I wrote the first two editions of this book on organization development (OD) in 1987 and 1994, respectively. The significant change for this third edition is the addition of my coauthor, Debra Noumair. We have been colleagues at Teachers College, Columbia University, for two decades and have worked together on numerous projects and several courses within our social-organizational psychology programs, which she now directs.
It was clear that the second edition, slightly more than 20 years old, was dated. It was also clear that some more recent perspectives and additions were in order, such as integrating covert processes into organization diagnosis, consulting to loosely coupled systems, and coaching and OD. Although massive change in the field has not occurred in the last two decades, plenty of change has evolved. Therefore, instead of the 11 chapters in the second edition, we now have 14, and with an exception or two (history remains the same), all other chapters have been revised, some significantly, such as Chapters 2, 12, and 14. A chapter-by-chapter summary follows, but a few words of clarification first: the intended audience for this book and some personal biases.
We have three audiences in mind: (1) the manager, executive, or administrator—that is, a potential user of organization development; (2) the practitioner in the field—that is, a user who may need some guidelines for his or her practice either as a consultant internal to an organization or as an external consultant working with a consulting firm or as an independent practitioner; and (3) the student—one who may in the future use the information provided in either of roles (1) or (2).
And now a brief word of clarification: Although we believe we have been reasonably objective in defining and describing OD, the theories underlying the field, and the way practitioners typically work, we do have a bias. While defining OD, we also present what we think OD should be; that is, a clear goal of change in the organization’s culture. An organization’s culture is the single greatest barrier to change for any system, whether profit-making or nonprofit, government, educational, or religious institution. Not everyone will agree with this bias, but agreement or disagreement should not prevent a reasonable understanding of how we have described the concepts and practices of organization development.
What follows is a summary statement of the content for each of the 14 chapters organized in three parts plus a Conclusion.
Part I, “The Field of Organization Development”
Chapter 1, “What Is Organization Development?,” presents an actual case based on a consulting assignment, which succinctly illustrates the primary characteristics of OD practice, although taking into account what OD should be (our bias), it does not exemplify what OD really is.
Chapter 2, “Organization Development Then and Now,” is significantly revised and focuses on the impact of the external environment on OD. It first summarizes the previous second edition with the nine significant changes between 1969 and 1994 and then covers nine newer trends that are under way as of 2014 and likely will be influential for the foreseeable future.
Chapter 3, “Where Did Organization Development Come From?,” remains essentially the same as before and traces the roots or forerunners of the field as well as briefly describes ten theories related to organizational behavior that underlie OD practice.
Chapter 4, “Organization Development as a Process of Change,” covers the fundamental models of change that guide OD practitioners and, using another actual case to illustrate, also covers the phases of consultation that OD practitioners follow in their practice.
Part II, “Understanding Organizations: Diagnosis”
Chapter 5, “Defining the Client: A Different Perspective,” addresses the question of who the client is, which might seem obvious, but isn’t. This perspective considers the client in terms of relationships.
Chapter 6, “Understanding Organizations: The Process of Diagnosis,” describes some of the most common frameworks or organizational models that OD practitioners use after they have conducted their interviews and perhaps administered questionnaires, made their observations, and read some documents and then attempted to make systematic sense out of what often at first seems a mass of confusing data.
Chapter 7, “The Burke-Litwin Model of Organizational Performance and Change,” extends and builds on the previous chapter by describing our own way of thinking about organizations and changing them. The significant change that occurred at British Airways during the latter half of the 1980s is explained to illustrate how the Burke-Litwin model was used as a framework.
Chapter 8, “Understanding Organizations: Covert Processes,” is a new chapter that addresses those organizational issues that exist beneath the surface—the “undiscussables,” matters of collusion, and what might be referred to as the collective unconscious. Central to the chapter is an actual case that brings these issues to the surface and provides a framework for integrating covert processes with OD models, tools, and practice.
Part III, “Changing Organizations”
Chapter 9, “Planning and Managing Change,” explains what OD practitioners do after the diagnostic phase and includes many of the primary steps involved in managing change as well as theory about organizational culture change. With change in general being more rapid than ever and with organizations being more differentiated than ever, we end the chapter with two caveats—we may not have as much time to plan our change effort as we would like, and we can no longer assume that most organizations today follow the organizational model of General Motors in the days of Alfred P. Sloan (1946), the model of its day for corporate America.
Chapter 10, “Understanding and Changing Loosely Coupled Systems,” another new chapter, compares and contrasts loosely coupled systems with tightly coupled systems and explores the complexities of attempting to change a loosely coupled system, a network or political party, for example. Social network analysis is a popular and useful tool for understanding loosely coupled systems. Other political tools and interventions, such as large group techniques that can be useful for changing a loosely versus tightly coupled system, are explored.
Chapter 11, “Does Organization Development Work?,” presents some summary evidence that OD does work, brings the evidence up to date, highlights the issues in evaluating OD efforts, and provides the key reasons in support of conducting an evaluation.
Chapter 12, “The Organization Development Consultant,” is significantly revised and covers OD consultant roles and functions, abilities required of an OD practitioner, OD values, ways to become an OD consultant, self as instrument, and reflective practice. This chapter also addresses the shift toward integrating OD skills into line functions and managerial and leadership roles in organizations.
Chapter 13, “Coaching and Organization Development,” another new chapter, covers the field of coaching and its relation to OD. Although coaching as a process of teaching and learning has been around for centuries, as a distinct field within organizations and primarily for executives, managers, and supervisors, it is comparatively new. There are different roles and functions of coaching and OD practitioners need not only be aware of these processes, but also incorporate coaching into organization development and change.
Chapter 14, “Organization Development and the Future,” is significantly revised and provides an overview of current and future trends in OD and then summarizes four primary trends currently under way and likely to influence the field of OD in the foreseeable future. These four are dialogic OD, leadership development, positive psychology, and agility both organizational and individual. The chapter ends with an overall summary.
Writing a book—even one that is a revision, a third edition of an earlier one—requires long hours of digging into the more recent and relevant literature, concentrating on what needs updating, what new topics need to be added, and what is not necessary to incorporate into this latest edition. But the long hours have been rewarding because new learning for us has been realized. This learning has come from both new theory concepts and research, as well as from new and different practice. The joy comes from seeing how theory and research can influence practice and how practice can inform what new research and theory needs to be conducted. Completing this third edition therefore strengthens our self-identity of being scholar-practitioners.
And, finally, with respect to helping us to bring this book to the printed page, we wish to express our deep gratitude to Ms. Ambar Ureña for her skill at typing and use of the computer, her administrative abilities, and most important, her positive, can-do attitude.
New York, NY
W. Warner Burke
Debra A. Noumair