48 PART 1 Overview of Organization Development

of OD practitioner—one with a greater diversity of values, skills, and experience than

a traditional practitioner.

COMPETENCIES OF AN EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATION

DEVELOPMENT PRACTITIONER
The literature about OD competencies reveals a mixture of personality traits, experiences,
knowledge, and skills presumed to lead to effective practice. For example, research on
the characteristics of successful change practitioners yields the following list of attributes
and abilities: diagnostic ability, basic knowledge of behavioral science techniques, empa-
thy, knowledge of the theories and methods within the consultant’s own discipline,
goal-setting ability, problem-solving ability, ability to perform self-assessment, ability to
see things objectively, imagination, flexibility, honesty, consistency, and trust.6 Although
these qualities and skills are laudable, there has been relatively little consensus about
their importance to effective OD practice.
Two projects currently seek to define, categorize, and prioritize the skills and knowl-
edge required of OD practitioners. In the first effort, a broad and growing list of well-
known practitioners and researchers are asked to review and update a list of professional
competencies. The most recent list has grown to 187 statements in nine areas of OD
practice, including entry, start-up, assessment and feedback, action planning, inter-
vention, evaluation, adoption, separation, and general competencies.7 The statements
range from “staying centered in the present, focusing on the ongoing process” and
“understanding and explaining how diversity will affect the diagnosis of the culture” to
“basing change on business strategy and business needs” and “being comfortable with
quantum leaps, radical shifts, and paradigm changes.” Recent items added to the list
relate to international OD, large-group interventions, and transorganization skills.
To understand the relative importance of this long list, Worley and his colleagues col-
lected data from 364 OD practitioners.8 The average respondent had six–ten years of OD
experience, a master’s degree, and came from the United States. The results suggested
an underlying structure to the list. Twenty-three competencies were generated that
reflected both the skills and knowledge necessary to conduct planned change processes
and the individual characteristics necessary to be an effective OD practitioner. Similar
to other lists, the competencies included the ability to evaluate change, work with
large-scale change efforts, create implementation plans, and manage diversity. One of
the more surprising results, however, was the emergence of “self mastery” as the most
important competence. The results supported the long-held belief that good OD practi-
tioners know themselves and that such knowledge forms the basis of effective practice.
The second project, sponsored by the Organization Development and Change
Division of the Academy of Management,9 seeks to develop a list of competen-
cies to guide curriculum development in graduate OD programs. More than 40 OD
practitioners and researchers worked to develop the two competency lists shown in
Table 3.1. First, foundation competencies are oriented toward descriptions of an exist-
ing system. They include knowledge from organization behavior, psychology, group
dynamics, management and organization theory, research methods, and business
practices. Second, core competencies are aimed at how systems change over time. They
include knowledge of organization design, organization research, system dynamics,
OD history, and theories and models for change; they also involve the skills needed to
manage the consulting process, to analyze and diagnose systems, to design and choose
interventions, to facilitate processes, to develop clients’ capability to manage their own
change, and to evaluate organization change.
The information in Table 3.1 applies primarily to people specializing in OD as a pro-
fession. For them, possessing the listed knowledge and skills seems reasonable, espe-
cially in light of the growing diversity and complexity of interventions in OD. Gaining