A631.7.4.RB_SienkiewiczRaymond

Having been through the full series of classes on organizational development, while the concepts that were presented may well prove helpful on the job as we look for ways to do more with what we have (or less), the irony of the relatively young OD field doesn't escape me: it aims to help organizations develop themselves, but the field itself is made up of multiple methodologies and frameworks that I think will likely undergo changes and development to meet the needs of those who call upon it. After all, even Brown states "OD is a growing, developing, and changing field of study...The field of OD is currently and will likely always in in transition if it is to remain relevant" (Brown, 2011). I would summarize the notion as, change is the very nature of the field.

While I foresee continued growth and changes, I also see in that a steady future for the field. Considering how lean management and continuous improvement seem to have taken root in most any conversation on how businesses can improve, and how often companies seem to be changing their posture based on the health of the economy or consumer demand, OD is not going away. For that matter, I don't believe that OD is so much a "thing" that can go away like an obsolete piece of technology, but rather it is something woven into the framework of any company or organization that succeeds or continues to succeed...it is that recognition and that call to action when leaders, subordinates, or anyone with the initiative to call out an impending hazard recognizes that something within their system is broken and needs to be fixed, or there's an opportunity on the horizon that demands pursuit and thus a course change for the organization. All that has really been done with the formal OD title, I think, is giving a name and something of a semi-tangible framework for the idea.

That isn't to say there are no issues with said framework. As Brown noted in his chapter on the future of OD, the current fluidity of the field presents the lack of accepted core professional knowledge, a lack of certification, and the inherent complications that come with an emphasis on human behavior factors. As it stands now, the current framework also doesn't necessarily lend itself well to situations that demand rapid change (Brown, 2011). OD may also be helped by the fact there are other established frameworks on management and team building that can be utilized, such as bearing in mind the principles of what characterizes a high performance team, as well as the principles of setting SMART goals and Everest goals (Cameron and Whetten, 2011), principles established enough that you can find some of them on the Human Resources page of institutes such as MIT, or see correlations in military training manuals.

Ultimately though, I cannot pretend to accurately forecast where OD may go. There is no telling where the global economy and the companies influenced by it will head, let alone if the organizations of tomorrow will fit into any framework similar to what exists now, nor can I tell how much our culture may change in a world that now seems to be constantly wired in, on the move, and seemingly striving to keep doing more. I doubt it is a passing fad, and it very well could be a field whose existence is constant yet what it is will always change. Particularly with the trend of a globalized marketplace floating around more then ever, I see a lot of ways in which macrosystem and interpersonal trends can become increasingly prevalent, and the ongoing press for empowered individuals and companies that do unusual things for the employee's good, such as Google or SAS, highlights where we could we a continuation of individual trends. Now being aware of these concepts of OD, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out beyond the pages of the text and within the context of the real world and its seemingly infinite variables...

Resources

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.  

Learning & Development -- Important Steps When Building a New Team (n.d.). In MIT Human Resources. Retrieved December 8, 2013, from http://hrweb.mit.edu/learning-development/learning-topics/teams/articles/new-team

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011). Developing Management Skills (8th ed.). Uppder Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.