Chapter 93: The State of Organization Development

David L. Bradford & W. Warner Burke

The state of organization development Today's leadership is basically about change. Developing technologies and emerging markets demand that executives be able to anticipate new directions and opportunities. This requires not only producing change, but also managing the turbulence that results. Organization development (OD) is about change and has the twin goals of planning and executing successful change while also increasing the organization's competence to handle future change. This should produce an alignment of goals where leaders would welcome the wisdom and competence that OD professionals bring. Yet, as observed in our recent book, Reinventing Organization Development (Bradford & Burke, 2005), very few executives use (or may even be aware of) OD. Instead, they rely heavily on the major consulting firms. Why are the latter at the executive table while OD is largely ignored or relegated to the bowels of the organization often within the human resources function? We asked In ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.

• Buy The Book