3 Essential Practices for Successful Internal OD

Drawing on years of providing and leading internal Organization Development products and services, this explores three elements for successful practice. It’s been noted that there is an essential measure of success for internal Organization Development (OD) consultants, and that measure is having a client, or more likely, multiple clients. External OD consultants, perhaps, share that measure to a larger extent than internal consultants, but at a different cost and value. What internal practitioners do with or in partnership with the client or clients serves as the foundation for building a successful internal OD practice. To create success, the internal must consider 1) relationships, 2) contracting clarity, and 3) the concept of fit and fashion.Relationships are key to most successful ventures in organizational life. Long gone are the days of individual heroics, despite lagging reward systems that continue to support Lone Ranger-ism. The internal consultant needs to consider relationships in several contexts, including a relationship with his or her manager, relationships with the many colleagues engaged in OD, and relationships with clients. Lacking successful management and development of these relationships places success at risk.

Relationships

Consequently, to enable success, it is important for the consultant to develop and maintain relationships with multiple stakeholders. In the case of the reporting relationship, the consultant needs to both understand and negotiate the boundaries for services and styles of delivery. In addition, in organizations with goal-based performance systems, the consultant and manager need to fully explore and define objectives and desired outcomes. With peers, especially given the increase of those practicing OD, it becomes critical to clearly articulate a value proposition. In other words, the consultant must know what he or she is bringing to the peer group. Finally, with clients, it’s essential to position relationship development as a matter for the long haul, despite the vagaries of employment relationships.In all of these relationships – manager, peer, and client – the internal OD consultant must have and must be willing to bring a different point of view. Often, consultants are working on enduring issues in organizational life (e.g., leadership, organization design, relationships between and among people, and technologies). It is in these enduring issues that clients and others seek new solutions. For many, this raises a familiar consulting dilemma – clients demand you because of your experience, but they want you to deliver approaches that are different from anything you have done in the past. Given the very nature of this relationship, the need for innovation should rank paramount for successful internal practice.Regardless of industry or profession, all consulting relationships are enhanced by preserving and sustaining credibility. Others have written on this topic, and in OD practice, it means conforming to the highest ethical standards, which are tested frequently in dynamic organizations. As it does in many circumstances, integrity is the center stage in effective organizational relationships. Others must know that you can be trusted and trustworthy. When integrity is questioned or questionable, credibility is reduced. While many do not address this topic in organizational life because of difficulties in providing feedback, losses in this area will contribute to the erosion of relationships essential to the consultant.

Clarity

Assuming healthy and effective relationships, the internal consultant faces a heavy demand for work opportunities. Whether these opportunities arise from enduring organizational issues or the newest-new in an organization, well-being demands careful contracting. Expert OD resources are often scarce, so clarity in contracting becomes essential to develop and maintaining a thriving practice.Clarity in contracting assists with work prioritization. It helps to distinguish what’s important among an organization's competing and sometimes conflicting priorities. It’s one thing to accept a meeting request and another to decline a request. One great gift that an OD consultant brings to a client is to clearly articulate needs and wants. As the consultant does this, it can bring about great reflection on the values intrinsic to OD practice. When the consultant develops valued and valuable relationships, enhancements are made by well-developed and well-understood work contracts.An agreement, as we know, does not mean alignment. There are many examples in minutes taken of executive meetings, signaling or explaining decisions to support or to abandon differing approaches and initiatives. Important OD work occurs as a consequence of rich dialogue, usually developed early in a project. Clarity-inducing dialogues sustain success, demonstrating and offering opportunities to engage and learn. Sufficient contracting facilitates the well-established approach of going slow to go fast. It is essential to move from agreement to understanding, developing the commitment of organizational stakeholders.As commitment develops and increases, clarity is brought to priorities. In extended work opportunities that some internals enjoy, these contracting, prioritization, agreement, and alignment processes may produce longer-term visions for OD, thereby articulating a unique value proposition to organizational leadership and other stakeholders.In today’s fast world, these processes require consideration of time. Successful consultants are conscious of time in relation to change and, therefore, may bring an approach to manage the ebbs and flows in work demand. If successful relationships have formed a cornerstone of practice, the ebb and flow times provide opportunities to flourish and to reflect. The flourish and reflection cycle is supported by clarity in contracting.

Fit and Fashion

For successful practice, the consultant must regularly explore his or her fit with the organization and organizational styles. This is an issue of consequence as it affects the ability to bring the new and different to individuals, teams, and organizations struggling with familiar issues. Just as countercultures are rarely found in organizational life, consultants who do not “click” with the organization are at risk. If the best is expected of internals, long-term dissonance with organizational fit or style is unhealthy.Because the consultant must bring perspective to client issues, the consultant must have a regular personal and professional development approach. If an organization does not support professional development, it may be a clear signal, despite fit, that new fashions are not recognized. Novel and different approaches may be considered the fashion of the consultant, but if these fashions do little to support growth, the consultant may find him or herself at new crossroads. Perspective is developmental.Fit doesn’t last forever. Just as, perhaps, your clothing sizes have shifted over time, so do the consultant’s interests. There are many expert OD practitioners who are great artists and engineers, patiently working to develop canvasses or rewire systems for greater effectiveness. It’s important for both the client and the consultant to pay attention to these clues indicating a lack of fit or fashion. Ignored, practice becomes a second place to standing or status in an organization. When status trumps practices, consultant contribution to an organization may diminish.OD has at least seventy years of contribution to the American scene as a result of the contributions of many internal practitioners. Today, the nature of internal consulting remains an underdeveloped aspect of OD practice. However, relationship development, clarity, and fit elements remain essential to supporting internals' success and development.