Technology Systems, and Hudson Partners (a real estate investment trust fund). Fred was the first person to serve on all three boards of the most prestigious organizations in his field—ATD (formerly ASTD), Organization Development Network, and National Training Labs (NTL). He recently completed terms for Pinchot (one of the first graduate schools focused on sustainability), The Sage Colleges, and One World Everybody Eats (pay-what-you-can community cafes). His experience includes partnering with organizations to accelerate growth, enhance bottom-line results, and work through turnaround situations, as well as positioning leaders for success in start-ups, entrepreneurial ventures, and transitioning from founder-led companies to the next generation of leadership. In the 1970s, as an officer with the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (now CIGNA), he helped pioneer one of the nation’s first corporate diversity and inclusion efforts.
1 What kind of OD work do you do? (Please describe your research or practitioner area of interest). Do you have a certain specialization, style, or approach that is unique?Large systems change ensuring that diversity is leveraged and that there is a culture of inclusion.
2 Why do you find it a compelling profession of research and/or practice? Why is OD relevant today?OD is about the people of the organization being able to bring their humanness to a workplace where they are heard, cared about, and do their best work in service of the organization’s mission and strategies.
3 What first drew you to the field of OD? How did you get started? Can you briefly describe an initial project, course, mentor, or event that you found compelling and led you to the profession?Seeing Tony Petrella, Billie Alban, and Barbara Bunker and working with Herb Shepherd, John Weir, Edie Seashore, Kaleel Jamison, Peter Block, and other pioneers both inspired me and drew me to OD.I started in the field of OD when I was employed by the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (now CIGNA) in the 1970s. After I left Connecticut General, I joined Kaleel Jamison as her partner in Kaleel Jamison Associates. After Kaleel’s death in 1985, Judith H. Katz joined me as a partner and in the leadership of The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc.
4 Can you give an example of a recent OD project (research or practice) that you completed?Over a five-year period, myself, Judith Katz, and other members of KJCG were involved in a transformational effort in the manufacturing division of a major pharmaceutical company. Our client (the president of the division) hired us because although he felt like he had managers who had very good technical skills, they did not know how to engage their people. The impact was major quality issues in production due to human error, missing targets for delivery, and safety was slipping. During the time that we were there, the organization also went through a major acquisition doubling the organization from 11,000 to 29,000 people; given the acquisition, there were major issues related to developing one consistent culture.Our work over five years created a common language and culture; ensured all leaders and managers developed skills to effectively engage with people at all levels, especially inspiring and ensuring work effectively on the shop floor; enabled the shop floor members to lean in and speak up; and did this in a global organization with over 90 plants and operations worldwide. Through our interventions we were able to link our work on inclusion to the on-going work on lean Six Sigma (lean eliminates waste in the processes); inclusion was how they achieved results—inclusion eliminates waste in interaction as people speak a common language and work in collaboration. Among other skills, our interventions focused on creating internal change agents and peer-to-peer development. We were also able to document real shifts in the ROI, in measures that mattered for the organization—time to market, reduction in human errors, improved safety records, and significantly increased numbers of innovative ideas that were suggested, implemented, and reduced cost. [For more information on ROI, see Katz & Miller, 2017.]
5 What do you think are the most important skills for a student of OD to develop?Knowing self and being a lifelong learner about self, others, and organizations.
6 Many students say that OD is a difficult profession to “break in” to. What advice do you have for students wishing to get started in the field?Find a partner or team; do not work alone.
7 Feel free to include here any other information (about you, the current or future state of OD, etc.) that you would like students to know.The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc. (1970–present) is the oldest OD consulting and the oldest diversity firm. We have been various sizes throughout the years and are now 12 people. However, when the consultants were employees, the firm was 48 people. Many of our clients have been Fortune 100 companies; however, we have a wide range of backgrounds, including work in manufacturing, industrial, sales, retail, energy, transportation, consumer goods and services, telecommunications, media, technology, education, finance, insurance, health services, government, and nonprofits.I see one of the new frontiers of the field will be the work interactions between people and AI.
Dialogue and Collaboration
As early as 1969, Beckhard noticed that “one of the major problems affecting organizational effectiveness is the amount of dysfunctional energy expended in inappropriate competition and fighting between groups that should be collaborating” (p. 33). Indeed, the same can be said of individuals. A key value in organization development is the creation of healthy environments that promote collaboration rather than competition, with the assumption that a win-win solution is both possible and more desirable than conflict. This does not mean that the suppression of conflict is desired; in fact, the opposite is true. OD interventions seek to bring conflicts to light where they can be addressed in a healthy manner through open dialogue, rather than to allow the suppression of conflict that continues to fester unspoken. Moreover, the goal is for organizational members to learn how to recognize hidden conflict and to deal with it in an appropriate manner.
Authenticity, Openness, and Trust
According to Burke (1977), in a review of organization development trends, authenticity was on its way to overtaking democracy as a primary value in the field. When we create competitive environments, organizations develop as contexts in which it is valued and rewarded to withhold information or mislead to gain status and authority. Collaborative practices cannot succeed in that environment. Instead, they demand that we act in an authentic manner. Being authentic means being straightforward, genuine, honest, and truthful about one’s plans, opinions, and motivations. This has implications for how managers communicate with employees, for example, in providing an honest explanation for a project (what the project is intended to accomplish and why) as well as one’s own opinions and beliefs about it. Authentic leadership demands consistency in words and actions as followers look to leaders’ behavior to assess whether their talk is forthright and can be trusted (Goffee & Jones, 2005). Leaders demonstrate trust by giving employees information; explaining organizational direction, values, principles, and rationales; including them in dialogues and discussions; and allowing them to make decisions. This value applies not only to organizational members but also to OD practitioners, who must be authentic with clients in order to expect the same in return. This means confronting clients where appropriate and being honest with the client in the assessment of the data and one’s own feelings.
No intervention or organization holds to all of the values listed here as static entities. In fact, it is probably not useful to think of values as categories, but instead to think of them as a project or objective. Many practitioners think of OD values not as states (e.g., an organization is or is not participative, is team-oriented or individual-oriented), but rather as a continuum or direction. They represent movement away from traditional notions about organizational bureaucracy and human behavior (like Theory X, discussed in Chapter 2) and toward alternative humanistic views about individuals and groups. Any consulting engagement or intervention strategy successfully modeling OD’s core values can be seen as moving an organization toward these values rather than turning on one value and turning off another as you would a light switch. This belief demonstrates the value of being “in process,” that organizations and individuals are continually growing and
