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OD consultants need to have a dynamic way of thinking of organizations and their problems. In order to analyse organizational aspects and in order to be able to suggest actions for improvement, their is a need for effective, sustainable, quick, simple and if possible cheap solutions.
Being able to solve a problem in a quick way points to being a (wo)man of action. And that is what almost everyone wants to be.
Some solutions for problems derive their beauty from their simplicity.
Take for instance the television receiver set that is out of order. The competent mechanic opens the backside of the apparatus and says: I see, the small transistor here needs to be replaced. That is all.
Attractive in this approach is that the observation is at the same time the analysis and the solution. The act of solving the problem gives the air of competence to the one who opened the back side of the TV set. "I am glad I called for an expert", we hear the client think.
In most cases, organizational consultants cannot make this three-in-one action (observation, analysis and solution). A data-based analysis is needed.
An analysis finds itself between the observation and the advice. It is a re-definition of the problem in terms of underlying factors.
In approaching the problem of an organization the analysis is sometimes skipped over. The observation is for instance: there is a lack of coordination. Advice: there should be some coordination. The objection of such advice is that it commands without surplus value. Sometimes however, the client system likes to be commanded, or even worse, to be punished by the consultant. So maybe giving commands satisfy the superficial needs of the client system without really adding to its competence.
The consultant will have to resist the temptation to simply commend the reverse of what is observed:
In all these examples there is a lack of understanding why the problem is occurring. The dropping of the workers meeting could for instance be caused by an autocratic leader who does not like drawing the opinions of his collaborators in his decision making. The idling could be caused by a collective hiding of insufficient competence. The lack of priorities could be caused by the year after year struggle between two leaders who rather would sacrifice the organization instead of themselves.
The first step in the analysis is the systematic collection of information, for instance by desk research and by interviewing people. The results of the first step can be a rough scan of the problems.
In the process of drawing the first outlines, the consultant/researcher should invest in keeping the image clean. It means controlling the own opinions and preventing the own frame of reference from influencing the results. In terms of interviewing it means bringing into action the exploratory interview skills.
The core of the analysis is answering the question: why is it like it is, what is up in this organization, what could explain this situation or these problems.
In this phase the consultant will meet first-stage-elements in the analysis. The explanation of the problems of the organisation can be attributed to bad functioning people, groups, procedures or systems.
Examples:
Guilty people loom up, clumsy and wicked people are responsible for the problems. And sometimes it not at all untrue. Sometimes people are incompetent and sometimes rules and regulations are ineffective.
But, nevertheless, analyses like that present some difficulties.
The first difficulty is of pragmatic nature: it stresses the problematic or negative aspects, while the motivation of people is needed to solve the problem. Motivation is more easily triggered by a positive approach then by a negative one.
The second difficulty is also of a pragmatic nature, but at the side of the consultant: the consultant observes all kind of guilty or blockheaded people and can come angry with them. Anger obstructs consulting. Even if the only problem would be that a part of the analysis cannot be told to everybody.
The third difficulty is of a more philosophic nature. A doctor cannot blame the patient for being ill. The illness is the very reason why the doctor had been called.
The fourth difficulty is perhaps the most important one. An analysis characterized by guilty and blockheaded people cannot lead to a sustainable solution. It simply does not work. The underlying problems will block the effectivity of the seemingly obvious solution. The elimination of people or procedures is seldom serving a sustainable improvement of the situation.
The alternative is the dynamic analysis.
A dynamic analysis is an attempt to enrich the analysis by diving under the surface. There are forces which cause, maintain or feed the problem. Those forces are part of a bigger pattern of forces, WHICH ARE NOT ALL NEGATIVE AND WHICH ARE NOT IN THE MAIN NEGATIVE.
Let's try to understand the surface phenomena by entering the underlying pattern and giving it a closer look.
The understanding may be helped by approaching the problem along some lines.
Sometimes it is not bad to take the first solution that comes into one's mind. The small transistor of the television set will cost a sixpence. Maybe there is another technical trouble in the television that caused the failure of the transistor. One will notice that automatically, when the second transistor also will break. But sometimes one cannot allow a series of failures. A well known example is the problem in an organisation caused (so everybody thought) by the incompetent manager. The next one appointed turns out to be a failure as well. Such an incident may give rise to the need of exploring the underlying factors.
Known by experience, in organisations transistors hardly ever need replacement by an organisational mechanic. In the cases replacement is needed, the help of consultants is not necessary, because there are a lot of people who can fix it.
If the fixing not comes of, then most probably there is a damage in the self healing capacity of the organisation. The real problem then is the damaged capacity of self healing, instead of the incidental trouble.
Exploring the underlying dynamics of that damage is then a necessary condition for the thinking of sustainable solutions.
The understanding of complex organisational problems will be more easy with some knowledge of the history of an organisation, with some awareness of the area in which the organisation has to function and with a bit of feeling for the organizational culture.
Every passing-by bumpkin can observe that something is going wrong in an organisation, there is no need in being a expert for that. The art of consulting is to understand why things are going like they do and to motivate people to think of useful instruments to let things work out differently.