4 Powerful Words

I was out for dinner with friends last night. Sid spent some time talking about his former boss who had just moved on to another company. His work experience over the past two years has been frustrating. Sid has well over twenty years experience in HR - mostly within the Organizational Development space.

He was hired for his experience.

He was hired for his expertise.

And in two years, his boss never once asked the question: "What do you think?"

I'm sure the irony was lost on his boss. Organizational Development is designed to improve the performance of individuals across the organization. Much of the time it means finding a way to allow everyone to contribute at a higher level. It means nurturing individuals' commitment to people, projects, strategies, operations, customers...

And all that starts by asking the question: "What do you think?".

Because until you're willing to ask the question (and listen to the answer), you're not going to organizationally develop anything.

Engagement begins with engaging.

Until you're ready to give people resonsibilities instead of defining jobs, you're not ready for Organization Development. Don't even start.

Because giving people responsibilities, means giving them a say. It means allowing them the freedom to achieve, to excel (and to fail and to learn and to grow).

The Battle of O.D. vs. A.D.D.

Many would argue that the I.T. function became more effective after the development of Steering Teams - regular participation by company leaders discussing and debating technology policies and systems development.

The more involved senior leaders are with an initiative, department or function the more commitment, understanding and the sharper the strategic focus. It's all about alignment, expectations and buy-in. And regular exposure to the I.T. function helps foster that.

So why don't we do the same thing with Organizational Development? For many HR departments, the O.D. team is comprised of hybrid "skunkworks" HR people who don't administer policy, explain benefits or manage compensation..

They're out there in the lines of business, working as missionaries, trying to develop momentum behind the principles of succession planning, employee development and nurturing great employee performance.

But these plans seem to be developed within the bowels of HR - then sold to various constituencies within the organization. They act (and are treated) as service providers rather than partners.

Unfortunately for us all, OD efforts are often times seen as the "project of the week" instead of an ongoing (and critical) business process.

It's a battle of O.D. vs. corporate A.D.D. (attention deficit disorder).

From an I.T. perspective, I think we could benefit from a much higher degree of collaboration between I.T. and the O.D. folks. After all, achieving the benefits of systems deployment is almost entirely dependent on how well our employees understand our processes and use the systems. The O.D. team can make a big difference in system acceptance, change management, training and individual performance improvement.

But we aren't at the table.

Because there IS no table.

I'd rather dovetail I.T. user training and performance improvement within a corporate framework/strategy rather than do it independently. We aren't great communicators. We aren't great trainers. We could use your help to improve our performance.

Perhaps we could begin with an O.D. steering team?

Until then, let's have lunch.