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

ALIGNMENT AND HUMAN SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT (HSD)

Although the mental leap from OD to HSD can seem large, the conceptual leap is relatively clear. Namely, when OD is conceived of as the process of facilitating alignment among all organization members, then HSD involves the process of facilitating alignment among all system members.

In HSD, alignment takes on even greater importance. As the size of the system increases, the opportunity for misalignment, and the impact of misalignment, increases. Consider that the majority of collaborative efforts fail as a result of misalignment in mindsets, goals, resources, cultural values, and so forth at the individual, group, and organizational level. As the world increasingly calls for the power of collaboration, ...