Organization Development is an umbrella term for the processes I use to help organizations recover from the ill effects of downsizing.  I recently responded to a question on the IO psychology site on LinkedIn.  The question was “What is OD anyway?”  It asked how it differed from OE and OI.  Here is the answer I posted.

 Like all labels, Organization Development, Organizational Transformation, Organizational Effectiveness, Organizational Improvement, and Organizational Behavior, are subject to a number of interpretations and perceptions.  There are some basic differences.  Organizational Behavior is an academic discipline and usually a course taught in MBA programs.  OI and OE usually have a measurement and objective productivity improvement orientation.  OT (organizational transformation) was somewhat of a flash in the pan in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

 Organization Development – it is “organization” not “organizational” development, reached its peak popularity in the sixties and seventies.   It involves using an “intervention” to change an organizational system.  One common definition is “planned change.”   The classic reference is a 1970 a book by Chris Argyris called “Intervention Theory and Method: A Behavioral Science View” Argyris also laid the foundation for most of the concepts of what is now called organizational learning as more popularly articulated by Peter Senge.

OD in its pure form is based on a set of core values.  Words like collaborative, non-hierarchical, open, democratic, and humanistic, have been used to describe these values.  Interventions usually take the form of team-building, survey-feedback, processes, appreciative inquiry, and many other techniques.  Where OD differs from OI and OE is in its humanistic and value base.   In the early years a core technique was sensitivity training.

 As in all disciplines, there are various schools of OD.  Some remain grounded in the 60’s mantra of love, trust, openness, and collaboration.  There is a school of large systems intervention which involves getting many people and many perspectives aligned into a total systems change effort.  Recently, there is a cult of measurement that really blends into some of the OE and OI stuff. 

 There are Masters and Doctoral programs in OD and, they too, vary in their focus.  There are more than a few clinical psychologists in the field and there is some debate as to where OD (systems approach) and psychology (individual approach) compliment or cancel each other out.  Recently, many OD consultants have moved into executive coaching, both because they can make money doing it, and because it often compliments system-wide approaches.

 A large number of past OD consultants operated outside formal organizations, usually as individual practitioners or as a part of small groups.  There are now many internal OD consultants, but there is debate as to whether an internal can be as effective as an external and how someone can change a system of which they are a part.  The best practice seems to be a blend of internal and external practitioners

 Although OD has been criticized as “soft” and  too “touchy-feely,” most people who have experienced the work of a quality practitioner see their intervention as an extremely powerful and meaningful part of their lives.  OD, done well, is very powerful.  When working with organizations to help layoff survivors return to productive and meaningful work, I use OD techniques.  

 Many practitioners don’t use the term OD when they contract with clients.  This is because the term carries too much baggage from cynical managers and from non-professional practitioners.  I have both a Master’s and a doctorate in the field and very seldom use the term in my work.

Many organizations forget that people in supervisory roles are also employees and not immune to survivor issues simply because they manage others.  “Physician, heal thyself,” is the rule and for those in leadership roles, the first priority is to deal with their own survivor issues. The next thing they need to do is help their employees.

 Leadership in a time of paradigm change is more of a helping relationship than of command and control management. Leaders in many organizations find themselves in a bind. The only way to deal with the emotional blockage that constitutes survivor sickness is to get employees to talk about their feelings, yet this necessary catharsis is seen by many organizations as disloyal or coddling employee complaining. 

 To be effective a boss needs to have the courage to take a risk.  In some organizations this has taken the form of group meetings that stimulate frank discussions of feelings and emotions.  Others have required supervisors to have one-on-one meetings with employees and listen to their feelings.  In my experience the most difficult activity is listening and not getting defensive.  In many situations, managers need to be trained in basic listening, empathy, and reflection skills.  This training has a dual effect:  it helps the boss to deal with his issues and equips her to help her employees. 

 Sponsoring special programs that help leaders develop the skills and perspectives to lead downsized organizations is a unique opportunity for both HR professionals and top managers.  Managers of all levels are employees too, and because of their key role in helping the organization recover, special attention needs to be paid to their own recovery from survivor sickness.

Gunnysacking is a term for storing up hurt feelings, anger, affronts, and unresolved conflicts, and, when the weight of the psychological gunnysack becomes too heavy to bear, unloading it, often to an inappropriate degree in an inappropriate context.  We all gunnysack to some extent but, most psychologically healthy people find ways to keep their bags relatively light.  Unfortunately, organizational leaders are not immune to gunnysacking. 

I have discovered that a surprising number operate for many years under the oppressive burden of a heavy bag and use a crisis mode of operation as an authorization to unleash long repressed feelings of anger and frustration by figuratively beating their fellow employees about the head with their overloaded gunnysacks.  In layoffs this takes the form of those in power “getting” both functions and people that frustrated them in the past but were protected by a more tolerant organizational culture.  A newly promoted general manager, for example, used the downsizing culture as a way to “get” some long term rivals in the marketing function. 

 Gunnysacking is unhealthy for both the leaders who practice it and for the prognosis of organizational survival.  Leaders who see it happening need to move quickly and stop it. They need to help those wielding those heavy bags find better ways to lighten them. If that won’t work, they need to carefully consider the costs in terms of productivity and morale, of retaining people who are more concerned with pursuing a personal vendetta than helping the organization recover.  If, in the heat of the battle for organizational survival, you are tempted to form a coalition to “get” a person or a function for the wrong reasons, resist it. It won’t help you, the person you are targeting, or, most importantly, the organization.  If you find yourself the victim of gunnysacking, don’t try to get even; that only compounds the problem.  Try to discover what past event lies unresolved in the other person’s bag and muster up the courage to directly confront the issue.  Gunnysacking is alive and well in today’s downsized organizations.  Effective leaders need to move rapidly to confront it and personally refuse to succumb to its temptations.

Most managers got where they are by excelling in the classical managerial “ings” of planning, organizing, controlling, evaluating, and directing. The overwhelming consensus of research is that today’s organizations are populated by employees exhibiting the symptoms of layoff survivor sickness: a toxic combination of anger, fear, anxiety, and frustration.  They don’t work harder because they feel lucky to have a job; they hunker down in the trenches and respond with much lowered productivity. They don’t automatically snap back.  They need help, and that help does not take the form of increased control, direction, or evaluation.  In over a quarter century of working with organizations attempting to rebound from layoff survivor sickness, I have yet to hear an employee describe her or his best boss as being the best director, controller, or evaluator.  In times of organizational stress and turmoil, the best bosses are described as those who are good listeners, have the ability to form empathetic relationships, and possess coaching skills.  

Training line managers in basic helping skills – empathetic listening, non-judgmental reflection of feelings, and coaching – is enormously beneficial in facilitating a return to productivity. It has a dual benefit: it equips managers with the tools necessary to authentically communicate and re-recruit their employees, and it helps them deal with their own layoff survivor symptoms.   There are four conditions that will insure this training reaches its potential:

• Trainers need to make a strong link between the application of helping skills and an increase in productivity. This insures managerial motivation.
• Role plays and cases should be specific to the organization, its products, and culture.  Managers have a low tolerance for artificiality in today’s environment.  
• Although the workshop is intended to give managers skills to apply to their employees, managers will concurrently be dealing with their own survivor issues. Trainers should expect and be skilled at processing emotions and venting. If this does not happen, it is a sign that something is not working.
• Video taping individual role plays is exceptionally powerful. Processing individual tapes in a group environment provides rich learning and builds positive norms. 

A recent client went into a mini-tirade in a meeting.  He was “sick of all this soft, touchy-feely stuff” and implored his colleagues to “suck it up and get back to business.”  His outburst was a legacy of the old paradigm when there was a reaction to anything that was deemed “soft.” This included feelings, relationships, empathy, and anything that was “touchy-feely.” If you think about it, this is a strange norm, because being alive and human involves relationships, feelings, and connecting with others. However, the value was facts and figures—“hard” stuff! Even though such rock-ribbed disciplines as physics now report that facts are relative, the bias continues. Organizations still talk about human resources and training as the “soft” side of management. But not only are people issues as real as financial and production figures, they require just as much skill and strength. In addition, they require authenticity and the risk of self-disclosure. This is much “harder” than hiding behind a memo, a stack of figures, or a quantitative decision matrix. 

The most effective leaders in today’s era of downsizing are those who have the skills to authentically relate to their employees and engaging in a helping relationship.  So, I think that “touchy-feely” is, in fact, the currency of the realm for effective leadership

There are two purposes for survivor team building: (1) to build camaraderie so that when things turn around, employees are bound by the group and (2) to keep morale up during difficult times.  These can be “traditional,” organized by the company and professionally facilitated. I have found that when they are spontaneously developed by surviving employees themselves they can be much more fun and effective. Here are two examples:

 A group of computer programmers formed “The Dead Career Society,” a take off of the film starring Robin Williams, “The Dead Poet Society.”  They had regular meetings, shared rumors, “war stories,” and productively vented their survivor emotions. They are a tight group and, unless one has an exceptional opportunity, they will probably stay in the same firm when things improve.

 A group of HR people in Minnesota who survived several rounds of layoffs found an old duckboat – they were, after all, in Minnesota. They took it to an offsite retreat, put it on the lawn of the conference center, and crammed six people at a time – all the boat would hold – inside.  The remainder sat in a circle outside the boat. They all engaged in a spirited and sometimes physical – trying to pull people out of the boat – discussion.  The result was a much stronger team and the birth of the “We are all in the same boat – don’t forget to ‘duck’” metaphor.  Again, the group felt better and the members were able to be more productive in difficult times, and were also “bonded” so that they were attracted to the organization by their group affiliation and were less likely to leave.

A beleaguered manager expressed frustration at needing to work on all this “soft stuff” when his organization was imploding.  It is important that organizational leaders understand that, in today’s world, soft is hard.

 At the zenith of the old paradigm there was a reaction to anything that was deemed “soft.” This included feelings, relationships, empathy, and anything that was “touchy-feely.” If you think about it, this is a strange norm, because being alive and human involves relationships, feelings, and connecting with others. However, the value was facts and figures—“hard” stuff! Even though such rock-ribbed disciplines as physics now report that facts are relative, the bias continues. Organizations still talk about human resources and training as the “soft” side of management. But not only are people issues as real as financial and production figures, they require just as much skill and strength. In addition, they require authenticity and the risk of self-disclosure. This is much “harder” than hiding behind a memo, a stack of figures, or a quantitative decision matrix. 

 The current economic environment is helping with the realization that “soft” is “hard.”  The most effective managers are those who have the ability to engage in authentic helping relationships with their employees.  The next time someone belittles the “soft” stuff, remind them that in today’s environment soft is hard and if they want to be effective in healing the wounds of downsizing, they need to focus on the requisite skills – the “hard” stuff of engaging in authentic helping relationships with layoff survivors.

I had a phone interview with a consulting firm in India that wanted some tips on dealing with layoff survivor sickness.  The person I talked to reminded me that, in many cases, we have stopped exporting jobs, and are now exporting layoffs.

 When US firms cut back offshore production, they export layoffs.  What I really found interesting was that in many parts of the world, the old psychological contract is alive and well.  People expect that the company will take care of them and are, thus, deeply organizationally codependent and susceptible to layoff survivor sickness.  Probably more so than in the US and Western Europe where the new psychological contract has been in effect longer and the culture is different than in high context countries.

 This has implications for US and Western firms attempting to manage a global workforce.  They need to develop strategies to deal with layoffs in countries that have deeply ingrained collective cultures that create an employee/employer dependency relationship

Businesses, too often, cut the wrong people.  The innovators, risk-takers, and non-conformists – those whose creativity is vital to organizational recovery – are usually not the most politically correct or supportive of old; overly bureaucratic, dysfunctional organizational cultures and are, therefore, usually the first to go. 

 In many organizations the survivors are those who are skilled at fitting-in, and are good at internal organizational politics.  This results in a double bind; those who stay are internally focused and risk-averse, and those who leave are picked because they didn’t fit in, when “fitting in” is exactly what organizations don’t need in order to rebound, be creative, and focus externally on serving customers.  When the recession ends, the least thing organizations require are risk-averse, internally focused, perpetuators of bureaucratic cultures.

 When things turn around, those employees who have options, have maintained their networks, and have transferable skills will leave if they are not treated right during times of layoffs.  Organizations need to re-recruit these valuable employees, let them know they are important to the future of the organization, and nurture them through this time of frustration and uncertainty.  If they don’t they will jump ship when things turn around, and organizations will be left with a work force of employees with no transferable skills who remain because they have no real external options.  This is a going out of business scenario that is all too real to many business organizations.

 Employees with layoff survivor sickness shut down and turn inward at a time when, in order for organizations to compete in a global market place, they need to open out, focus on customers and serving their needs.  Internally focused employees don’t serve customers, erode customer confidence, and harm businesses chances of recovery. 

 The trick is for organizations to wisely choose the keepers: those creative, customer focused, employees with valuable skills.  Once they make this choice, they need to work very hard to re-recruit them, assure them that unless there is a total catastrophe, they will remain, and harness their customer focus and innovation to lead them into recovery.

One major difference between this recession and those of the recent past is that layoffs are global and not restricted to just the private sector.  I recently wrote an article in Faith and Leadership a publication of Duke University’s leadership education function in their Divinity School.  It is appropriate for this audience because The need to help survivors overcome layoff survivor sickness is just as prevalent in the non-profit sector as in business organizations. 

 Religious institutions, too, are downsizing and when they do it often results in deeper survivor symptoms than in private industry.  This is because of a basic structural codependency. Employees of faith based organizations, administrative and clergy alike, define who they are by where they work, and when their job is threatened, their sense of purpose and relevance is also threatened.

 The key to breaking this codependent relationship is the same as for secular organizations.  Employees need to define who they are by what they do, not the specific organization in which they do it.  When a person looses their employment with a unit of a faith based organization, they do not loose their faith or their belief system.  They just loose a job.  It is as simple and complex as that!