OD Seasonings
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Volume 7, Number 1 • Winter 2010
From The Editor
What Is Your Legacy?
By Bev Scott
I recently found myself in conversation with a friend discussing the book I am updating for a second edition. I commented that updating the book had not been a part of my plan for my third act, but it was a professional legacy I could leave. That conversation started me thinking more about my legacy and how I might use my third act to create and define that legacy. I use the term “the third act” to refer to that time after we transition from building a career and/or growing a family (our second act) into an intentionally designed stage in our lives which brings us meaning and purpose, opportunity to engage in our passions, time to reflect and enjoy the everyday pleasures and a sense of appreciation and gratitude for the learning, growth and rewards of our lives. It may mean taking traditional retirement from a job, re–committing to continue a rewarding career but with more balance, starting a new business or becoming a volunteer. The third act is staged and directed by each of us with our own “story”. It begins for most of us sometime between ages 50 and 75.
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My Journey in Organization Development: A Changing Adventure
By Kenneth Jones
I began my journey in the field of Organization Development (OD) as a 21–year old, first–year PhD student in Organizational Psychology in the fall or 1972 at The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I can only say that I was young and naïve. I refer to myself as young because I was only 21; naïve because my professors and mentors were the “Giants” in the field of OD and I had no clue. I was studying with such gurus as Bob Kahn, Dan Katz, Basil Georgopoulos, Bob Kaplan, Stan Seashore, Dave Bowers, Ron Lippitt, and others too numerous to name. I had no idea that I had the wisdom of some of the founding fathers at my disposal. I also would later meet and become a partner with Kathy Dannemiller, another giant in OD. What I did realize was that the field of OD was a fascinating, new, important and effective application of human behavior principles that I had been studying as an undergraduate. The difference was that this approach applied these principles to human behavior in groups or in entire organizations. I knew that this new approach would shape the rest of my life in ways that I could not yet imagine.
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Reflections on the Field of OD Change, and My Path
By Linda Ackerman Anderson
I have been practicing OD and change leadership since 1976, nearly 34 years. I love this field, and I love the people it attracts. My partner, Dean Anderson, and I co–founded Being First, Inc.—the name reinforced by this field’s legitimacy of addressing the whole human being as well as organizational effectiveness. Over the years, I have travelled the highs and the lows of doing this work both as an internal consultant and since 1981, as an external. I have worked mostly in large organizations in the private sector, public sector, and non–profits.
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Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results
By Geoffrey Bellman and Kathleen Ryan
Reviewed by Don Bushnell
This new release by Jossey–BassWiley offers a practical set of questions, exercises, and insights into what it takes to create a high performance group. The authors suggest that exceptional team development is not just a lucky coincidence. By applying different insights and principles of self–awareness and group dynamics, Bellman and Ryan guide us in understanding how intentional we need to be if we want to create exceptional work teams. The central focus is the presentation of a Group Needs Model developed by the authors from their experience through many years of consulting.
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