Practicing Organization Development (A guide for Consultants) - Part 54 docx

3. Justice—people living lives whose results are fair and right for everyone; 4. Dignity, integrity, worth, and fundamental rights of individuals, organiza- tions, communities, societies, and other human systems; 5. All-win attitudes and cooperation—people caring about one another and about working together to achieve results that work for everyone, individ- ually and collectively; 6. Authenticity and openness in relationship; 7. Effectiveness, efficiency and alignment—people achieving the maximum of desired results, at minimum cost, in ways that coordinate their individ- ual energies and purposes with those of the system-as-a-whole, the subsystems of which they are parts, and the larger system of which their system is a part; 8. Holistic, systemic view and stakeholder orientation—understanding human behavior from the perspective of whole system(s) that influence and are influenced by that behavior; recognizing the interests that different people have in the system’s results and valuing those interests fairly and justly; wide participation in system affairs, confrontation of issues leading to effec- tive problem solving, and democratic decision making.” Few would disagree with these standards. The question remains: How are these values put into practice within the various organizational and institutional contexts that characterize the field of practice for OD practitioners? This is where the importance of ethical standards, clarity around one’s own ethical frame- work, and the opportunity for reflective practice come into play. An Annotated Statement of Values and Ethics by Professionals in Organization and Human Systems Development According to Gellermann, Frankel, and Ladenson (1990), developing a shared position about the values and ethics of the field provides a common frame of reference for practitioners and can be used to raise consciousness about the impact of individual practice on the field. More specifically, the purpose of the statement is to (1) increase professional and ethical consciousness and our sense of ethical responsibility; (2) guide us in making more informed ethical choices; and (3) help professionals function more effectively. The statement development process started in the early 1980s and has included more than six hundred people from over twenty-five countries in the discussion. The ethical guidelines are summarized in the following outline: 1. Responsibility to ourselves a. Act with integrity; be authentic and true to ourselves. b. Strive continually for self-knowledge and personal growth. VALUES, ETHICS, AND PRACTICE IN THE FIELD OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT 501 29_962384 ch21.qxd 2/3/05 12:21 AM Page 501 c. Recognize our personal needs and desires. d. Assert individual interests in ways that are fair and equitable. 2. Responsibility for professional development and competence a. Accept responsibility for the consequences of our acts. b. Develop and maintain our individual competence and establish coop- erative relations with other professionals. c. Recognize our own needs and desires and deal with them responsibly in the performance of our professional roles. d. Practice within the limits of our competence, culture, and experience in providing services. e. Practice in cultures different from our own only with consultation from people native to or knowledgeable about those specific cultures. 3. Responsibility to clients and significant others a. Serve the long-term well-being of our client systems and their stakeholders. b. Conduct ourselves honestly, responsibly, and with appropriate openness. c. Establish mutual agreement on a fair contract. d. Deal with conflicts constructively and minimize conflicts of interest. e. Define and protect confidentiality in our client relationships. f. Make public statements of all kinds accurately, including promotion and advertising, and give service as advertised. 4. Responsibility to the OD/HSD profession a. Contribute to the continuing professional development of other practi- tioners and the profession-as-a-whole. b. Promote the sharing of professional knowledge and skill. c. Work with other professionals in ways that exemplify what the profes- sion stands for. d. Work actively for ethical practice by individuals and organizations engaged in OD/HSD activities and, in case of questionable practice, use appropriate channels for dealing with it. e. Act in ways that bring credit to the OD/HSD profession and with due regard for colleagues in other professions. 5. Social responsibility a. Act with sensitivity to the consequences of our recommendations for our client systems and the larger systems within which they are sub- systems. b. Act with awareness of our cultural filters and with sensitivity to multi- national and multicultural differences and their implications. c. Promote justice and serve the well-being of all life on earth. 502 PRACTICING ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT, 2ND EDITION 29_962384 ch21.qxd 2/3/05 12:21 AM Page 502 d. Withhold service from clients whose purpose(s) we consider immoral, yet recognize that such service may serve a greater good in the long run and therefore be acceptable. e. Act consistently with the ethics of the global scientific community of which our OD/HSD community is a part. Ethical guidelines are behavior standards oriented toward the pursuit of what is good/right and avoiding what is bad/wrong in a particular domain. For our purposes, that refers to the OD/HSD field of practice. Ultimately we strive for an understanding that lets us resolve ethical dilemmas in alignment with our professional and personal values. Developing the Ability to Think and Act Ethically Gellermann, Frankel, and Ladenson (1990) present a model for ethical decision making with the objectives of (1) increasing sensitivity to ethical issues; (2) developing an ability to identify possible ethical actions; and (3) develop- ing the ability to act in ways that are consistent with one’s analysis. The model is grounded in the notion that our thinking about ethics is a combination of rea- son and intuition informed by an ongoing, iterative process of action and reflec- tion. With practice we can become “fluent” in making ethical decisions. Given that previous research suggests that practitioners rely primarily on intuition as a means of making decisions (DeVogel, 1992), the importance of integrating rea- soned consideration into the process is self-evident. In this model, ethical com- petence is a function of the extent to which we have done the following: • “Informed our intuition” with a clear understanding of our own beliefs, values, and ethics, and potential ethical challenges; • Reflected on our experiences in a way that we create a knowledge base for future action; and • Practiced using our values and ethics in a way that makes them avail- able when we need them; that is, we have accustomed ourselves to a process for making ethical decisions. Embedded in this notion of competence is that we develop our capacity through reflective practice so that, to some extent at least, it is an unconscious process. The model begins by acknowledging that we live within a continuous stream of consciousness and that our ability to make ethical decisions is based on our sensitivity to situations in which our ethics are important. When we become aware that we are in such a situation, the flow of the mental process evoked by that recognition can be conceived as follows: VALUES, ETHICS, AND PRACTICE IN THE FIELD OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT 503 29_962384 ch21.qxd 2/3/05 12:21 AM Page 503 Step 1: Situation or dilemma analysis a. Are your ethics violated? Which ethic(s) are violated? Is violation clear or unclear? Is violation ethically justifiable? b. Are your values in conflict? Which values? What is the relative importance of those values? Step 2: Ethical analysis a. Analyze your situation What is your vision of desired results? What facts and assumptions are guiding your thinking about how to move in that direction? b. Review your situation or dilemma analysis for possible change c. Choose to maximize positives over negatives d. Any ethics violations? Which ethic(s) are violated? Is violation clear or unclear? Is violation ethically justifiable? Can you improve your choice? This then lays foundation for . . . Step 3: Decision Step 4: Action Step 5: Reflection (to develop your future ability) There is a story about a man in New York who was on his way to a concert. He asked another person, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” and the person replied, “Practice! Practice! Practice!” The same principle applies to developing one’s ability to make ethical decisions. It is not enough to assume that, when faced with an ethical dilemma, you will be able to act ethically. In fact, you may not even recognize that you have a dilemma, particularly if you have not reflected on your ethics—your standards of good/bad or right/wrong behavior. Or, without preparing yourself, you may ratio- nalize your decision based on your immediate, apparent self-interest. You can pre- pare yourself to recognize situations involving ethical dilemmas and to make decisions based on your ethics by “practicing” in advance of the need to decide. One way to prepare is to reflect on your values and ethics—and one way to do that is to review “An Annotated Statement of Values and Ethics by Profes- sionals in Organization and Human Systems Development,” which was referred to in an earlier section. (To obtain a copy of the statement, go to www. odethicsclearinghouse.org and download the “Statement Development Package.”) 504 PRACTICING ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT, 2ND EDITION 29_962384 ch21.qxd 2/3/05 12:21 AM Page 504 As noted earlier, that statement reflects participation by more than six hun- dred people from more than twenty-five countries. It provides food for thought in reflecting on what your values and ethics are, along with several other related concepts, such as what is meant by “the ethical justification of an unethical act.” Individual Factors That Influence Ethical Judgment and Practice The values of authenticity and integrity are fundamental to our quest for ethi- cal practice. Self-knowledge is a cornerstone in developing ethical practice and impacts our ability to reason and act effectively in relation to ethical dilemmas, particularly consciousness of the mental model we use in approaching such decisions. Of particular importance is understanding how we can get in the way of our own best intentions to act ethically. Recognizing an ethical dilemma requires ethical sensitivity. Yetmar and Eastman (2000) identify the role of ethical sensitivity as a trigger for the ethical decision- making process. Jones’ (1991) concept of moral intensity suggests that ethical issues enter into our consciousness at varying levels of salience. This is aligned with Kurland and Egan’s (1999) thinking about organizational justice, which proposes that people are more likely to have a concern for justice and fairness when they experience negative outcomes. When that concern is triggered, sense- making begins, and an examination of individual behavior and organizational processes begins. This implies that, as OD practitioners, we must be aware of how our personal filters influence our ability to recognize, reason, decide, and act. The socially constructed nature of ethical reasoning offers an additional bar- rier or leverage point for developing one’s own ethical competence. For exam- ple, Kohlberg (1984) contended that the majority of adults determine what is ethical as a function of conformity to the expectations of relevant social groups, fulfilling one’s obligations to the social system, the law (unless it conflicts with fixed social duties), and the well-being or common good of the group. The implications of this framework are clear: cultural and professional norms are a powerful influence on an individual’s ethical judgment and, by extension, behavior. This dynamic underscores the importance of continued dialogue in the profession and the opportunity to discuss issues with fellow practitioners, particularly with those who have viewpoints that differ from one’s own. Our aim is to encourage practitioners to move beyond compliance with a code to acting based on standards to which they have freely committed themselves and that, ideally, will be in general alignment with those of other practitioners. Another implication of this perspective is related to understanding how one’s own needs motivate cognition. Conventional reasoning suggests that to the extent one is overly identified with and invested in any particular social group one tends to use the standards and values of that group as a reference for deci- sion making—often at the expense of alternative perspectives and legitimate claims by other stakeholders. VALUES, ETHICS, AND PRACTICE IN THE FIELD OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT 505 29_962384 ch21.qxd 2/3/05 12:21 AM Page 505 Understanding one’s own motivational basis may provide valuable insights into potential barriers or leverage points in developing ethical competency. At what level is your desire for inclusion and belonging impacting your ability to exercise your own ethical competence? Similarly, fear-based needs such as the fear of failure, being wrong, rejection, and emotional discomfort (Wilson & Wilson, 1998) can have a powerful influence. Mitroff (1998) suggests that our ability to define an ethical issue and analyze the interests of various stakeholders is constrained by our often unconscious assumptions about the relevance of their position. We are more attuned to issues and positions that are in alignment with our own interests and limit our search for alternative courses of action by traveling the path most often fol- lowed, the one consistent with meeting our own needs. This reinforces the importance of developing and practicing a personalized model of ethical deci- sion making that breaks through hardened, habituated neural pathways. Ethical Challenges for Global Practitioners Globalization as a trend impacts the development of a statement of values for the profession as well as individual practice. Increasingly there is a need for practitioners to understand areas where their personal values may conflict with the values of the culture in which they are working. Recently, scholars in the area of business ethics (Robertson & Fadil, 1999) proposed a relationship between national culture and ethical behavior. Focus- ing primarily on Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimension of individualism versus collectivism as a measure of cultural variation, the authors suggest that man- agers from individualistic cultures will reason at levels different from managers from collectivist cultures. By extension, ethical decision making may also be impacted by national culture. For example, the authors suggest that individual- istic cultures may be less ethically oriented than collectivist cultures. While the evidence for this assertion is quite limited, it poses at least two questions for practitioners. First, to what extent is your ability to reason shaped by the basic assumptions of your national culture? Equally important, to what extent do you understand how your theories of practice may need to be adjusted to be appro- priate outside of the culture in which they were developed? Common Ethical Dilemmas White and Wooten (1986) group ethical dilemmas facing OD practitioners into five general categories: misrepresentation and collusion, misuse of data, manip- ulation and coercion, values and goals conflicts, and technical ineptness. And a recent study of the frequency of ethical dilemmas perceived by Canadian OD practitioners (Page’, 1998) added client dependency. In the Page’ study, two vignettes for each category of ethical dilemmas were presented to practitioners, who were asked to evaluate the extent to which the situations occurred and to offer explanations to justify the occurrence of unethical 506 PRACTICING ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT, 2ND EDITION 29_962384 ch21.qxd 2/3/05 12:21 AM Page 506 behavior. The percentage (two numbers corresponding to two separate vignettes) who reported the dilemmas as occurring at least occasionally is reported as fol- lows: misrepresentation and collusion (56 percent, 88 percent), misuse of data (53 percent, 13 percent), manipulation and coercion (59 percent, 63 percent), val- ues and goal conflict (42 percent, 56 percent), technical ineptness (56 percent, 55 percent), and client dependency (46 percent, 85 percent). The most commonly selected explanation for the occurrence of these dilemmas was attributed to the consultant’s own personal sense of morality, followed closely by implicit or explicit rewards. These findings support the importance of developing one’s own ethical decision-making competence as well as continuing the dialogue about ethical standards in the field. DeVogel (1992) surveyed OD consultants to determine the frequency of occur- rence of certain categories of ethical dilemmas. The percentages reporting that dilemmas in each category occurred at least occasionally were as follows: illusion of participation (71 percent), skip the diagnosis (65 percent), inappropriate inter- vention (61 percent), stretch the limits of my competence (58 percent), coercion (57 percent), political pressure (57 percent), informed consent (56 percent), client has misled the consultant (54 percent), misuse of information (50 percent), violate confidentiality (47 percent), priority of interests (46 percent), role expectations (44 percent), and conflict with co-consultant (43 percent). The majority of sub- jects relied on internal processes and discussion with other people as their pri- mary approach to decision making. The author also reported that, as noted in an earlier edition of his book, “The majority of respondents described their decision- making processes as intuitive and feeling-based rather than rational” (DeVogel, 1992, p. 465). This suggests the importance of providing practitioners with an opportunity to develop and practice their own decision-making framework, an approach to developing one’s own ethical competence described earlier. Additional resources for thinking about specific ethical dilemmas are in the book by Gellermann, Frankel, and Ladenson (1990). Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, they solicited descriptions of dilemmas experi- enced by practitioners (using announcements in professional publications). They then asked several experienced practitioners to describe how they would respond to each situation, both in writing and in discussions at professional meetings. Those situations provide a resource for stimulating your own ethical reasoning and the practitioner responses provide a means for reviewing your reasoning. CONCLUSION In conclusion, we would like to repeat, for emphasis, that we place higher value on a process for developing shared values, ethics, and standards of competence with which practitioners can freely align themselves than on a process based on enforcing compliance with standards. It is clear to us that our preferred VALUES, ETHICS, AND PRACTICE IN THE FIELD OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT 507 29_962384 ch21.qxd 2/3/05 12:21 AM Page 507 process is much more likely to inform practitioners’ actual practice. Our hope is that this article will be a contribution to that process. Note 1. One of the places where “Human Systems Development” emerged as a way of thinking about our field was in meetings called by Herb Shepard, one of OD’s founders. Participants were representatives of the major OD-oriented practitioner organizations (such as the OD Network, OD Institute, International OD Association, and Academy of Management OD Division). Their purpose was to find ways of improving collaboration among those organizations. At their first meeting, Bill Gellermann (one of the co-authors of this chapter) asked for their support of a process for developing a statement of values and ethics for OD professionals that the group did endorse. (That process and the statement that emerged from it are discussed later in this chapter.) At their second meeting several months later, the group, which had initially called itself “The Interorganization Group,” changed its name to “The Human Systems Development Consortium” because several represen- tatives reported that they had a significant number of members for whom the term “Organization Development” was not appropriate, such as people working with countries, communities, and regions. References Collins, J., & Porras, J. (1994). Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies. New York: Harper Business. Cottone, R. (2001). A social constructivism model of ethical decision making in counseling. Journal of Counseling and Development, 79, 39–45 DeVogel, S. (1992). Ethical decision making in organization development: Current theory and practice. Unpublished dissertation. St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota. Donaldson, T., & Dunfee, T. (1995). Integrative social contracts theory: A communitarian conception of economic ethics. Economics and Philosophy, 11, 85–112. Gellermann, W., Frankel, M.S., & Ladenson, R.F. (1990). Values and ethics in organiza- tion and human systems development: Responding to dilemmas in professional life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Griffin, P., & Minors, A. (2002). Values in practice in organization development: An interim report. Unpublished report. Hofstede, G. (1980). Cultures consequences: International differences in work-related values. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Jones, T.M. (1991). Ethical decision-making by individuals in organizations: An issue- contingent model. 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Online Resources Business as an Agent of World Change BAWB: www.weatherhead.cwru.edu/bawb/ Ethics Resource Center: http://ethics.org OD/HDS Clearinghouse: http://odethicsclearinghouse.org VALUES, ETHICS, AND PRACTICE IN THE FIELD OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT 509 29_962384 ch21.qxd 2/3/05 12:21 AM Page 509 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Bringing Every Mind into the Game to Realize the Positive Revolution in Strategy The Appreciative Inquiry Summit Frank J. Barrett, David L. Cooperrider, and Ronald E. Fry T he pace and scope of change facing organizations seem to defy our grasp. Organizations that are on top today have no guarantee where they will be tomorrow. They face strategic shifts in industry, technological innovations, emergence of new competitors, and changes in legal requirements. Discontinuous changes and radical overhauls impact everyone—they require more, not less, coor- dination of activities. They affect every element of the organization, from reshap- ing internal relationships to the way jobs are designed, the structure of reporting relationships, reward systems, information systems, and relations with customer and suppliers. This is strategic change that is beyond incremental fine-tuning and adaptation. Nothing is left untouched. Little wonder, then that Nadler (1998) claims that executives are facing the challenge of “reshaping the entire enterprise.” If we are going to reshape the entire enterprise, we need to abandon the machine metaphor that has spawned so many bureaucratic designs. It’s time to consider new organizational models—a model that appreciates the need for mem- bers at all organization levels to be able to think, plan, innovate, and process infor- mation. Drucker (1989) has suggested that the 21st Century leader will be like an orchestra conductor. However, an orchestral metaphor—connoting pre-scripted musical scores and a single conductor as leader—is limited, and implies a separa- tion between thinking and doing reminiscent of Taylorism. Given the degree of tur- bulence and the need for ongoing transformation, we suggest that organizations need to operate more like jazz musicians improvising. Like jazz bands, organiza- tions need to be designed for maximizing learning and innovation. When jazz 510 ∂ ∂ 30_962384 ch22.qxd 2/3/05 12:24 AM Page 510 . cognitive-developmental approach. Chapter 2 in Essays on moral development, Vol. II: The psychology of moral development, pp. 170–206. New York: Harper & Row. 508 PRACTICING ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT, . coordinate their individ- ual energies and purposes with those of the system-as-a-whole, the subsystems of which they are parts, and the larger system of which their system is a part; 8. Holistic,. time to consider new organizational models—a model that appreciates the need for mem- bers at all organization levels to be able to think, plan, innovate, and process infor- mation. Drucker (1989)