ID OR OD: WHICH ONE IS BEST?
If OD is about how to use system-wide interventions and ID is about how to develop the individual to enhance overall performance, then which one is the best to focus on? Barry Johnson’s (1992) repeated theme is that organizational effectiveness is not something we should choose sides over. It is not an either/or, a problem to solve, but rather is a polarity to be managed, a both/and. Johnson describes a polarity as an issue to be managed, creating a situation in which a position taken strongly on one side requires an opposite position to be managed.
“In a polarity, the more we focus on one pole or position, the more important the opposite pole or position becomes” (Johnson, 1992, p. 4). This is evidenced by asking ...