Theme: Fusion of Eastern and Western OD Principles – Creating Sustainable Development
The Global OD Summit, India 2009 is the convergence
of two movements dedicated to the professional practice and research
on the art and science of organization development and change management.
What is possible in and for OD when ‘east meets west’?
When two entities come together, they produce something far beyond the additive ‘and’; this happens through fusion, not through addition. ‘Fusion’ means union – something that is made into one by a combination of many. Fusion is about merging of diverse, distinct, or separate elements into a unified whole. In fusion, oneness is created. The ‘one’ that is created has features that are completely different from the added features of the individual entities. Consider different metals fusing to create an alloy as an example of this phenomenon of fusion. Consider the probably more enlivening example of the sperm and ovum fusing to create a new human being. As in atomic fusion, fusion is also about release of enormous energy. The energy that results from fusion is enormously more powerful than the power of the ‘added’ energies. Thus, fusion brings about creation, oneness, newness and enormous energy.
As a formal body of knowledge for professional practice, the field of OD was born and developed in the West, with a variety of features over time. This rich treasure-house of knowledge and wisdom on OD derived from years of thinking and practice by vast number of scholars and practitioners is the result of an iterative process of thinking, doing and research. Today OD has blended variety disciplines to create a distinct field of study and practice. One can see traces of fusion happening here. East has, by and large, applied and adapted OD as developed in the West. For example, in India the T-Group methodology is even today the best intervention to work through resistance to change. In Singapore and Malaysia, on the other hand, structured workshops and training tools are opted as facilitation methods for change.
Based on thousands of years of heritage and kingly traditions, India and the east of Asia have diverse and great wisdom that are relevant and appropriate for OD thought and practice. Recent developments in OD see attempts to incorporate this ancient wisdom.
The fruition of the conference or the end goal of the human capital invested in the conference cannot be predicted; we will make all efforts to unleash the power of discovery and consolidate what is relevant for the future of OD.
The methodology or the language of the conference will be conversations – sharing, reflection, dialogue, and maybe even debates where warranted. The experience will be unique when delegates see merit in their freedom to move around and add value to the search and presentations, when they understand, appreciate and respect different points of views expressed.
OD of the West has deep roots in the empiricism of behavioural and social ‘science’; the Eastern-Oriental wisdom is deeply philosophical and spiritual. The very thought of what is possible when thinking and practice from the distinct worlds of science, philosophy and spirituality fuse is fascinating: a ‘new’ OD that is holistic and wholesome! Even as individual streams and sub-streams of OD maintain their individuality and their rightful places to contribute.
At the conference a wholesome OD can germinate
from the fusion of ideas, sharing of best practices and reflections
on future scenarios of organizations, communities and humanity itself.
This has the potential to release enormous energy that can indeed
contribute to unify and realign corporate goals and visions to contribute
to the future that we collectively picture. This will be the fruition
of fusion that we intend in this GODS 2009.
The structure of the conference proceedings
Indian History in general and the history of this
city of Hyderabad in particular, is the rightful place for the conference
because the goal is to blend the best of different cultures that
have co-existed with mutual respect over the years.
The Summit has many surprises in store and much more learning to take home from. The design of the proceedings is a blend of eastern and oriental ways of knowledge creation and transfer. There is space for presenting papers, sharing knowledge, brain storming about future scenarios, testing assumptions and validating tools for change management.
Conversations that can make this possibility real can be on, but not be restricted to:
1. What concrete results are needed to be produced in the context of organizations, communities, society and humanity that we foresee in the future?
2. What features to fuse together in what kind of interventions to produce these kinds of results
3. Expertise in what all need be deepened in whom? How do we bring about understanding, appreciation and respect to various ‘genres’ of OD among proponents of other genres on an on-going basis?
4. How do we bring to speed the world-wide practice, theorizing, education, training, research and consulting in what we together create in this Summit? How do we build and sustain commitment to this?
The extraordinary opportunity for creating something profound and path-breaking, something that can have global ramifications, presents itself when people converse freely as equals where there is candid ownership to the future of the Globe.
To facilitate the learning the summit thinkers have taken the lead from the above four questions connecting to the case study method for the key note sessions and Keynote panels from the academia, corporate and consulting practice. The three track sessions which would facilitate the 4 questions other than the case studies are:
• Future OD – learnings from multiple work cultures and nations to foresee future OD practices
• Sustainable Development – experiences on using the OD practices for Sustainable Development
• Capacity Building –Ways to develop the necessary OD competencies
• Positive OD Interventions - Impacting the client system through positive OD interventions
The papers / proposals are invited in the following areas. The proposers may choose to address the track session as given below say, with the Future OD choosing the area of impact say Individual, Organizational, Communities and Society.
Track Session / coverage
Individual
Organizational
Communities
Society
Future OD
Sustainable Development
Capacity Building
Positive OD Interventions
The day begins with the Keynote sessions followed by a keynote panel. The keynote panel will consist of a notable academician, Corporate Executive and a Consultant.
The track sessions will have an academic, corporate executive and a consultant.
At the end of each day there will be World Café to consolidate the learning to find the possibilities of fusion from the experiences/case studies / results / interventions used from eastern and western stories.
The intended Groups Conversations:
Conversations can be around, but not restricted to:
1. What results are needed to be produced on that theme?
2. What features of the East and the West to fuse together? How?
3. Expertise in what all need be deepened in whom? How do we bring about understanding of, appreciation of and respect to various features amongst OD professionals?
4. How do we bring to speed the world-wide practice, theorizing, education, training, research and consulting in what we together create in this Summit? How do we build and sustain commitment to this?
The spirit of participation that will make the difference:
Let us look at fusion in another area – music. Fusion music is a result of fusion of different genres of music. Exhilaration and enchantment of fusion music is enhanced when the performing artistes are have deep expertise in their respective genres; have a deep understanding, appreciation and respect of the other genre; and are humble to fuse with one another. Artistes of these qualities are committed to creating something new thereby enriching the whole realm of music significantly. In this Summit, we invite and request OD thinkers and practitioners to bring forth these qualities. Just imagine what kind of results we can produce when those who are being these qualities engage in committed conversations to make a difference to OD and thus humanity!
