OD Seasonings
Volume 1, Number 3 • Summer 2005
From The Editor
Taking the “al” Out of OD
By W. Warner Burke
Only an academic could fret about such matters, I suppose, but practice
is equally important to me. And getting the meaning of our practice right
reduces ambiguity about what we do or need to be doing. Moreover, reducing
ambiguity about our practice is helpful to clients. So it’s organization
development not organizational development.
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the Burke article >>
Change Management as Problem Finding
and Problem Solving
By Fred Nickols
Problem solving offers a useful framework for thinking about change
and the change management process. As this article will show, the structures
of the two processes are similar and questions concerning means, ends
and means-end relationships are common to both. Moreover, these questions
receive differing emphasis depending on the organizational placement of
the person asking them (i.e., whether the person is in a core, buffer
or perimeter unit, or is a member of staff or senior management).
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the Nickols article >>
Challenges Facing The Field Of Organization Development
(An Academic Perspective)
By Glenn H. Varney
For the past several years, professionals, practitioners, and academics
have been abuzz with concerns about the life expectancy of Organization
Development. These concerns have been expressed by many loyal and devoted
professionals in the field, but especially by academics who have a strong
commitment to the foundations upon which OD has thrived and grown. These
foundations are deeply rooted in academy, where the founders of OD worked
and lived.
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the Varney article >>
Scaring Myself into Clarity
By Kenny Moore
I work for a Fortune 500 energy company and when confronted with deregulation,
we merged and acquired our way to success. A few years back, my company
went through a difficult merger and I had a first-hand experience of why
most of them fail, namely that behind every merger are resentful employees.
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the Moore article >>
Book Reviews
Reviewer: Don Bushnell
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman
The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations
that Matter by Juanita Brown with David Isaacs and Associates
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the Book Reviews >>