Change, OD and the Borg

 

     The other interesting conversation we were having at the CIPD’s OD conference (in the discussion group I was in) about change management, and how to make transformation work.

People were talking about the need for persuasion and how they could best get people to move where the organisation wanted them.  I leapt in then because I’ve become increasingly convinced that this is not the way that change management works.

Particularly in the OD world, we understand, or should understand, that this isn’t the right way things to do things.  That as soon as you try to move someone, to persuade them to a point of view, you’ve lost the plot.

I call it the Borg model of change – you know, “you will be assimilated!”.  Fine if you want to take your place in the cube, but not what most of us are after.

What we need to do instead is to involve people in deciding where to go.  Then there’s no need for assimilating people, and the change (OD) process is going to be much more successful too.

 

I’ll be blogging a lot more about change management next month (connected to some work I’m doing at the moment).

 

Technorati Tags: Change management,organisation development,OD,prersuasion,borg,assimilation

 

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