Bringing clarity to organizational development

While out and about, we often run into so many people who can help grow our businesses. One set that always leaves me asking for more clarity are those who say they do Organizational Development – OD. We found one person recently that put it best and wanted to share it with you. 

Presented to you by our guest blogger Dave Wakeman; a globally recognized expert in the areas of management and leadership.

The first question you are likely to ask when talking with an Organizational Development (OD) consultant is likely to be, “What exactly is it that you do?” As a practicing OD, my typical answer is that my primary goal in any client engagement is to ensure that you are better off than when we first started working together.

Since that is much too simple to be of any use to most of you, I want to tell you about three key ways that your OD will help you and how you can use this help to improve your business.

1. Clarify Your Issues: Many times when you are considering working with an OD, it is because you have some specific challenge that you want to overcome or that is becoming a persistent thorn in your side. This could be something like “sales have slowed,” “our marketing isn’t getting the traction that we need,” or any other obstacle your business might be facing.

When you sit down to talk with your OD, they are going to challenge your assumptions and the basis of why you have called with questions centered on, “why?”

2. Define Clear Goals and Objectives: Your OD should also be an active participant in helping you clarify what success in any project looks like. As leaders of our business, we can sometimes get lost in the details and are unclear about what big picture success will look like. Or, we might have numerous wants and desires that have no prioritization. In any case, the OD should help you clarify your goals and objectives of the project.

Your OD is going to help with this by asking you questions that revolve around how you view success on this project. And, most importantly, when you have conflicting priorities, the OD is going to help you flesh out which objective is really the most important and which one is best left as a lesser priority or deserves attention as its own project.

3. Provide You With Options and Solutions: Here is an important point: you never want to feel like you have no option, and this is probably true in every aspect of your life. When working with your OD, the really good ODs are going to give you at least three options for ways that you can handle your issue.

These options are important because they are going to allow you to make a decision that is a) consistent with solving your challenge, b) fits in your schedule, and c) offers you a way to make an investment that is consistent with the benefit your organization will see from the project. That is the kind of control that will make you feel much more comfortable working with your OD.

While the OD should give you options that reflect the ability to tailor the project to your schedule and budget, your OD should still be confident enough that the options are built around significant, measurable solutions that reflect the goals and objectives in tackling the challenge you outlined and uncovered at the beginning of your conversation.

The key point when talking with and working with an OD is that your consultant should act as a guide to the discovery of the root challenges you are facing and as an expert guide to creating interventions that produce dramatic improvements to the issues facing your organization.

You can find Dave Wakeman at www.davewakeman.com or via email at dave@davewakeman.com.