I work with a broad swathe of people specialists. Learning and strategy experts too. They call themselves many different names, from executive coaches (although many don’t coach executives), to facilitators (who mainly train), to consultants (who do little more than simply respond to the immediate brief of a client) and even consulting psychologists (who are actually not that at all). The truth is, many people working in the people development space scramble to find words to describe what they do, and when they do settle on a name, it’s usually long and triple barreled. In other words, clumsy. So here is how I might be able to help. If you are in the people business, both within and outside of organisations is this what you do?
1. Aim to improve employee well being
2. And organisational effectiveness
3. And support planned change interventions that influence and impact the above
If that’s pretty much what you do, then you might be (drum roll), an organisational development specialist. Still triple barreled but accurate, or maybe not.
Let’s try again, do you:
1. Identify a problem/challenge facing an organisation?
2. Then Design an intervention to solve it?
3. Then Evaluate impact and entrenchment of the new way of doing things?
4. Then Enable the intervention to be internalised and accepted?
Mmm, number 3 and 4 are tricky, and I know for a fact many don’t get it right, and more scarily, don’t even attempt them. So maybe you are not yet ready to be an OD consultant. Let’s look at these and see what they tell us, do you:
1. Focus only on micro-approaches at individual level for example, you are just a coach.
2. Have only one solution to offer for example a single tool or content
3. Take on ad hoc and random work within an organisation just to pay the bills
4. Do not exclusively aim to raise morale and attitudes of people within an organisation
A yes to any of these, and I am sorry to say, you are further and further away from being a true OD consultant. Here is the final list, and it’s all about ethics, and you may need to imagine a final hammer being nailed into your aspirations of a multi syllabled title. Have you ever:
1. Misrepresented or exaggerated the efficacy of your work
2. Colluded with a certain party or function to serve their interests within an organisation
3. Misused data (or misunderstood research) to serve your own ends and gain more work
4. Manipulated or coerced people into working with you
5. Overstated your qualification to work within organisational change and effectiveness
6. Over emphasised organisational results and profits as a result of your engagements
Ouch! Not many people will admit to these at the next Community of Practice gathering but these lists have certainly made me think. I have no doubt our intentions are good, but are we ALL equipped to bleed across the boundaries of our own focus area and truly claim to be OD consultants. My blunt response is no, and here is why; because if OD consulting is about supporting planned change to enhance organisational effectiveness and employee well-being, then we had all better be specialists in change, behavioural science and complex systems. Not many people can claim that pedigree. Makes you think, doesn’t it?