CIPD OD Conference, London, UK, 24 September 2009

Citation

Baron, A. (2010), "CIPD OD Conference, London, UK, 24 September 2009", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 9 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2010.37209bab.012

CIPD OD Conference, London, UK, 24 September 2009

Article Type: Resources From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 9, Issue 2

Angela BaronAngela Baron is CIPD adviser on OD and engagement.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) conference on organizational development (OD) was designed to help demonstrate the interest and enthusiasm for this issue. Attendees listened to a number of practical “how to” sessions designed to help them cut through the mystery surrounding the topic and identify some solutions they could put into practice to help their companies manage change effectively.

Defining what OD involves

Valerie Garrow from the IES and Sharon Varney, director of Space for learning, kicked off the morning sessions with a presentation entitled “Demystifying OD.” Drawing on relevant research, they described OD as a facilitative, humanistic process embracing change from a whole system approach, focussed on learning, knowledge sharing and building positive and enduring partnerships across the organization.

This was followed by a practitioner discussion facilitated by the conference chair, Ed Griffin of D3 Partners, and involving David Stephenson of Royal Mail and Jamie Sims from Cumbria County Council on OD responsibility and particularly the relationships between OD and HR. All agreed that OD was about “people as individuals” and therefore could not be effective without the support of integrated HR strategies. They also agreed that OD will not work without a board level sponsor to drive the process right through the organization.

The last session before lunch was given by Julie Tybura of Zenon Consulting who offered up some tips and advice for those hoping to implement OD in their own organizations. She advised delegates that they need to be able to handle ambiguity, clarify their objectives and garner support for the aims of OD at all levels of the organization. Knowledge and confidence, she argued, are the cornerstones to making OD work.

Putting OD into practice

After lunch the delegates were treated to a series of exercises from Martin Saville and Sylvia Baumgartner, both OD consultants. Delegates were asked to role-play the parts of consultant and client to help them identify the skills that would enable them to identify and design OD solutions to real challenges. This was followed by a session from Chris Bennett of IMS Health and John Holland of Hewlett Packard who gave guidance on how to identify the right kind of OD interventions to meet specific challenges and fit with different cultures and situations. Their presentation contained a number of practical models and frameworks to help practitioners assess what needs to be done and develop the behaviors and skills to deliver.

Jo Hennessy and Liz Finney of Roffey Park closed proceedings, drawing on their extensive work on OD. They talked about how we can evaluate OD to make sure we are getting the most out of it. Despite the complexity of this issue, they managed to offer some practical tips, emphasizing the need to build a culture of evaluation; using it not as an end point but as a tool to drive improvement and learn from the OD process.

Accelerating change and growing complexity are driving the interest in OD. Participants in this event took away a clear message that OD does not have to be over-complicated. Some simple but clear interventions can make a real difference to how well organizations ride the tide of change. However, it would be naive to think that this is easy and that it does not require considerable thought and skill to develop a process that will add real value. The delegates went away with a lot to think about.