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

THE TALENT BANK

What competencies are required to pull this off successfully? I would suggest that one needs skills, knowledge, and certain behavioral dispositions. The first two are “trainable”; the last is only modifiable. (You can teach someone the beer business and even corporate history and cultural realities, but you can’t “teach” him enthusiasm.) The talent required is somewhat different from that of external consultants, because there is actually less freedom to fail (see the pros and cons at the beginning of this chapter).

Underpinning all of this is the particular tightrope that is held taut or becomes slack due to corporate politics (often worse in non-profits, education, and government, of course), turf battles, individual egos, ...