Introduction to the Dialogic Organization Development Mindset

It is our contention that any specific instance of Organization Development practice is a product of the mindset of the practitioner; the combination of theories, beliefs, assumptions, and values that shape how one sees and engages the world. In this chapter we provide a brief introduction to what we call the "Dialogic OD Mindset." Because we believe the practice of Dialogic OD involves a way of thinking that is significantly different from Diagnostic OD, we begin by contrasting it with a Diagnostic Mindset. It is important to understand that we do not believe that Dialogic and Diagnostic Mindsets are mutually exclusive. Most OD practitioners will be influenced to some extent by both. However, most OD textbooks currently teach only the Diagnostic Mindset, so we briefly highlight what we think that is and contrast it with the Dialogic Mindset. We then describe eight key premises about the nature of organizations and change, and three underlying change processes that are central to the ways in which Dialogic OD practitioners think about and engage in practices that differ in form and/or intent from the ones described in most OD textbooks. We conclude the chapter by discussing the similarities between the Diagnostic and Dialogic Mindsets, and why they are both variants of organization development.

The Foundational, Diagnostic Mindset

The Diagnostic OD Mindset and associated practices are based substantially on the social psychology and change theories developed in the 1940s and 1950s by Kurt Lewin and Ron Lippitt and their colleagues and followers (Lewin, 1947; Lippitt, Watson, and Westley, 1958). In this view, behavior is shaped by a field of forces that exist in a quasi-stable equilibrium. That field of forces is mainly a product of the social equilibrium within the groups that people belong to. Therefore, the focus of change in Lewinian thinking was the small group, not the individual. Change is conceptualized as a planned process of "unfreezing" a current social equilibrium, creating "movement" to a new and more desirable future equilibrium that then needs to be "refrozen" to sustain the change. While different strategies exist for how to promote change, OD rests mainly on a "normative-re-educative" change strategy (Chin and Benne, 1961) that requires the involvement of groups in learning processes. A central technique is participatory action research, involving those the practitioner wants to change in a process of self-study. Traditionally, action research begins with a "diagnosis" of the existing situation—the elements, factors, and forces maintaining the current state—in order to know where and how to intervene to induce unfreezing and movement in the direction of the desired state. The Diagnostic OD Mindset assumes that without diagnosis there are unclear or even mistaken beliefs about the causes for what ever problems or concerns managers and organizations face, and that collection and correct interpretation of the facts is a critical first step in addressing them (Marshak, 2013). Indeed, giving clients advice or taking action without first performing a diagnosis is considered malpractice by the Diagnostic OD Mindset. Hence Lewin's famous dictum "No research without action, no action without research" (Marrow, 1969).

A second key element of the Diagnostic Mindset came from Lewin's conception that within the social field of forces, some forces promote and some resist what ever change is desired. Lewin argued that reducing resistance was a more productive route to change than adding more force for change. As a result, the Diagnostic Mindset is especially interested in methods of identifying and reducing resistance. Participation in decision making is the key solution OD offers, aligned as it is with democratic and humanistic values and the need for a collective learning process to support change. This learning process usually involves engaging small groups (teams, task forces, diagonal slices of the organization) in an action research process intended to diagnose the real factors and forces impacting a situation, and thereby to create the motivation and commitment needed for unfreezing, movement, and refreezing. Ideally, those impacted by a change are involved in and/or perform the data collection, analysis, decision making, and action taking with the guidance of the OD consultant.

A third core element was added in the late 1960s when open systems theories became an integral part of OD (e.g., Emery and Trist, 1965; Katz and Kahn, 1966; Lawrence and Lorsch, 1969), leading to models of how organizational elements (mission, strategies, structures, systems, leadership, culture, etc.) needed to be aligned with each other and strategically responsive to external environments in order to position the organization for future success. The contrast of this new "organic" metaphor for organizations with the prevailing "machine" metaphor (Burns and Stalker, 1961) contributed to the notion of organizational health and healthy processes as a common element in the Diagnostic OD Mindset. Increasing organizational health was an...