I hate to be the Friedrich Nietzsche of OD; however, the question begs to be asked, is learning and development dead? It is because the economy killed it. The need for statistically valid organizational diagnostics did not go away, nor did the necessity for strong coaching and professional development programs. The recession decimated OD and Learning and Development departments. So, the next question that begs to be asked is what are companies going to do? If they are smart, they will pay attention to the recent trends to reduce costs, retain talent, and maximize their return on their T&D investment.
I’ve been compiling market trends and here’s what I’ve found:
- Cost saving OD Trends Companies are wising up and using learning management systems to populate their intranet, and to engage employees in just in time training. To ensure the transfer of learning, a pre-assessment must be in place, followed by post evaluation diagnostics. Sounding the horn of common sense, learning initiatives should be followed with coaching, evaluation, and more coaching. How else can a company do an efficacious return on investment study. If CEOs continue to whine about how their training dollars are being spent, they have to match their groan with the dollars to support an organizational solution that has teeth and takes hold.
Organization Development professionals are constantly being asked to justify their existence. Is this a good thing? I think perhaps it is. On the other hand, not all outcomes can be measured by metrics alone. Often, organization improvement outcomes are qualitative. Customer service departments receive fewer complaint calls. Janice, the pain in the tush manager, isn’t such a pain anymore, and people now like working for her. Plant floor employees are generating stronger productivity, and product is arriving to stores on time.
Are outcomes like the above mentioned consistently tied to return on investment studies? Not always.
As I continued my research I came across two great articles that discuss trends that include the value of learning management systems and the road to economic recovery:
- 5 Key Trends Learning Management Systems have been around for a long time. They have their place. They reduce the cost of travel, content development and the cost of paying the price of live content delivery. However, just in time desk top learning solutions lack the human touch. Therefore, I favor blended learning solutions.
- Bob Nelson’s thoughts on the road to recovery I love this article and added it to this post because it encapsulates hope for our future, and is packed with great ideas. We have to lace our bad news exclamations with good news and solutions that are solid, and are backed by research. Ok, I’m a bit of a research dweeb, but it’s how I was trained.
I remember when I was in graduate school, one of the adjunct professors exclaimed, “training is dead.” The entire class was crest-fallen. But then, we woke up, and realized that if OD dies it’s because we killed it by not justifying our value, and the worth we provide to the organization. That’s the bottom line. Even though OD departments have been decimated, and the roads are littered with unemployed OD and Learning and Development Professionals, we have to bear in mind that the need for the work we do has not gone away. It will never go away. The trends and research are starting to show that much of what OD practitioners do will be outsourced. This creates a new opportunity for the OD Profession. And as Martha Stewart would say, “That’s a good thing.”
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Great post on OD, Margo.
OD will always need some form of human touch, and therefore won’t fade out. Sure, many companies will look to outsource, but I think it will be because folks were not able to PROVE their value through metrics, or failed at attaining the metric goals outlined in programs.
Rich thanks for your feedback. I know there will be some blow-back from the way I wrote this post. Some OD Pros think ROI is a dirty word, and it makes the queasy. There are a lot of reasons OD Departments have been downsized. I don’t mean to oversimplify it by any means. Learning Management Systems will never take the place of live training. What excites me these days are the ways companies are using computer-game systems to simulate situations where people can practice new skills and test their knowledge. The 2.0 platform has helped tremendously to increase the knowledge base as well. People are using twitter for benchmarking best practices, access journals and periodicals, and to read blogposts that help them not just to learn but to increase their skill base, and level of competency. I used to be in the business of skill building and competency modeling. Now, I’m interested in traditional human resource practices and executive recruiting. What I hope to do in the future is to bring my OD eyes into the traditional HR world, and make a difference. Wish me luck.
There are so many facets to OD and just like the overall function of HR there are time that OD is hard to describe. At my last job people had know idea what it was. The key piece is to understand that in any business strategy and planning is important to not only come out surviving but also thriving. OD is the invisible glue!
While there is no specific definition for OD, in practice, it can take on many forms, and typical activities can include some of the following: Team-building, Organizational assessment, Career development, Learning, Coaching, Strategy, Leadership development, Talent management, Change management and even creating and planning for organizational structure.
Interesting points!
I think Benjamin hit the nail on the head: nobody knows what OD is, much less what it should be doing. Of course, that’s the fault of the “C-suite” and not understanding the employee bottom line.
OD (and HR) needs to be clearly defined in terms of its scope of duties, and its relationship with employees and executive teams. Nobody tends to know what those departments do because, in reality, they don’t know what they do; just “the stuff” that doesn’t fit in with more concrete departments.
Conversely, the “C-suite” needs to realize tangible returns aren’t always green and crinkly in nature.
I leave with this: there are reasons certain organizations are called “best-of-breed,” and one of them is called OD.
Ben, you and I are both in OD and we understand the many faceted aspects of learning and development and organization diagnostics. It’s impossible to address each of the aspects in one post. What I hope to do in the future is to write more prolifically about OD topics in the future. However; I want to integrate them and tie them back to traditional HR, as that is the direction my future career is headed. As always, I am grateful when you comment. I respect you as a colleague and a twitter friend.
Margo,
Couldn’t get your post out of my head after tweeting it; the title has been in my mind for about 10 years.
Thirty years ago I was referred to as an “OD guy”. What that meant to CEOs at the time was everything to which Benjamin referred. It still means that. However, in the early days of OD things like T&D, Facilitation, Strategy and Leadership Dev were accepted as valuable in and of themselves. That is, executives viewed the various aspects of personal, professional, and organizational development as a “Duh–of course we would want to do that. It inherently makes sense.”
I don’t experience CEOs having any less attraction to OD and its elements now. Their new distinctions are:
a. What do we need to do to address a particular issue?
b. How can we do it economically?
c. How can we somehow measure the results? (That was often missing earlier).
d. Talk to me in business terms, not OD terms. (This is the same issue that HR faces and, to be fair, every specific “discipline” face. We each have our own jargon and language that allows us to communicate quickly. Good OD practitioners would tell clients to communicate in lay language; we simply have to remember to do the same).
Jonathan notes that *the “C-suite” needs to realize tangible returns aren’t always green and crinkly in nature.*
No, the C-suite does not need to realize that at all. In profit making organizations the tangible returns *are* green and crinkly in nature. What we have to do is demonstrate how intangible methodologies lead to tangible green and crinkly outcomes.
OD is dead.
However, the ingredients that comprise it are very much alive, but only where practitioners can:
a. Silently translate the underlying theory into the language and application needed to address the business issue at hand.
b. Demonstrate a cause/effect relationship between “whatever” and the results.
I don’t want my doctor to perform a “medical intervention.” I want him to remove my ruptured appendix so I will live.
When OD (and HR) people start performing successful appendectomies instead of interventions, the issue of our value will disappear.
OD is dead. Long live OD!
Killer comment, Steve. I believe this is one of the very best comments I’ve ever had on this blog from its inception in terms of content knowledge, and intention. First, you and Benjamin are correct: O.D. and Training are not the same, but they do get lumped into the same boat. Second, we have to speak in business terms, not in sub industry lingo. If we want to have leverage with senior staff, and people at the CEO level, we have to be able to make tangible case for our value to the business. As a friend of mine says, we have to be business people in HR/OD not HR/OD people in the business. Next, point: I want a solution, but as you said, be careful what you call it. As discussed, I wouldn’t go to a proctologist and ask him to remove my wisdom teeth. Nor would I ask the VP of Sales to conduct an organizational assessment. We have to be clear about our roles and what we contribute. On the other hand, we have to be able to communicate, and articulate what we are doing in a way that conveys meaning. One day, we will come to terms the fact that OD interventions (barfy buzz word) do have a place. But, as in any service there are good adaptations and bad. My practice and experience bears the following to be true-there is a place for organization analysis when the culture is toxic, dysfunctional, or causing business failure. Unfortunately, many of these organizations either cannot afford to conduct the analysis, are blind to their problems, or don’t care about the consequences until it is too late-and the business starts falling apart. It’s the healthy organizations that take their temperature, and if there’s a fever, they take the appropriate remedy. I’ve conducted organization analysis, presented my findings, and have leaders look at me and say, “this is great, we know, but we don’t want to work on that problem right now…or interesting, Margo-but we can’t afford to conduct the follow up at this time.” There’s nothing more frustrating than taking a look at the condition on an organization, identifying their goals and where they want to be, analyzing the gaps, only to find the organization is willing to spend the money on the study, but not on the recommended soultions. This leads me to my next comment: why pay for a service and not take the service providers advice. That makes about as much sense as visiting your doctor, being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and after serious warning, binging on candy and not take the insulin. Obviously it would kill a diabetic. Doesn’t the same hold true for organizations? With businesses folding left and right, I wonder how many spent thousands of dollars on consulting fees and studies before they folded? Sure as a CEO, Steve you can feel my pain. It’s one of the reasons OD is dying. With that said, the necessity for good analyis, followed up by rigorous action will never die. Long live O.D. Thank you for visiting my blog. You absolutely and totally made my day.