The A to Z of OD: U is for Unifying Theory of OD (there isn’t one!)

Posted on September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 by Jeremy Lewis

Or, “Why can’t OD practitioners agree on what is OD?”

Or even, “If OD is defined by whatever OD practitioners happen to be working on, is it any surprise that there is no unifying theory of OD?”

In reading this series of articles, you may well have gained a sense of what OD is to me, and you probably have your own views on the subject. For example, is OD an HR function, predominantly focused on training and development, facilitation and coaching? Is it a strategic function or an operational function, perhaps currently focused on digitisation of customer strategy or business processes? Maybe is it a change function that is modernising archaic project management disciplines by embracing Agile and Design Thinking? Are all of these examples of OD? Are any of these examples OD at all?

Where is OD located in your organisation?

OD is many things to many people and there is no unifying theory. Perhaps this is why OD practice is so divergent – nebulous even – and hence opens itself up to criticism? For example, locate OD within HR and it is more likely to be seen as people-orientated and have less power, whereas it is more likely to be seen as commercially focused and is probably more powerful if it is located in Strategy or Operations where it can demonstrate its impact more directly onto the bottom line. Unfortunately, the former is often seen as too soft and may even result in a lack of focus on the organisation’s primary purpose; the latter is too hard, perhaps even dehumanising organisations in cases where over-rationalised business processes take precedence over the people employed to work them.

Getting the balance right

I believe core to OD’s philosophy is a balance between psychoanalysis (see: P is for Psychoanalysis) and systems-thinking (see: J is for Joint Diagnosis). The dilemma OD faces is when one of these aspects dominates. Taking a systems-thinking perspective requires the OD practitioner to be at the table of power so she can influence strategic change. Taking a psychoanalytic perspective requires marginality, independence from the corporate agenda, so that she can challenge over-rationalised thinking that might dehumanise organisations. Achieving both simultaneously is hard to do… If OD has power – signified by a close relationship to leaders, a corporatist agenda and aligned to strategic or operational change – then its ability to challenge the group dynamics at play may be inhibited. On the other hand, if OD has marginality – perhaps traditionally located within HR and focused on challenging and developing management values and behaviours – then it is difficult to have true positive impact across the whole system. The traditional OD model weakens OD’s power; whereas the strategic model weakens OD’s philosophy.

Where should OD be located in an organisation?

However there may be an organisation design for OD that preserves its philosophy whilst offering it the power to achieve real sustainable change. I have seen this model work very well and endure. It involves an OD generalist located within HR and yet with an independent dual reporting line to the CEO. In large, decentralised organisations, OD generalists can be located in each division (again, within local HR and yet with independent reporting lines to divisional CEOs), influencing change locally and coming together under the stewardship of the central OD lead for coordination and as a community of practice. Such a model is best supported by external OD consultants for specific initiatives, enabling internal OD practitioners to be effective generalists and not overly-narrow specialists. Over-specialisation of internal OD practitioners (e.g. into coaching and facilitation, or projects and change) can undermine OD’s philosophy.

A possible unifying approach

I believe OD should go back to its roots. To do this, OD practitioners must focus on three praxes in relation to delivering sustainable change:

Diagnosis must be grounded in psychoanalytic interpretation;
Facilitation should be in structure and not content;
Interventions must be humanistic.

The first praxis ensures OD is not subsumed totally into the corporate agenda and retains its ability to challenge organisational norms, routines and behaviours.

The second praxis ensures that OD is applicable to transformational change, where the consultant helps to establish structures and processes that consciously enable organisational members to operate using different perspectives. This aligns with process consultancy: the only expertise the consultant sells is psychodynamics and whole systems-thinking, whereas organisational members provide the content.

The third praxis guards against over rationalised systems-thinking dehumanising organisations.

For me, OD must reconnect with its psychoanalytic roots, its structuralist processes and its humanist values. I honestly believe unless all three are present, then it’s just not OD.

OD Thought Leader: Dave Ulrich (b. 1953)

Ulrich is an author, university professor and management consultant. He is the creator of the HR model currently favoured by the vast majority of large corporate HR departments, which he set out in his 1997 work Human Resource Campions.

In this model, he argues there are four roles for HR to fulfil (administration, employee champion, change agent and strategic partner). This has been interpreted and implemented by many through centralising and automating HR administration into shared service centres with manager self-service solutions for processing HR transactions (leavers, absence, etc), centres of excellence for employee relations, etc, OD functions (more or less like I described above) and HR Business Partners to act as the strategic interface between organisational managers and HR specialists.

Whilst predominantly in the ‘corporatist’ mould (i.e. the whole structure and philosophy is aimed at creating and organisation fit to meet the corporate agenda efficiently and effectively), the structure clearly puts human beings at the centre of its thinking, and creates a home for OD.

However, in A to Z of OD: U is for unifying Theory of OD (there isn’t one) above, we saw that when corporatist thinking prevails, the OD agenda can become marginalised. In his seminal work on how to organise the HR function, Ulrich outlines how the HR agenda can build employee engagement through balancing demands and resources to avoid over- and underutilisation of human resources, demonstrating that underutilisation leads to apathy and over-utilisation leads to burnout. For me this provides further evidence for the need to increase focus on the psychoanalytic and human-centred agenda.

Ulrich recommends HR professionals focus on reducing demands on people, increasing resources and turning demands into resources. He suggests these goals can be achieved through OD practice by:

Emancipatory diagnostic interventions to help people prioritise what is important to them and focus their energies on the shared goals and values they have with the organisation
Working with the organisation to provide employees challenging work, fun culture, shared goals and shared control of work processes
Encouraging organisations to become more human, involve employees in key decisions that affect them and recognise the impact of decisions on employees’ non-work lives/families.

These days, Ulrich sometimes gets bad press for his HR model, usually surrounding the lack of capability within HR to facilitate system-wide change, or bottlenecks created because HR business partners are working beyond their capacity. However, I note that his three OD recommendations align with my suggested three OD praxes and suggest his model is indeed a good one. Perhaps it is more of a failure in implementation and investment in OD skills that is the real issue?

Next time in the A to Z of OD: V is for Vision and Values; W is for Weisbord

The A to Z of OD: M is for Metaphor

Posted on February 5, 2019February 5, 2019 by Jeremy Lewis

Our language is littered with metaphor. Oftentimes, we do not notice metaphor unless it is used poetically. Had I said, “We walk through streets of literature littered with metaphor”, you are more likely to have spotted ‘littered’ as a metaphor for the ubiquity of metaphor. ‘Littered’ suggests metaphor contaminates our language, just like litter contaminates the street. Perhaps, I’m even suggesting we are so accustomed to seeing litter on the street we have stopped noticing the street is cluttered, dishevelled, even unhealthy. I’m clearly suggesting metaphor is a bad thing, and we’ve stopped noticing it is bad.

Our language is rich with metaphor. A different connotation entirely. Metaphor is a good thing, perhaps even having monetary value. Money: that thing that symbolises success in our culture, that enables us to feed and protect ourselves, that gives us choice, freedom and agency over our lives.

The use of metaphor is very helpful to the reader as it describes what you’re trying to say in a few words. The reader’s mind ‘conjures’ up her own interpretation from her own experience; an experience that is rich with her own metaphor. She can see the ‘whole picture’ you were ‘painting’. The problem is that the use of one metaphor – is it magic or is it art? – restricts other interpretations. This is how others’ words can manipulate us.

Organisational metaphor

Our language defines our culture. We create the word around us though how we talk and write about it. As such, it also defines the organisations we create. The organisations that is, where we work, rest and play; where we live our lives.

And so, the words we use to describe those organisation matter. We tell stories about those organisations and the metaphors we use are very much a part of that narrative.

I’ve just looked back at the A to Z of OD articles I’ve written in this series to review the metaphor I’ve been using to describe organisations and OD. I counted nearly 100 examples. Many of these are consciously deployed – OD is a journey for example – however several were unconscious.

The most frequent positive metaphor I use is one that describes organisations as organisms: I provide the right ‘climate’ for people to ‘flourish’, I put leaders at the ‘heart’ of organisations, I encourage ideas to ‘spread like viruses’, I ‘diagnose’ issues with them when the organisation ‘hiccoughs’ and I provide ‘antidotes’ to what I must perceive to be poisonous practices.

I also quite often use negative connotations, suggesting organisations and organisation development are instruments of domination and coercive control: OD ‘drives’ the culture (as if driving a team of horses, perhaps?) and ‘spurs’ people on, it has change ‘targets’, I talk of humans being treated as ‘puppets’, manager and employee as ‘servant and master’ and that managers deploy ‘tricks’ to get things done.

And sometimes I refer to organisations as if they were machines: employee engagement is one of the ‘engines’ of organisational effectiveness, leaders pull ‘levers’ to ‘lock in’ changes and are themselves the ‘lubrication’ that ensures the organisation operates smoothly.

That is not to say organisations literally are organisms, instruments of coercion or machines. But they can exhibit characteristics that are like those things. Next time you are describing your organisation or OD approach, what metaphor are you using? What metaphor do others use, particularly influential people like the CEO? And how might these metaphors be denying other possible interpretations?

OD thought leader: Gareth Morgan

Gareth Morgan wrote the definitive guide to organisational metaphor, categorising and exemplifying eight archetypal metaphors for organisations:

Archetype	Words used include
Machine	Efficiency, waste, order, clockwork, operations, re-engineering
Organism	Living systems, life cycles, evolution, fitness, health, adaption, malaise
Brain	Learning, mindset, feedback, knowledge, networks
Culture	Values, beliefs, rituals, diversity, tradition, history, vision, family
Political system	Power, hidden agendas, authority, toe the line, gatekeepers, Star Chamber
Psychic prison	Regression, denial, Parent/Child, ego, defence mechanism, dysfunction, coping, pain
Flux and transformation	Change, flow, self-organisation, emergent, paradox, complexity, VUCA
Instrument of domination	Compliance, charisma, coercion, corporate interest, alienation

He suggests metaphor is a simple tool that can help leaders and OD practitioners effect change and solve seemingly intractable problems that require adaptive thinking from people right across and down the organisation.

Next time: N is for Nudge Theory.

The A to Z of OD: D is for Design

Posted on June 18, 2018June 18, 2018 by Jeremy Lewis

I asked people to suggest topics for the series, and this topic was suggested by top HR influencer, Perry Timms. Thanks Perry. In earlier posts in this series, I outlined the importance of engaging hearts as well as minds when it comes to organisational change. This is the D is for Development angle of OD. While difficult to do, some might call it the softer edge of OD. But OD has a harder edge too. Today, D is for Design; organisational design. And that means we need to take a hard look at the dreaded restructure.

Three things they don’t tell you about restructuring your team

There is a well-trodden path of advice about planning your organisational restructure. Specialist organisation design consultants will advise you to consider:

The purpose of your restructure: to realign to the organisational vision perhaps, to become more flexible or simply to save money (see also: change from the inside-out)
The context against which you are restructuring: mergers or acquisitions, changes to the product or service offered or simply to save money (see also: change from the outside-in)
Organisation design principles: to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the structure.

This is all sensible stuff and only the principles might really need further specialist input.

These principles usually surround seemingly technical concepts including strategic alignment, accountability and empowerment, and the trade-off between coordination and specialisation. Don’t get me wrong, they can be very useful – I use them myself when consulting on restructuring – but they can over-complicate your approach, confuse you and run the risk of tying you up in knots.

What some specialists don’t tell you is that:

A successful restructure is an act of storytelling
It’s okay to sketch out your new structure on the back of a fag packet
Restructuring is only half the story.

LESSON 1: A successful restructure is an act of storytelling

Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.

Beginnings

The purpose of the beginning is to see the possibilities you have in restructuring. These possibilities are varied and nuanced, so sketch a few out and see how they feel. You might just want to remove or add a couple of posts, or you may prefer to start with a blank sheet of paper and reimagine your purpose, or you might only have a vague notion about things being different, a matrix structure perhaps, or even a whole new operating model.

LESSON 2: It’s okay to sketch out your new structure on the back of a fag packet

Middles

The next step is to engage people in your thinking. This is about testing out the sketches you have made. Talk to your peers, boss, HR team, and (if you can) the teams that will be affected.

If you need any specialist advice, it is likely to be now, but remember a few key principles can be achieved by making a simple checklist against which to test your ideas. For example, ask yourself:

Does every strategic goal have an owner (this ensures alignment to the vision or strategy)?
Will the structure ease workflow between departments (to ensure coordination of key organisational activities)?
Does any post report to more than one manager (removing this helps to ensure accountability)?
Etc.

Even more important is to hone the story at this point: what is the compelling reason for the restructure? Can you articulate your assumptions, are you prepared to open them to scrutiny and can you explain your thinking?

Endings

This stage is about implementing your chosen structure. You may notice that thus far we have attempted to keep it simple: your story is compelling; your structure has been sketched out and tested. The final hurdle is implementation. This often fails because the structure will not sustain itself in isolation.

LESSON 3: Restructuring is only half the story

Organisation development must go together with organisation design. Development without design runs the risk of becoming soft: the structure does not support the development efforts, which is a waste of money. Design without development however is a hard, empty vessel waiting to be filled with meaning. Organisation development completes the act of restructuring by turning ideas into actions that will fulfil the vision the design set out to achieve. It does this by locking in the changes. It does this by shifting the culture. You simply must have both organisation design and organisation development to succeed.

OD thought leader: Robert Dilts (1955 – )

Dilts developed an understanding of neurological levels at play when change is underway. These levels form a hierarchy from bottom to top: Environment at the bottom; Behaviour; Capability; Belief; and Identity at the top. Sometimes, there is a sixth level – Spirituality– added to the top of the hierarchy. This indicates there is a higher purpose than Identity, although for many this is a moot point.

The basic idea is that each level affects those below it, and not the other way around. Also, people often operate from only one level, which blocks their ability to change. You can tell at which level people are operating by the language they use.

The phrase “I can’t do that here” neatly encapsulates the hierarchy from top to bottom: I = Identity; Can’t = (limiting) Belief; Do = Capability; That = Behaviour; Here = Environment. Think of a change where you are blocked, then say, “I can’t do that here” to yourself. Which word creates a tug internally? That is the level you are operating from; that is the level where something needs to change.

Dilts’ levels are often used by coaches to help people in this way, or to move up the hierarchy and consider deeper, more meaningful reasons for change. It is a core part of the principles and practice of Neuro-Linguistic Programming: reprogramming our language can help us change. The model is particularly useful in reframing individual mindsets and hence aligning individual change with a higher purpose.

As such it is a very useful technique for organisation development practitioners too.

The messy job of restructuring, and how not to do it

Posted on February 13, 2017February 13, 2017 by Jeremy Lewis

First published on LinkedIn, December 2, 2016

Strategy informs structure, right?

Something needs to change. So, you convene a strategy session with your leadership team, commission some market research, and in a relatively short time frame, you’ve set your strategy. Logically, it is time to lift that off the page. You need to put the right team in place to deliver it. So, you sketch out a structure chart that will deliver it and then go about slotting names into places and recruiting for the gaps.

This is often the way of things. Organisations set their strategy and then create a structure that supports that strategy. On the face of it, this is eminently sensible. The goal of organisation design is to maximise the effectiveness of the organisation in serving its purpose. However, such formal structures are impacted by the informal structures, the power plays, the routines and the symbols of the existing culture. And culture itself tends to be either ignored or taken for granted when restructuring is underway.

Typically, leaders assume purpose informs strategy informs structure in a linear, predictable way. They draw a structure chart. Then they hire into that structure based on capability and expected cultural fit. And then names appear on the structure chart. Some new, some existing. And then the prevailing culture remains steadfastly in place, whether this was the intention or not. If the culture is out of alignment with the strategy and purpose, then the desired future will never be achieved.

Where should culture feature?

A better mindset going into restructuring acknowledges the causality between strategy, structure and culture is mutual. This means that the organisation design combines:

Appropriate formal and informal structures
The capabilities to deliver products/services
In a market where those products/services are valued
The internal machinations that serve the purpose.

In other words, structure, strategy and culture interdependently in alignment. It means aligning head, heart and hands.

This requires a different approach to restructuring, more of a configuration of the subsystems. Indeed, in his 1989 work Mintzberg on management, Henry Mintzberg suggests organisation design is more a LEGO construction than a jigsaw; a creation that goes beyond configuration.

Current theories and good practices in organisation design combine all the above. They advocate a forward-looking systems-based approach, coupled with an assumption of mutual causality between subsystems and hence a ‘beyond configuration’ approach to designing organisations.

So far, so good. However, I suggest this is only half the story.

Organisational change is culture change

I believe organisational change is culture change and so culture should be given special attention during change. I believe the first step in restructuring is to understand the past by considering culture and specifically how the organisation learns. What are the values, beliefs, behaviours and underlying mindset that collectively define the organisation? I then advocate using organisation development techniques to understand how the organisation got to where it is today by learning from its past. This will likely consider incrementalism, retrospective sense-making and the development of emergent strategies and structures. I tend to do this by facilitating workshops with leaders and then with managers and other members of staff to triangulate the findings.

Only then should leaders turn their attention to the future and sketch out some ideas for an appropriate organisation design. This inherently requires considering the mutual causality between strategy, structure and culture.

By reflecting on the backward-looking loop and engaging others in that reflective exercise, leaders will achieve a deeper understanding of where the organisation is today and what really needs to change to realise the desired future. And generally, it is not just names on a structure chart.

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

The Great Big Data Swindle: aka you don’t Grow the Pig by weighing it

Posted on January 23, 2017January 23, 2017 by Jeremy Lewis

First published in LinkedIn August 9, 2016

It’s not the quantity of data that’s important – it’s the way you use it that truly matters

– Matthew Sharp, Senior Hacker at LinkedIn

Weigh the pig

We all know (especially if you’ve ever listened to me ranting on about it) that you don’t Grow the Pig by weighing it. And yet everyone’s talking about Big Data. The truth is you should only measure what you can use.

The first example of Big Data dates as far back as William the Conqueror. His commission in 1086, twenty years after the invasion and defeat of the English in 1066, heralded the end of the Dark Ages. He commissioned the report to assess the extent of the land and resources owned in England so he could maximise the tax due. He needed the tax revenue to wage more war in northern France.

It took around a year to complete the data collection. Some 900+ years later, a vault in Kew holds the resulting two volumes. It really is an astonishing story. Commissioners were dispatched to create a comprehensive survey that would provide irrefutable evidence of every single landowner, villager, smallholder, tenant and slave, together with the extent of land owned, occupied and the livestock grazed upon it, as well as details of all buildings. Across the whole of England! It was said at the time that “there was no single…pig left out” (which seems apt here). Its definition as irrefutable fact led it to being named after the Christian tradition of Judgement Day, or Domesday, where every soul is laid bare for judgement.

Anyway, William the Conqueror knew how he was going to use his Big Data, to tax people. Ironically, he died before Domesday was completed. Do we know what Big Data is being collected for nowadays? Do you know why you would want to collect Big Data on your customers, processes, people, and what you are going to use it for?

Domesday today

At a societal level, here in the present day, governments and large corporations appear to be maintaining Domesday databases through Big Data. In fact, Big Data goes beyond databases. Those governments and large corporations managed it through interconnected networks using the power of the internet and social media. And now, instead of manually collecting all our data by hand in large ledgers, they do it automatically in these vast technology networks that track and model everything from simulating the outcome of referendums to predicting what you will do tomorrow based on your credit score, geographical location and shoe size. Ok, so I made that last bit up, but you get my drift.

Liz Ryan (CEO of the Human Workplace) observes that “when in doubt, fearful humans put their trust in data! (Bad choice)”. Should we put our trust in Big Data, or is it all a bit too much like Big Brother, all a bit too scary? Surely it is us who provide the data that makes Big Data scary. It’s scary not because the machines we have created are getting smarter, but because we are now processing information on such a scale it is impossible to keep track of it.

Paralysis by analysis

And the truth is that data will only go so far. The measurement of demographics, credit cores, shoe sizes, whatever, is useless. What matters is the interpretation of that data into meaningful decisions. Keep your data limited to what you can use to make effective decisions, and learn to use it, talk to your customers and staff and discuss it. Progress your collection to more sophisticated analytics when you need to, but avoid the pull to paralysis through information overload. Do not let the tail wag the dog, or the pig, for that matter.

(rant over)

Jeremy J Lewis

@growthepig

#growthepig is my philosophy of organisation design and development