Are your paradigms and skills relevant to today's chaotic business environment? Is the OD "operating system" outdated for today's chaotic business world? Are "new and improved tools" just window dressing for proven OD principles?  Bruce Mabee, OD consultant of 25 years and John Cooper, President of John Cooper & Associates, Inc., led the group in this exploration.

Before they got into OD principles, John and Bruce revealed the risks they felt in challenging fundamental beliefs in front of the OD Community, and John reviewed what "paradigm shift" means: 

Paradigm, from the Horse's Mouth. Thomas Kuhn made the word popular in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn defines paradigm as a fundamental world view, from which spring theories, mental models, and actions. Paradigms, or deeply held beliefs, are difficult to question because they provide the lens through which we see the world. We grow from one paradigm to another by an uncomfortable process of discovering "anomalies" (things that don't fit) that seem to challenge the prevailing view. Of course, a crisis erupts until a new paradigm resolves it all.

"Old & New" OD Principles. Bruce presented three principles to represent the basic OD paradigm - and changes in these principles based on his experience of current, effective OD practices. Here is a quick comparison: 
 
Traditional OD Principle    Alternative OD Principle OD targets Internal Social System and culture. Intact work teams are the base of organization, so the OD purpose is to get them aligned with each other.  OD targets external environment and business forces. Improvement means building institutions that survive and serve the world around them. Action Research is a planned sequence of phases that occur in linear order, one at a time, like traditional problem solving. Intervention is designed after feedback and diagnosis.   Action Research is an intertwined dance of diagnosis and intervention. Real-life business process works like a coin sorter - action at the center.  "Diagnosis first," can be hazardous if conditions change by the minute. OD consists of a finite list of human behavioral based interventions such as Training, Team Building, Conflict Management, Strategic Planning, Re-Structuring… Open consensus of the team leads to performance.    There is no prescribed set of OD interventions. We can use interventions from a variety of disciplines including financial, technological, and engineering as well as the traditional human behavior field.

The group brainstormed how OD has progressed over the years. John led an exercise to help individuals discover and examine one's own paradigm. The group became quite energized in several dialogues about how their paradigms affect their practice and skills.

It appeared that the paradigm behind OD practices has shifted for some, but certainly not fully for all. Lucky for us, Dr. Kuhn says that's just normal for paradigm shifting!