Page 171 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Organization Change and Development

Notes

Notes To minimize these risks, Harrison suggests two criteria for determining the
appropriate depth of intervention:
First to intervene at a level no deeper than that required to produce enduring solutions to
the problems at hand; and, second, to intervene at a level no deeper than that at which the
energy and resources of the client can be committed to problem solving and to change.
Another way of viewing depth of intervention might be to think about the performance of
units by descending order of systems and subsystems. Data about the behavior and
performance of the total organisation are perhaps the most accessible and the least personal
and perhaps create the least personal anxiety and defensiveness. Performance and behavior
data about me in an organisation are perhaps the least accessible and the most personal.

12.6 Consultant as a Model

Another important issue is whether change agents are willing and able to practice what preach.
In the area of feelings.

Example: The consultant maybe advocating a more open system in which feelings are
considered legitimate and their expression important to effective problem solving and at the
same time suppressing his or her own feelings about what is happening in the client system.

Consultant Team as a Microcosm

The consultant-key client viewed as a team or consultants working as a team can be profitably
if viewed as a microcosm of the organisation they are trying to create. In the first place, the
consultant team must set an example of an effective unit if the team is to enhance its credibility.
Second, practitioners need the effectiveness that comes from continuous growth and renewal
processes and third, the quality of the interrelationships with the consulting team carries over
directly into the quality of their diagnosis their intervention designs, and their interventions
designs, and their interventions.

12.7 Action Research and the OD Process

A related issue is whether the OD process itself will be subject to the ongoing action search being
experienced by the client system process, the change agents and the organisation will not learn
how to make the future OD interventions more effective.

Dependency Issue and Terminating the Relationship

If the consultant is in the business of enhancing the client system’s abilities in problem living
and renewal, then the consultant is in the business of assisting the client to internalize skill sand
insights rather than to create a prolonged dependency relationship. This issue tends to be minor,
however, if the consultant and the client work out the expert versus facilitator issued scribed
earlier and if the consultant subscribes to the notion that OD should be a shared technology. The
facilitator role, we believe, creates less dependency and more client growth than the traditional
consulting modes the notion of a shared technology leads to rapid learning on the part of the
client.

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