An Organizational Development (OD) Instrument
Intellectual Capital & the Power of People!
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© February 10, 2010
NOTICE
The Fisher Paradigm©™® has full protection of copyright, trademark and registered protection.1 It is presented here as to what it is and how it works. It cannot be copied, published, sold or distributed without written permission of this author. For more information, contact The Delta Group Florida or address your interests by e-mail: thedeltagrpfl@cs.com
A Noun. In grammar, it is any class of words naming or denoting a person, place, thing, action or quality. Intuition. It is the direct knowing or learning of something without conscious use of reasoning. It is immediate understanding.
Webster’s New World College Dictionary (2001)
ABSTRACT
The Fisher Paradigm©™® is a diagnostic tool of organizational development (OD). It is primarily an intuitive rather than cognitive model. There are no algorithms to master, no mathematical proof to compute, yet it is an authentic tool of this discipline.
OD grew out of a need to bring some order and comprehension to the complex organization, which grows more incomprehensible with the passing of time. Management attempts to give it direction and purpose while management itself becomes increasingly anachronistic.
OD is currently being underused if not misused as a subset of human resources management (HR).
The function of HR is instrumental (operations) while that of OD is terminal (cultural).
HR is dedicated to the management of things (hiring, placement, training & development), while OD is an assessment tool of organizational health and the integrity of organizational leadership.
HR is an insider discipline with its client senior management. OD is an outsider discipline with its client the collective, which is the organization.
HR reflects the values of senior management. OD assesses the culture and integrity of the organization vis-à-vis its mission.
HR is primarily cognitive; OD is cognitive and intuitive.
HR reflects position power. OD reflects the mindset and moral authority of the organization. Position power meets operational and tactical requirement. Moral authority sees that the organization stays the course consistent with its professed objectives.
HR revolves around expediency of demand and is driven by instrumental values, or the means-to-ends commitment of resources.
OD revolves around the mindset, or shared culture and history of the organization. It is expressed in the unconscious behavior of its members which are either consistent with or inconsistent to its stated mission and objectives.
The main task of OD is to demonstrate mnemonic obligations through intuitive leadership. The past gave integrity and purpose to the organization. Corporate memory is corporate identity. OD assesses this identity as to whether it is functional, dysfunctional, or in crisis.
The corporate memory draws on the will of workers to commit to a common purpose. This depends on qualitative values (culture) and spiritual vitality (motivation). This leads to the counterintuitive idea that the less instrumentally driven the organization the more terminally relevant it is. Permit me to explain.
Total reliance on vertical thinking and cognitive reasoning has placed the organization at risk. This is demonstrated in crisis management, circular argument, and critical thinking employed exclusively to solve problems. In an imperfect world, it calls for the complement of lateral thinking, intuition and creative thinking.
OD engages intuition while still utilizing its cognitive arsenal. The Fisher Paradigm©™® suggests that the unconscious is key to moving beyond rational explanatory limits.
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