What OD needs to do

In addition to the four discussion questions mentioned in the previous post on our November 3 meeting on “The Future of OD,” we also brainstormed on “the top three things OD needs to focus on in the near term that will firmly establish OD as a critical partner in helping businesses respond to the challenges they face”.

The resulted combined list of twelve “prescriptions” for OD was as follows:

1. Improve the credibility of OD practitioners
2. Practice what we preach
3. Become strategic partners by bringing a vision and different perspectives
4. Develop partnerships with HR
5. Get a seat at the table with senior management
6. Create a brand
7. Define OD’s impact on business
8. Frame OD practitioners as transferors of knowledge and as implementation facilitators
9. Inspire OD practitioners to move from reflection on the field to making actual changes
10. Strengthen our business skills
11. Anticipate trends and build competencies and skills around them
12. Structure the OD function so that it can work with internal clients and not be interfered with

We thus also invite discussion on how we can create and accomplish action steps for these goals. What do we need to as individual practitioners? Does OD itself need to change in order to achieve these goals? And how the Learning Group promote these goals?