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The Accelerating Pace of Organizational Change
In the past, large companies reorganized on predictable cycles—every seven years, then five, then three. However, the arrival of new technologies in the 1980s turned restructuring into an annual event. By the 1990s, the pace of change had accelerated to a point where mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations were constant. This non-stop transformation meant that by the time a traditional consulting report was written, the business environment had already changed, rendering the advice obsolete.
The Limits of Traditional Action Research
My early consulting practice was built on the action research methods of Kurt Lewin. This model involved a collaborative diagnosis between consultant and client to identify gaps between "what is" and "what should be." The primary tools for closing these gaps included:
- Team-building exercises
- Intergroup meetings
- Survey feedback
- Problem-solving task forces
- Skills training
The goal was to create "learning organizations" through years of persistent intervention, starting with a committed leader and cascading change through the top team. We aimed to improve processes, build trust, and ultimately achieve better financial results.
The Flaw in the "Fix the People" Approach
By the 1980s, it became clear that this approach had a fundamental limitation. We were trying to alter complex systems by focusing on individuals and their behaviors. However, improving a system means changing its dysfunctional policies, procedures, and structures in response to new markets and technologies.
You cannot fix the system by simply trying to fix the people. Employees often possessed skills and experience they were unable to use because they lacked any real influence on the rules of the game. They resisted "flavor-of-the-month" training programs because they knew the core problems were systemic.
A Paradigm Shift: From Diagnosis to Direct Experience
The essential challenge became finding methods that enabled everyone to share responsibility for the whole organization. This required a shift from expert-led diagnosis to methods that involve all stakeholders in strategic planning and work design.
The Power of "The Whole System in the Room"
Instead of diagnosing a problem from the outside, the new approach involves bringing people together across levels and functions to solve it directly. In one factory visit, a production delay blamed on "lazy workers" was found to be a packaging issue. By getting the package designer, a marketing executive, a buyer, and a line worker in the same conversation, a problem that caused an eight-hour changeover was identified and resolved in an hour.
This method not only solves the problem efficiently but also improves relationships and builds trust without any need for specific conflict management training. The key is to have the people who know the work jointly discover and implement the solution.
From Systems Thinking to Systems Experiencing
While "systems thinking"—understanding concepts like entropy and environmental demands—is useful, it remains abstract. A more powerful approach is "systems experiencing." Every member of a company is an expert on their own experience, holding one piece of a complex puzzle.
When you get enough of these individuals in one room, they can assemble the puzzle and see patterns that no single person could have identified alone. This collective experience allows the entire group to learn more about their system in a few hours than anyone could learn in years of working in isolation.
New Principles for Modern Organization Development
This shift led to a simpler, more powerful practice based on a new set of guiding principles:
- Little or no diagnosis is required to stimulate constructive action. When people develop a shared understanding of their current reality and a compelling vision of the future, they naturally begin to act.
- Systems can transform their capability for action in days, not years. Intensive, large-group planning meetings can create more constructive change than a year of conventional team-building and task forces.
- Little action planning is needed to get people moving together. Once people experience the whole system together and align on a direction, they know what to do.
The Future of OD: Capitalizing on the Present
There will always be a need for experts and group problem-solving. However, to thrive in an age of non-stop change, leaders must learn to get everybody involved in improving the whole. Methods like Future Search, which get the "whole system in the room" for a few days, can eliminate the need for hundreds of other meetings.
The past is gone and the future never arrives. All meaningful change happens in the present. Your next meeting is the best opportunity you have to bring people together, capitalize on their collective experience, and change your world. '''