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

GENERATING VALUE IN A PROFOUND MANNER

Here is one of the most profound roles the OD professional can play in establishing his or her expertise and value: make implicit knowledge explicit and explicit knowledge implicit. Outside resources can’t possibly do this as effectively as internal OD experts.

By this I mean that the knowledge that key, effective employees keep in their heads for quick use, often idiosyncratically, must be placed into shared formats. So a top manufacturing person who knows that certain key customers are happy when they can influence minor designs during production, and involves them in that manner, must be able (and encouraged) to provide that information to others, including peers and superiors.

Conversely, procedures ...