For the past several weeks, work has been progressing on the production of a special, OD-themed edition of the online journal e-Organisations and People (e-O&P).
This has been put together in recognition of the upcoming 20th Anniversary of the formation of the OD Innovation Network (ODiN). The journal is now complete and it has been published today by the Association for Management Education and Development (AMED). You can access a copy of the entire edition here.
The edition is entitled OD Matters: celebrating ODiN at 20. At its core are 13 original and wide-ranging articles written by ODiN members. These cover the following five broad themes:
- giving voice and enabling others to find theirs;
- foundations of OD;
- perspectives on OD practice;
- facing the future; and,
- a call to arms.
Besides the suite of articles, you will find a catalogue of the books that have been written by current members of the network; together with details of some upcoming events and brief outlines of AMED and ODiN*.
In my role as guest editor, I have written a brief introduction to the articles and drawn out a number of common themes, to provoke further reflection, discussion and practice. These include:
- the centrality of human being and human interaction to leadership, performance and change;
- the importance of enabling the voices and choices of everyone to emerge and be taken seriously, both in spoken and written form;
- the challenge of recognising, valuing and seeking to integrate difference, without losing the challenge and creativity that difference brings;
- the value of drawing insights from early thinkers and practitioners in the broad field of organisation and management practice, and translating these into the current context;
- the significance of purpose – both individual and collective, espoused and actual – in shaping what happens;
- the increasingly ubiquitous nature of technology and its potential effect on people’s participation, practice and performance – both positive and negative;
- the continuing need to enable and exploit organisational ‘agility’, in the broadest sense of the word;
- the need for an ethical grounding to OD practice;
- recognition of the power-related nature of human interaction – and, hence, of organisation;
and, last but not least,
- the need to take complexity seriously.
To complete the editorial, I’ve charted the history of ODiN over the past 20 years. This includes a schedule of all of the meetings (well almost all!) that have taken place during that period.
Acknowledgements
Besides thanking the authors of the articles for their excellent contributions, as well as those members who have supplied details of the books that they have written, I would like to acknowledge the excellent work done by the members of AMED’s Editorial Board, Bob MacKenzie and David McAra. Without their unstinting efforts in supporting the authors and orchestrating production of the journal, the project would not have reached its successful conclusion.
* Please note that, for logistical reasons, membership of ODiN is by invitation only.
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