Four decades ago, Herb Stokes, a pioneering change agent and my first mentor at Procter & Gamble, told me, “The organizational forces for stability are always in conflict with the organizational forces for change. [Human Resources] represents the forces for stability. Organization Development represents the forces for change. That is why [HR] and OD never should be housed in the same department.”
Most of us OD practitioners in those days indeed were housed in Personnel or Industrial Relations (both known today as HR). And while we all enjoyed associating with our HR colleagues, we did have frequent disagreements with them on what to change in the organization and how to go about making those changes. If OD consultants recommended a more innovative pay system based on contribution vs. seniority or job title, HR managers would present a long list of reasons why such a change was very risky and uncertain in the benefits it would deliver. When HR would present the revised plant safety policy, OD would cry “bureaucracy” and point out how the policy failed to mesh with the empowerment initiative that was underway.
Pick the right issue in the right organization at the right time and you could find HR and OD being each other’s chief antagonist. Many years have passed since those days, but some of the enmity still persists between the two groups.
*This article was originally published in OD Practitioner (Journal of the Organization Development Network).
