Leader
Professionalism of OD Consultant
• What is professionalism?
• 4 qualities
• Specialized knowledge and skills
• Independence in the practice of one’s profession
• A professional approach as portrayed by emotional balance
• A high degree of responsibility with a sense of commitment to the
discipline
THE PROFESSIONAL OD PRACTITIONER
Careers of Organization Development Professionals
• OD is an emerging practice, still developing the characteristics of an
established profession, a common body of knowledge, educational
requirements, a recognized code of ethics, and rules and methods for
governing conduct. People enter professional OD careers from various
educational and work backgrounds. Because they do not have to follow an
established career path, they have some choice about when to enter or leave
an OD career and whether to be an internal or external consultant.
PROFESSIONAL VALUES
• Values have played an important role in organization development from its
beginning. Traditionally, OD professionals have promoted a set of humanistic
values, including a concern for open inquiry, democratic principles, and
personal well-being. They have sought to help organizations build trust and
collaboration among members, an open, problem solving climate, and member
of self-control. More recently, OD practitioners have added to those
humanistic values a concern for improving organizational effectiveness (for
example, to increase productivity or to reduce turnover) and environmental
sustainability (to reduce organization’s carbon imprint). They have shown an
increasing desire to promote human, economic, and ecological values in
practicing OD.
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
• The field of OD always has shown concern for the ethical conduct
of its practitioner. The project’s purposes included preparing critical
incidents describing ethical dilemmas and using that material for
preprofessional and continuing education in OD; providing an
empirical basis for a statement of values and ethics for OD
professionals, and initiating a process for making the ethics of OD
practice explicit on a continuing basis.
Although adherence to statements of ethics
helps prevent the occurrence of ethical
problems, OD practitioners still encounter
ethical dilemmas. The next figure is a process
model that explains how ethical dilemmas can
occur in OD. The antecedent conditions include ETHICAL
an OD practitioner and a client systems with DILEMMAS
different goals, values, needs, skills, and
abilities. The entry and contracting phase of
planned change is intended to address and
clarify these differences.
As a practical matter, however, it is
unreasonable to assume that all of the
differences will be identified and resolved.
Under such circumstances, the subsequent ETHICAL

intervention process or role episode is almost DILEMMAS
certainly subject to role conflict and role
ambiguity. Neither the client nor the OD
practitioner is clear about respective
responsibilities.
Types of Ethical Dilemmas
• Misrepresentation
• Misuse of data
• Power and Coercion
• Value and goal conflict
• Technical ineptness
The OD Consultant-Client Relationship
• The OD Consultant has to establish the organization’s
readiness for change.
• Has to identify his/her clients adequately and clearly.
• Has to commit and develop a trust relationship with his/her
client.
• Has to formalize the ground rules with his/her client
Change Behavior of Organization
Members
•Indifferent
•Gamesmanships
•Charismatic
•Consensus
SUMMARY
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CHAPTER

Describe the competencies required of

Understand the values and ethics guiding the

Under such circumstances, the subsequent ETHICAL

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