MassBay Organization Development Learning Blog

Three Simple Steps to Learn About Careers in Organization Development

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by Clarissa Sawyer

Our Careers in OD event on April 28, 2011, was described as exciting, encouraging, and supportive. A number of participants wondered how to learn more about the field of organization development.  Here are some suggestions:

• Read overviews of the field: 
  • Wikipedia gives an overview of the origins, concepts, and important figures (such as Chris Argyris--still living and now a partner at Monitor--and Don Schon, with whom I studied.)
  • The OD Network is the national membership organization for the field, and provides free information about OD.
  • The OD Institute has a web portal with good free content.

• Learn key OD competencies by examining required courses in the top programs.  For example,  National Training Labs, founded by Kurt Lewin and who is considered the "grandfather" of OD in the US, is one of the top ranked provider of professional education in OD.  They offer certificate programs and a Master's degree through American University.  Look at the requirements for their OD certificate program and their degree to get an idea of competencies you need to know. 

Pepperdine and the Fielding Graduate Institute also have good reputations.

MIT Sloan School's Executive MBA program makes a good compare/contrast that allows you to see what overlaps (leadership, managerial competence, methods of analysis), and what does not.   OD programs have much more in depth training in organizations, designing consulting engagements, and interventions, for example.

In my view, some of the key areas of knowledge are: 

• History of the field
• Main kinds of activities and skills 
• Understanding an organization as a system; and hallmarks of whole system, organizational, team, and individual health.
• The steps in an OD engagement, such as:
• Contracting with your client (understanding who is your client and assessing their needs). 
• Assessment methods that help you gather information so you can discover what is going on, using both qualitative research methods (interviews, observation, document analysis) and quantitative methods (statistics and survey design).
• Feeding back results of the assessment to create awareness and agreement about what the issues are.  To do this you need to know how to organize and communicate the results of your assessment as part of a collaborative, interactive  working session conducted in person or virtually.
• Types of Interventions for creating change; how to select and customize interventions (individual, team, large systems; understanding yourself as the primary instrument of intervening in a system).
• Carrying out Interventions (and understanding the dynamics that can derail and enable success). 
• Evaluating results and determining ROI.
• Ethical Issues

• Find content to help you learn these competencies.
  • Books you might be able to find in libraries (MBODLG; Boston Business Library, interlibrary loan through your town library):
    • The Handbook of OD Process by Cummings
    • Organization Development and Change by Cummings and Worley
    • The National Training Labs Handbook of Organization Development

• MIT's FREE opensource courses include a number that are relevant--research methods, managerial psychology, leadership lab, systems dynamics, managing innovation. 

Did you find this helpful?  Please comment below.  Would you be interested in a meeting to help you create a roadmap for navigating your transition into OD?  Please email me at clarissa.sawyer@mbodlg.org.