Organizational Development

Originating in the late 1950s and early 1960s, organizational development—or frequently "organization development"—focuses on the "human side" of corporations rather than on the scientific management side (see Management Theory, People-Centered and Management Theory, Process-Centered). Building on the socio-technical systems theory of Emery and Trist in England (which studied people, technology, and processes), the social psychology of Kurt Lewin, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow in America, and the humanist experiments of Elton Mayo (see Hawthorne Effect), OD champions a view of workers as active participants in organizations rather than as links in a passive assembly line. Expanding Training and Development's traditional mandate of developing individual staff members, OD takes as its province the development of entire organizations. One way to view OD initially, in fact, is to see it as being a complement to the traditional view of training; here is a listing of the two, side by side:

Training	Organizational Development
Tactical teachers	Strategic consultants
Deliver courses	Facilitate groups
Trainer	Change agent (change management)
Build individual skills	Build teams, resolve conflicts
Hold classes	Carry out interventions
Lower level audience	Executive audience
Ad hoc events	Long-term relationships
Reactive	Proactive
Target knowledge	Target change

Having said this for purposes of differentiation, we should probably add that the two worlds are now fast coming together because of their common goal of "performance improvement." Entire HR departments are now calling themselves departments of organizational development, with their mandate being employee development as well as "organizational" development.

Fastpaths

Best Introduction:

• W. Warner Burke: Organizational Development: A Process of Learning and Changing (1993, available in a more recent edition).

Best Series:

• Addison-Wesley series on Organization Development (started by Beckhard and Schein in the 1960s).

Best History of Movement:

• Marvin Weisbord: Productive Workplaces (1987), including chapter on "McGregor and the Roots of Organization Development." An inspired introduction to the rise of modern management theories and organizational development from Taylor's scientific management through Kurt Lewin's OD to McGregor's humanistic management and to more recent trends. Highly recommended for all performance consultants, instructional designers, and human performance technologists. One of the clearest books in the field, and written with passion, empathy, and understanding. Not only is Weisbord's book the best critical history of the OD movement, but it also highlights some surprising similarities between OD and earlier Taylorism.

Rapid History of the Movement as a Whole:

1911	Frederick Taylor: Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor's theory is typical of the old-line mechanistic view of organizations that OD initially reacted against (instead following in the footsteps of such thinkers and theorists as Kurt Lewin).
1951	Kurt Lewin: Field Theory in Social Science. Organization development is Lewin's living monument, and this book shows why. Lewin anticipates all the major themes of OD: team building, leadership styles, participative management, consultation skills, and change management (see Fastpaths 1987, Weisbord).
1959	Fred Emery: The Emergence of a New Paradigm of Work.
1960	Douglas McGregor: The Human Side of Enterprise.
1963	Eric Trist: Organizational Choice.
1964	Peter Drucker: Managing for Results. Vintage Drucker.
1964	Victor Vroom: Work and Motivation.
1965	Edgar Schein: Organizational Psychology.
1969	Richard Beckhard: Organization Development: Strategies and Models.
1969	Edgar Schein: Process Consultation: Its Role in Organization Development.
1969	Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard: Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources.
1970	Robert Townsend: Up the Organization. A delightfully lighthearted and iconoclastic look at organizations. Recommended reading still.
1972	Fred E. Emery and Russell Ackoff: On Purposeful Systems.
1972	Wendell French and Cecil Bell: Organization Development: Behavioral Science Interventions for Organization Improvement.
1977	Jay Galbraith: Organization Design.
1978	Donald Schon and C. Argyris: Organizational Learning I and II.
1978	Wendell French (ed.): Organization Development: Theory, Practice, and Research.
1978	Marvin Weisbord: Organizational Diagnosis: A Workbook of Theory and Practice.
1981	Peter Block: Flawless Consulting.
1982	W. Warner Burke Organization Development: Principles and Practices.
1983	Rosabeth Kanter: The Change Masters. Kanter studies the potential for entrepreneurship inside large corporations.
1987	James Kouzes and B. Posner: The Leadership Challenge.
1987	Marvin Weisbord: Productive Workplaces.
1987	Michael Harrison: Diagnosing Organizations.
1988	David Hanna: Designing Organizations for High Performance.
1990	Richard Pascale: Managing on the Edge: How the Smartest Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead.
1991	Lee Bolman and T. Deal: Reframing Organizations.
1993	Richard Pascale et al.: "The Reinvention Roller Coaster," Harvard Business Review (November–December 1993). Urges organizational audits, shifting organizational "context," and engineering organizational "breakdowns" in order to move beyond incrementalism.
1993	W. Warner Burke: Organizational Development: A Process of Learning and Changing. Excellent introduction.
1994	Wendell French et al.(eds): Organizational Development and Transformation: Managing Effective Change.
1995	William Rothwell (ed.): Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Consultants.
2000	Jerry W. Gilley: Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change: An Introduction to Strategic Human Resource Development.
2001	Jay Shafritz and J. Ott (eds.): Classics of Organization Theory.

McGregor and Beckhard, building on the work of Lewin and others, reportedly coined the term "organizational development" in 1958.

See also Action Learning Management Theory, People-Centered