The experience of Dr. Nancy Zentis early in her career was focused on helping others achieve their career goals. With a background in Human Resources and Career Development, she entered the field of Organization Development to help individuals and organizations create organization change and individual success. While working as an OD Consultant with her firm IOD, she realized an opportunity to develop Organization Certification Programs and grew her organization into the global organization that it is today. With over seven thousand participants awarded OD certifications over the past 22 ye ..read more

Susan Gervasi’s 14-year-old self is happy. At 14, Susan felt that her calling was to be a teacher. It was her gift, and she wanted to use it to make a difference in people’s lives. Little did Susan know that after teaching children in public school, she would grow into an internationally-admired, award-winning leader in the field of Organization Development (OD), working with Fortune 500 companies and leading teams worldwide. But that’s not the part that makes Susan truly happy; it is the fact that her journey brought her back to her essence of teaching, and she’s doing it now at IOD ..read more

Process Consultation is one of the early foundations of OD, introduced by Edgar Schein in the late 1960s. He defined Process Consultation as a series of activities performed by the consultant to help the client focus on the “why” versus the “how” to help the client perceive, understand, and act upon events that are occurring in their environment. Dialogic Process Consulting focuses on dialogic processes that help shape individual, group, and organizational mindsets. Through deep listening, consultants listen to the client and develop more understanding about the unspoken mindsets, assumption ..read more

We’ve heard about the labor shortage (yes, this still exists despite layoffs), quiet quitting, and the lack of employee engagement. What’s a Talent Manager to do? Recently there’s been a lot written about deconstructing jobs. Think about job descriptions and how job analysts write these descriptions to include the skills, tasks, key responsibilities and knowledge required to perform the job. To further explain, work is constructed into job descriptions and is the “storehouse” of competencies and performance indicators which are connected to the rewards bestowed by the organization. Unfortuna ..read more

About a year ago, I was given an opportunity to join a newly forming department of organizational development. This was largely based on my history of curriculum development and teaching at a college level. The new Organizational Development department was set up largely for the purpose of leadership development, and included subjects like change leadership, team building, crucial conversations etc., to be taught initially to frontline leaders and then work our way up the ladder. I had never been exposed to the term Organizational Development, or much less knew what OD really meant.  Ho ..read more

In the past, organizations have invested heavily in executive coaching as part of leadership development.  A recent study indicated that nearly $3 billion dollars is spent per year on organizational coaching initiatives. The cost of an individual six-month executive coaching engagement can range from $25,000 to $50,000 (and, in some cases, more). While it can be hard to measure the return on investment (ROI), the benefits are many — ranging from improved productivity and decision-making to improved retention and engagement of the leader and his or her team members.  Organizati ..read more

In this day and age, as OD professionals we will face many new challenges due to the global covid pandemic, changes in the workplace culture, and global environment.  The field of Organization Development is based on the field of Behavioral Science and is concerned with the social systems within an organization. Our role as OD Professionals is to help organizations to address the need to change and help them find sustainable solutions. Our process relies on cooperation and commitment from members of the senior leader team and feedback from members within the organization.  Some of ..read more

Organizational development or “OD” is vital in today’s fast-paced business world. OD was first introduced by Kurt Lewin.  He described OD as a planned change model with a deliberate effort to improve a system.  It is based on behavioral science with a scientific research approach. OD helps organizations solve problems, implement change, and become more effective.   Here are the key components needed to drive successful change.  Support from an internal or external OD consultant Employee involvement Commitment from senior leaders Having leaders own the problem Being ..read more

Almost every OD professional is involved in engagement surveys.  An article about Employee Engagement Surveys written by Dr. Peter Cappelli in the Wall Street Journal grabbed  my attention a few years ago and still applies today.   He makes a case for eliminating these surveys, pointing out that engagement surveys have been used for over 100 years (high time to look at other approaches) and are fraught with shortcomings. By the way, many OD practitioners agree with him and are using different approaches as identified in the countermeasures and tips mentioned later in this blog ..read more

Over the years and through my studies and consulting engagements, I have encountered many frameworks and theories and have deployed many of these in my consulting cases, for example, the McKinsey 7S Model or Appreciative Inquiry. One model that I feel does not get enough credit in the western world is Kaizen.   So, what is Kaizen, and why should you care? Great question. Kaizen is a continuous improvement method that is used in manufacturing. For some, you might be familiar with similar methods like Lean in Project Management or the Toyota Production System (TPS). Kaizen was first ..read more