Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change: A Third Edition

OD’S ANCIENT ROOTS

We will get to the more recent aspects of the origin of our field, but first, it is important to acknowledge that people have been attempting to create more effective organizations since the dawn of time.

• No doubt small groups of Neanderthal cave-dwellers discussed ways to kill the mastodon more effectively—and without losing so many hunters.

• The early Egyptians had what could best be described as “consulting engineers” who made sure the many communities up and down the Nile practiced proper flood control so everyone would survive another year with an irrigated harvest.

• The biblical story of Moses and his father-in-law Jethro tells of what could be called the first recorded consultation for large-scale change.