Co-Creating Planning Teams for Dialogic OD: From Entry to Event

by Sarah Lewis

In Dialogic OD planning teams (also known as design teams or steering committees, among other terms) are much, much more than just a group of people planning a project. They are the beginning of the change and key to success. Your expertise in developing a dialogic mindset in team members will greatly determine the success of the entire change effort.This short, lively book by seasoned Dialogic OD practitioner Sarah Lewis describes how the unfolding interactions with the change sponsor, internal change agent(s), and planning team lays the essential groundwork for successful large group Dialogic OD. In organizations that are used to top-down management, the planning team plays many roles, •Acting as a microcosm of the larger system that can bring the perspectives, issues, and concerns of the variety of stakeholders to the table•Creating a testing ground to understand the important norms, narratives, history, and present-day strengths and challenges that must be taken into account to design an effective change process•Bringing together the initial group with whom you learn how to develop enthusiasm for a Dialogic OD approach in the larger organization•Emboldening the people who are crucial in convincing senior managers and inviting the rest of the organization into a process of generative conversations that may be very counter-culturalSarah provides detailed descriptions of the many issues and group dynamics you are likely to face and appropriate responses to each of them. Supporting you as you enter the organization, gain the support of a key sponsor, set up a design team, and then help that team let go of traditional, problem-solving approaches to planned change and instead embrace a generative change approach. We follow a case of an experienced Dialogic OD practitioner beginning a new assignment for a leader who says he wants to create an empowering, engaging approach to dealing with people issues identified in a staff survey but doesn’t really understand what it takes. We watch her work with an internal change-agent partner who has trouble letting go of mechanistic, bureaucratic processes, and a design team who initially assume their job is to provide solutions for managers to implement. Over a few months, a developmental process takes place as they test, challenge, learn and eventually become the core from which the entire organization gets ready to engage in generative change.

100 pages, Paperback

Published April 26, 2021

About the author

There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.