The Evolution of an Employee-Training Program

The approach to organization development (OD) that is described in this article is offered as an alternative to a more traditional scientific methodology that has been viewed critically by Beer and Walton and by Burke. According to these researchers, OD projects should place emphasis on long-term involvements with organizations and include contextual variables and system dynamics in the research design. Intuitive skills should be used to sense and observe ongoing changes in the organization that influences the OD work. Flexibility of planned interventions must be a vital part of this process. The article describes the ongoing work of an OD consultant in a rapidly growing service organization ( N ~ 130) during the past 3 years. Bullock and Batten's theoretical framework was used to conduct OD interventions. The article follows the client-consultant relationship from entry to the first diagnosis, first interventions, evaluations of these interventions, and the continuation of this cycle to the current status of the work. Issues addressed in the article include (a) client and consultant goal compatibility, (b) power issues in top management, (c) the need to recognize constraints on the client from its constituents, (d) the readiness of these constituents to accept a new work philosophy, and (e) the need to sense the organization's culture carefully in order to synchronize intraorganizational events, external events, and specific OD interventions.