Chapter 3 The Role of Change Agent / Practitioner A look at OD practitioners can provide a more personal perspective on the field

d and help to understand the essential character of OD as a helping profession, involving personal relationships between OD practitioners and org mbrs

Who is the OD practitioner? Generally 3 kinds of people: o Individuals specialising in OD as a profession o People from related fields who have gained competence in OD o Mgrs who have the OD skills necessary to change and develop their orgs Have traditionally shared a common set of humanistic values: promoting open comms, employee involvement and pers growth and dev. In recent years, has been extended to include more concern for org effectiveness, competitiveness and bottom-line results o As a result of highly competitive demands that face modern orgs Skills and knowledge of an effective OD practitioner Much has been written and discussed, claiming a mixture of personality traits, experiences and kinds of knowledge and skills there has been relatively little consensus (see PP:53-57) Based on research, basic common skills required include (PP:57-58) o Intrapersonal skills o Interpersonal skills o General consultation skills o OD theory

The professional OD practitioner The role of OD professionals position, marginality, use of knowledge, careers o Position can be either internal or external to the org Internal Advantage know the org Disadvantage lose objectivity, lack influence External Advantage objective, can probe difficult issues Disadvantage require time to become familiar Solution can be to establish an internal-external consulting team o Marginality effective OD practitioners are good at taking marginal roles (flexibility, independence and boundary-spanning characteristics) Personality qualities include: low dogmatism, neutrality, openmindedness, objectivity, flexibility, adaptive info-processing ability Thrive on conflict, ambiguity and stress

2 o Use of knowledge described in terms of a continuum ranging from clientcentred (using clients knowledge and exp) to consultant-centred (using consultants knowledge and exp) Traditionally have been at the client-centred end (expected to remain neutral, refusing to offer expert advice on org problems) relying mainly on sensitivity trg, process consultation and team building Newer proliferation of OD interventions in structural, HRM and strategy areas, has been expanded to include consultant-centred end of the continuum May have to take a modified expert role, with consent and collaboration or org mbrs Reality is that OD practitioner needs to be able to move along the continuum as required. EG: may have to initially present basic concepts that that informs the orgs mbrs towards collaboratively identifying the issues and intervention strategy and how it might best be implemented o Careers in OD is emerging as a practice High workload Toxic handlers stressful and risk of burnout Professional values Potential conflict between human and production objectives Also value conflicts with powerful external stakeholders o Require not only social skills, but also political skills o Interventions that promote collaboration and system maintenance may be ineffective in this larger arena esp when there are power and dominance relationships between orgs, and competition over scarce resources. o Under these conditions may need more power oriented interventions, such as: bargaining, coalition forming and pressure tactics

Professional ethics Ethical guidelines - OD has shown concern for its ethical conduct. Several articles and conferences about ethics in OD. o Nothing legally binding though? Ethical dilemmas can face ethical dilemmas. This can occur when OD practitioner and client system have very different goals, values, needs, skills and abilities o Role conflict and ambiguity can lead to ethical dilemmas (PP:67-69): Misrepresentation Misuse of data Coercion Value and goal conflict Technical ineptitude