Abstract by Eric Gaynor Butterfield: “Conference on Organizational Change and Development” - The Organization Development Institute International, Latin America - Buenos Aires 2005www.theodinstitute.org
The Organization Development Institute International, Latin America receives some questions from company executives and executives, as well as consultants, regarding the provision of advisory services.
One of the usual questions for both executives and business executives relates to the difficulty they have in selecting a proposal for the provision of consulting services. On the other hand, the consultants - generally after having graduated from a consulting firm where they were previously working - approach to ask about what are the necessary competences that are required for the exercise of the profession of business advisor.
In the August issue of last year, Dr. Terry Armstrong (“Organizations and Change”; August 2004 - Newsletter of The Organization Development Institute), stated that many of his graduate students asked him how they could get started in Organizational Development profession / consultant profession.
They felt that as soon as graduation was missing, the “procedure” to follow to enter as a consultant would be somewhat similar to that of other graduates when they try to enter a company / organization, but they still perceived that “entering a company has some Important differences with practicing the profession of Consultant or Organizational Development.
We will start by referring to a work that I have presented at www.gestiopolis.com to share some aspects that are worth mentioning. During the last 30 years the consulting profession has become an activity with an increasing presence both in its scope and depth, possibly due to the need for organizations to develop competitiveness capabilities as a result of the greater turbulence and need for change within of the corporate world.
La aparición del rol de “Consultor” gozó de un aura de prestigio y era ejercida bajo el supuesto de que los profesionales que lo ejercían – casi todos especialistas en ciencias duras o semi duras – estaban dotados de las competencias necesarias. Por lo tanto el consultor era un “actor con presencia”, independientemente del hecho que fuera un “actor principal” o un “actor de reparto”. Analicemos algunos hechos.
1. During my presentation at the World Congress developed by The Organization Development Institute in Dublin in the month of July 1999, one of the questions of interest that arose the most and was asked related to how the Consultant Profession or Profession was practiced of Organizational Development in the different Latin American countries. Taking into account that there was no "career" in Organizational Development, they wanted to learn about how we could find a solution to the problems that organizations within our community experience "without being familiar with the current state of" Behavioral Sciences ".
2. During the last three years, several managers and executives of companies visit our website and show interest in many of the articles, cases and experiences included there that are related to the improvement processes that are necessary to install within their own business corporations in particular and also in relation to the organizational world.
Some of the managers and executives express their confusion - to say the least - regarding the immense number of possible consulting proposals (or ways to improve the organization) and, for the most part, they are convinced that many times these proposals are “ fashions ”. And they are quite right since in the last 30 years there have been many "consulting packages" that have had a limited duration.
Therefore, and as a result of our interaction with Customers, a natural and totally valid question for a company manager is usually stated in the following way: If improvements must be made continuously in organizations to keep them competitive, why is it that many of the options that the consultants choose cease to be effective after a very short time?
3. We receive in our Institute some calls from professionals who show us that they are interested in “learning about certain books they should read” in the areas of Organizational Development and Change at the Individual / Group / Organizational level.
It is surprising to us that the best Universities and Centers of Higher Studies dedicate only a small portion of their energy, resources and time to share with their future professionals regarding how organizations develop. Do they suppose that all organizations - like every organism - grow naturally? We have found evidence that it is quite the opposite; Practically 99% of everything that exists deteriorates with the simple passage of time (and whoever doubts it all they have to do is rest an orange on a table without moving it for a certain time). We have said without moving it, that is, change is required. But even sometimes the change is not enough since in general it cannot take us beyond the original situation, that is, when the organization has originated.
But within a competitive world, organizations must do much more than simply change to the extent that it allows them to return to the original situation; they require dimensional jumps that position it well above their containers.
The other aspect is related to the study of Change in relation to the different units of analysis; achieving changes at the individual level is not the same as at the group or organizational level. In a field study (Eric Gaynor B.: “Conceptual frameworks and theories of Change” - 2003), evidence has been found that very few professionals are familiar with the different theories of motivation, learning, and decision-making that are basic to improve organizational efficiency.
4. During Congresses and Conferences of Change and Organizational Development some questions arise in this order: What IS what they must do (in their capacity as professionals graduated in very good Universities) to exercise the profession of Consultant? And here we have found evidence that very few professions receive a mentoring and guide service for the exercise of their profession.
Fortunately, Medicine is one of the few sciences where tutoring is present and implemented through a residency or attendance program. But it turns out that companies very rarely recruit a doctor to make improvements within their organizations…
5. We have been consulted by executives, managers and professionals regarding the importance of "Behavioral Sciences" and what use can really be made of them to improve "their" organizations.
Within Latin American cultures many of the learning within the family, during the years of primary and secondary education and later in the University are developed under the "authoritarian" model. Even the Latin American doctorate is oriented towards "knowing more than what is already known" instead of questioning through a thesis the "knowledge that at the Bachelor / Master level had been filed as true for certain".
Trying to get started in the practices and applications of Behavioral Sciences when a vertical hierarchical style of relationship had mainly been incorporated, is not something that can be done overnight. Some may try it, but the Clients do not have to pay the price of these consultants who have found “a place - Client where to practice”.
6. Executives in charge of the Human Resources area increasingly consult us regarding their interest in “training with respect to Organizational Change and Development techniques, tools and methodologies” with a view to deploying services as Internal Consultant in companies that are working in the security that this will help them consolidate their position. Chris Argyris is possibly the person to whom these interests of those responsible for the areas of Human Resources should be directed.
A significant number of professionals who hold this position within their organization have a particular degree of expertise in law (professional lawyers) and in negotiation processes with strong skills in how to deal with unions. In addition to those who, as a result of the vertical hierarchical organization where they operate, must act as implementers of "hard decisions" that senior management prefers to transfer to them. No one better than Chris to respond to this concern of those responsible for Human Resources: like no one else, he emphasizes the enormous importance of "what is spoken and said within the company is consistent and consistent with what is done."
7. There is an increasing interest in revitalizing the previous internal areas called “Organization and Methods” and “Re-engineering” and redefining it as “Organizational Development” or something similar.
But there is an enormous difficulty for this. I remember when I started at the oil company ESSO (now EXXON) I belonged to a department of O. and M. where each of the young professionals (around there in 1965) worked with someone close to retirement who had occupied the most high line positions, in my particular case with the Director of the Refinery who was more than a superior my Tutor. I don't know how many of you have planted a small tree less than a meter high in this life, but if you have, you have surely attached that fragile little tree with a stick that allows you to stand up straight.
It seems that just as the best Universities and Centers for Higher Studies do not dedicate too much of their energy to the learning, motivation and decision-making processes for each of their professionals, organizations do not have tutors who can accompany the staff among their staff. young entrants so that theories can be complemented with organizational practices. And no matter how strong our desire is to turn an apple tree into a pear tree, this is not easy to achieve… miracles seem not to be a specialty of mortals.
8. About three months ago, a very experienced trainer in content such as motivation, leadership, NLP, emotional intelligence, sales, among others, asked us for "material related to" organizational change "since a Client had asked him to present a proposal to dictate an Organizational Change Workshop. There is a natural vision of many professionals to consider that “contents” of Change - that is, knowledge of what Change is - is enough to achieve Implement Changes efficiently. People can articulate very well regarding a topic and content, but the process of Implementing Changes in relation to this topic is another activity entirely.
9. Informal meetings with different professionals (who define themselves as consultants) result in dialogues where it is usually stated to us that "they have more and more problems in obtaining Clients" and "that the consulting work has greatly diminished". My answer highlights that there are more "consulting" jobs than ever; what happens is that to carry it out we need competences that are “different” from those that the (supposed) consultant had up to now.
We will not be so daring as to want in a few pages to find a resolution to so many questions, but we will make the best attempt to explore ways to answer them or, even better, to be able to rephrase the questions so that we can see the phenomenon from a new and broader perspective.
For this we have to openly share our thoughts trying to relate them to experiences and experiences that can sustain our words with evidence and facts in everything possible. We detail them below and we have to analyze them according to their consequences:
"One of the premises linked to the profession of Consultant is based on the fact that not everyone's own and internal vision - both individually, grouply or organizationally - can always help us to resolve the situations we face." Regarding this point, the evidence shows that most of the consultants involved in the processes of organizational change are professionals / professionals with degrees from recognized Universities and Centers of Higher Studies.
A field work carried out in 1989 (Eric Gaynor - “The Professions of Consultants”) shows that most of them come from the Faculties of Economic Sciences (Accountants, Bachelor of Administration and Bachelor of Economics) and that of Engineering with specialization in the Industrial, Electronics and Computer Technology area. Only occasionally are some other professions also found, although in smaller numbers (clinical psychologists, social / industrial psychologists).
So sometimes Accountants are those who "have a Consultant card" and other times they are Bachelor of Administration or Engineers or some other profession. Now, what do you think is the perspective of each of these consultants when they are involved in a process of improvement and organizational development within a company? It is very difficult for the IT Engineer not to visualize the lack of success in the company from the point of view of new software / hardware requirements and accountants will surely require accounting information "regarding something that has already happened" to do some tests regarding economic and financial indicators.
The point we want to share is that we begin to define "the problem that the company or businessman is experiencing", taking into account mainly the rather rigid perspective of the consultant, who of course wishes to make use of his 16 or 17 years (yes, years) of studies formal.
"It is quite common for us to hear consultants in their organizational interventions comment on the process of change they are involved in and also refer to the resistance to change of organizational participants." It is quite fascinating that resistance to change is generally always attributed to “others” assuming that we, as consultants, are totally permeable and show a great predisposition to change.
And this is even more paradoxical since most of the consultants do not change our habits or customs so easily; sometimes we read for a lifetime usually the newspaper of the same publisher, we are followers or fans of the same football or baseball club, we vote for the same ideological party despite the fact that the components of the same respond to different orientations and even our habits food and clothing are "protected" many times as if they were impregnable fortresses.
We believe that before engaging in an organizational development process, it is good for the consultant to spend some time “breathing differently” before starting the process of change in the Client, taking a look at what would be “our own resistance to change”. What we have actually learned is not that people resist change but rather that "people resist change when we do not know in advance some of the possible consequences of the change in question."
And here, again, it is the consultant who must look at himself. We have found a lot of evidence where the vast majority of organizational participants are not communicated about the change to be implemented and to a much lesser extent what the resulting consequences must be for them once the change is in effect.
The interpretations that we can make regarding this behavior are multiple, but it should not escape the attention of those consultants who wish to improve their Clients' organizations, rather than managing the consultant under the perception that "he has two eyes and good eyesight" while Organizational members, for the most part, “manage in an area of blindness” can prove fatal to your advisory intervention project.
It seems that a large number of Consultants are largely unaware (or have only partial knowledge) of the state of science of Organizational Theories and that, as a result of said ignorance (or partial knowledge), they make a decision regarding the new organizational scenario at create based on a conceptual framework and ignoring the vast majority of other conceptions. In a work published on www.Gestiópolis.com, reference is made to some 60 notable authors who make real contributions to understand the behavior of organizations.
A field work (Eric Gaynor Butterfield: "Congress of Organizational Development", Buenos Aires - 1997) shows that most of the internal professionals in companies and consultants are unaware of the vast majority of these conceptual frameworks and their consequent possible applications.
Just as many business consultants prefer to choose “a” single organizational theory as a model to develop the “preferred organization in the future”, we have also found evidence that the vast majority of these Consultants are listed within the selection of “a specific practice” regarding how to introduce improvements in the business and corporate world.
The reader interested in obtaining additional information on this matter can go to the work published on www.Gestiópolis.com "Organizational Development: An effort to integrate WHAT we should do with HOW we should do it" where mention is made of more than 60 (sixty) “Best Practices” that different practitioners had used during their interventions in companies. The familiarity of the consultants with only some of these “Best Practices” - and consequently the ignorance of the total universe - makes an effective exercise of the Consultant profession vulnerable. To make matters even worse, consultants tend to select a particular "Best Practice" - or at least feel comfortable with it - relative to their own Profession that has been crowned with a University Diploma.The conjunction of “a Best Practice” together with “a University Diploma” can narrow the vision and perspective of the consultant himself.
In relation to what we have shared with you in point D. above, some questions arise, one of them being the following: If a consultant is specialized in one or two "Best Practices" and are they used when performing the intervention? consultancy, how is it possible to expect organizational improvement if this particular intervention of the consultant does not take into account the “Best Practices” already implemented previously or the option of countless other “Best Practices” that have not yet been implemented? And another additional question we ask consultants: On what basis do you decide to select a single methodology or a particular “Best Practice” - even if it has been successful in another situation - if there is also a lot of successful evidence even within the same industrial sector of the Client,of "other" best practice? And a final question based on the fact that we already know that learning at both individual and group and organizational levels is "cumulative": What efforts, energy, time and resources do consultants usually dedicate in relating the "choice" of a particular practice taking consider the impact of time (backwards) and also towards the preferred organizational arrangement (forward)?
Paying attention to change is important and even more is paying attention to the exchange rate.
On other occasions we have made reference to the “3Ts” and we still do not notice that the vast majority of Consultants have incorporated a clear distinction between them in the development of their profession, especially in the development of their own consulting intervention. Changes within tradition are less than transitional changes, and the latter bear no relation to transformational changes. And in order to deal with transformational changes it is essential to know - and of course afterwards be in a position to effectively apply - the state of Behavioral Sciences.
It is extremely unfortunate that a large number of prestigious Universities within Latin American communities and countries have not reached the level of Universities in other countries regarding theories, practices, research, and values / ethics related to Behavioral Sciences. The question we ask ourselves here is the following: How can professionals, executives and managers interested in change processes not visualize difficulties and problems if they do not have the arsenal of knowledge that is linked to the “behavior of people ? In the end, when a consultant “chooses” a particular best practice such as “Total Quality”, “Re-engineering”, CRM or SCM, does he have to implement it “without people”? Or perhaps the affected organizational participants are not people,Clients are not people, providers are not people, and the implementers of many of these technologies, software and methodologies… are not! Despite very good attempts in robotics, automation, and cybernetics, we still don't have (thank goodness!) 100 percent self-generated, self-managed, or self-implemented change deployment methodologies.
We believe that it is appropriate to take a look at how the "large consulting companies that operate at the corporate level" work. And within them, observe the behavior of their team of professionals and consultants who have usually been selected as a consequence of their high qualifications at the University. A huge majority
- practically more than 97% - of the consultants who work within large corporate consulting firms are Diplomated professionals in Universities who have graduated in various areas.
Many of them are engineers in their different specialties, others are public accountants and graduates in administration, there are also computer specialists, and occasionally we also meet other professionals with various specializations as we have already mentioned above.
These people who have defined themselves as consultants or on other occasions are the companies that have done it for them - especially when they are employed in "large" Consulting firms in terms of their institutional dispersion, number of Clients and billing and number of Employee personnel - in fact, they carry out work within companies "that could have been carried out by professionals from the same organization and who find their pay at the end of each month as part of the payroll." So the consultant distinction is NOT clear in any way. If someone wants to shed some more light on this perspective, they should not fail to take into account the work of Edgar Schein ("Organization Development: Process Consultation"; Addison & Wesley - 1968) where he refers to three main forms that the work of consultancy:the “purchase” method, the “doctor-patient” method, and the process consulting method.
Eric Gaynor suggests ("Ways of doing consulting work": Michigan State University - 1975) refers to three particular and additional distinctions that arise within the corporate and business world within Latin American cultures. Under these new perspectives (Edgar Schein and Eric Gaynor) a specialist in implementing an ERP under JD Edwards or SAP or who eventually participates in an intervention to implement a CRM or SCM is not necessarily a consultant,since that same work could have been carried out through a direct hiring of the professional (self-defined as a consultant or defined by the consultant in which he is employed) and his difference with the "others" would not have been even noticed since he would have been paid the same day that the other organizational members are, usually at the end of the month. The hiring "of a consultant" or "of a consulting firm" in this sense does not differ to a greater extent than from the mercerized hiring of other services, such as those of Security, Transport and Surveillance.Transportation and Surveillance.Transportation and Surveillance.
The point that we want to share with you, dear reader, is that we would NOT give the name of consultant to someone who comes to help our home to install a computer with various software and that, from time to time, make modifications to us by installing other software. But we DO give the name of consultant to the same person who comes to our company to install new hardware with new software that must be adopted by the different organizational participants.
In the first case, the person who comes to our house to assist us in "doing things differently with a new technological and methodological tool", we usually refer to that person as "a boy came…" while those who do something Similarly, "we refer to them as consultants."
We think that it is quite probable that "the boy" is not so small and that "the consultant" is not so consultant.
The very frequent failures of traditional consulting interventions are largely due to the conjunction of many of the factors mentioned above. But there is an additional factor that is related to the “prevailing organizational arrangement” within the corporate, organizational and business world in Latin America.
There is no doubt that the consultant's intervention is not carried out in a vacuum but rather is subject to direct action within an organization. And this is where we should stop for a while.
Field work where the different prevailing organizational typologies are consulted receive “limited” answers - to say the least - regarding the consultants. They are unaware of the vast majority of the "Best Theories" and also of the "Best Practices" as mentioned in points C. and D. above, the "limited" Best Practices in which they specialize do not last very long, and those conceptual frameworks “known or heard” during the studies leading to their Diplomas in very good Universities, do not always help them identify the main variables or dimensions of each theoretical or conceptual framework of more than 50 notable experts in organizational behavior and less even the basic hypotheses corresponding to the different organizational arrangements.If graduate doctors ignored the development of Medicine Science and the contributions of the most notable experts, their "interventions" in patients could be assimilated to what happens to many organizations when consultants or consulting firms enter.
I. Let us now dedicate some time to analyze and eventually be able to describe the organization that must be subject to analysis by the consultant, and how it is framed within some typology or organizational taxonomy.
Most of the managers, executives, professionals and consultants linked to the corporate and business world refer to a company, placing it within a particular category. The various field works (Eric Gaynor Butterfield: "Organizational Development Congress"; Trelew - 1997) show mixed results. The perception of managers is that their company has adopted a form that departs from the vertical hierarchical model, while a large number of staff perceive that it is a pyramidal organization with a highly bureaucratic orientation (although they do not really know exactly the two dimensions that are implicit within the Theory of Bureaucracy developed by Max Weber - 1947).But let's go ahead assuming that "they are correct in defining their own organization."
Organizations within the most developed countries have long accepted that pyramidal and bureaucratic organization has many dysfunctional consequences (see Alvin Gouldner; Philip Selznick; James March & Herbert Simon in “Organizations”; Wiley and Sons - 1958) that they attempt both against its existence and its growth, and put into practice new organizational arrangements. The works of James D. Thompson - (1967); Tom Burns (1961); Tom Burns and Stalker (1967); Paul Lawrence & Jay Lorsch (1968) practically dealt a fatal blow to the pyramid organization and also to the bureaucratic one and the practical attempts were illuminated by the enormous contribution of Robert Blake & Jane Mouton (1959) in developing a new organizational arrangement conceived as the "Matrix organization".
But this new organizational arrangement - with characteristics superior to the prevailing ones - in turn deals a severe blow to the company's own organizational participants; none of them is to report to one superior again and it is not an easy task to report two at work when that goes even against the biblical passage (of one God). And it is here where the dilemma of organizational transformation - please keep in mind that we are talking about organizational transformation and not organizational transition - is transferred to the individual transformation that is essential. But people do not transform very quickly; Even minor changes such as some skills, abilities and knowledge can take many years (a University Diploma takes about 16 years approximately).
Thus, consultants who must deal with people as organizational members, as Clients, as suppliers, as bankers, as shareholders, among others, must necessarily have the competencies required to bond with individuals and human beings, and they are known like Behavioral Sciences… of which most of them know - unfortunately - very little.
J. In multiple interventions within Latin American communities we have not had much evidence of post-matrix organizational arrangements. Readers, at this point, surely have to ask themselves what is the prevailing organizational arrangement since many of them do not "perceive" that it is operating under the pyramid or bureaucratic scheme, thinking and suggesting that they are ALREADY on the way to a model " higher". This is where our suggestion to these readers is that they try to see to what extent a type of "nepotic organization" can still exist and prevail where blood and social ties are privileged.
It goes without saying that a nepotic organization is even "prior" to the pyramidal or bureaucratic organization since it dates back several centuries. This perspective of "organizational inefficiency" is even made effective by a practice that has prevailed since "financial globalization"; The motto that says "think globally and act locally" is known, which makes it very clear that the organizational strategy, vision and mission is designed from the outside and it remains for the local organization to adjust to extremely punctual and limited procedures and practices.
K. The question that arises at this point has also been frequently asked by many consultants regarding whether it is possible to implement what is known within the Organizational Development Profession and discipline. No one has given a better answer to this question than the one I have heard from the President of our Institute, Dr. Donald W. Cole, in his capacity as President of The Organization Development Institute today and its Founder in 1968.
The answer is initiated as a consequence of a question to the same person who asks it: When is it that the Industrial Revolution took place in your country? The fact is that it is only after 60 years of the Industrial Revolution in the United States of America that the first Management book that deals with how to manage an organization is published and a very prestigious University - Harvard University - is required to Give more than content to your students since otherwise they would not be useful to the organizational and business world, with which the famous "case method" is born.
It takes an additional 20 years to learn that the case method "is not enough" and "role playing" and another set of practical learning techniques arise, finally leading to the explosion of matrix organization and its consequences for organizational participants. Light a new discipline based on Behavioral Sciences that is constituted in the Profession of Organizational Development. This has taken about 150 years and we are still learning all those who participate in The Organization Development Institute thanks to the fact that within our members we find not only practitioners,managers and consultants but also academics and researchers who help us to question the different conceptual frameworks and best best practices on the fundamental pillar constituted by "Behavioral Sciences".
But to so many news that appear as discouraging - and please do not go either to obviate that the University Diplomas already have an expiration date that is of the order of 5 years with which they keep some kind of similarity with perishable foods - we are extremely fortunate since we can develop the Profession of Organizational Development or the Profession of Consultant or the Profession of Consultant in Organizational Development, as a consequence of what is the state of Behavioral Sciences and how much of it can be applied to introduce improvements and changes in organizations.I am quite aware that my own PhD studies completed in 1975, which has allowed me to be selected by “Tufts University” to spread Organizational Development as a pioneer in Latin America, are totally depreciated and obsolete.
Updating them, combining them with other theories and practices, adopting distinctive perspectives, and more importantly "learning from the Clients themselves who have paid me fees for my consulting services" are tasks that I undertake daily in the paradoxical reality of "having to question everything that I have filed the day before as unequivocal. " But treating in a equivocal way (today) what I have unequivocally filed yesterday as a consultant, is not an easy task.
We also want to share with you and with all those interested a very good news that Consulting is a profession. For more than 20 years, The Organization Development Institute has been working hard deploying its greatest and best energies and resources to have the Competencies that are necessary for the exercise of the Profession of Consultant or Profession of Organizational Development. And even better news: these competencies have already been discriminated for each of the different phases of a consulting intervention.
If you, as a consultant or interested in the consulting profession, still want to cling only to your University Diploma, you may be among the people who have asked us the questions we mentioned in the first part of this material. If you are in a position to re-conceptualize your Profession (see proposals by Edgar Schein and Eric Gaynor as alternative models), consolidate yourself in the knowledge and application of Behavioral Sciences, you perceive the need to train for transformational rather than transitional changes, develops and exercises the Competencies for the Organizational Development Profession that we have mentioned above and finally takes into account an important suggestion by Dr. Terry Armstrong in the aforementioned Newsletter where he highlights that the Consultant himself,The Organizational Development professional himself IS the intervention, so he has a whole world of important contributions ahead that will benefit you and definitely the Clients as well.
Many Clients - those who pay us professional fees and also allow us to learn in action - have already been "hurt too much" by the fact that Consultants have not taken into account what is known today in Behavioral Sciences.
Thank you very much for sharing.
