Second, given the very wide remit and loose boundaries of the field of OD, many other fields of applied behavioural science share common roots and interests with OD. Like close cousins, they stimulate each other’s continuous development by cross-fertilizing their knowledge base. The field of OD has been enhanced by this overlap of diverse perspectives, providing OD practitioners with additional dimensions in theory and practice to support of organizations and people.
One critical distinction between OD and adjacent fields of practice is that those with expertise in related fields do not require OD knowledge and skills to effectively practice their specialisms, especially if they operate from an expert role, in which their technical advice to clients is sufficient. There are many fantastic evaluation specialists, effective coaches, design thinkers, and similar expert professionals who command great respect from their clients and yet know very little about OD.
However, many of these professionals are gracious enough to declare that by embracing OD into their portfolio of expertise, their practice and work has been enhanced, especially in their consultancy processes and the work they do with multiple groups in complex settings.
On the other hand, those who started off as OD practitioners have often found that, while the foundational competences stand them in good stead for many types of roles and jobs, increasing organizational complexity and other challenges faced by clients have required increasingly deep expertise in specific areas of service delivery. Needing, for example, to help leaders think about restructuring, adjusting operation models and processes, helping leaders evaluate their relationships with partners, sorting out the quality of relationship between key staff and third parties—these and many other kinds of challenges have prompted OD practitioners to add different areas of expertise to their OD practice.
Through these journeys, most OD practitioners are grateful for the foundational OD knowledge and values they have embraced and accumulated. And they know their default orientation will always be using applied behavioural science to work with dynamic living systems. But they also know it is important to develop expertise in other overlapping fields of interest in support of their clients. Their OD developmental journey can perhaps be likened to a group of behavioural scientists setting out to travel. As they depart, they are well-trained and equipped to undertake any journey. But, as they meet changing terrain on their journey, they wisely acquire additional tools, clothing and other resources that will ensure they are equipped to reach their destination.
So, this Specialism section is set up—by a number of individual contributors—to help you get to know some of the most common specialized fields of knowledge in which OD practitioners tend to work. There are three categories of specialism:
- Areas that are part of foundational OD competences, but require a much deeper dive in order for a practitioner to claim specialist expertise. These include, for example, ‘inclusion, equality and equity’, facilitation, virtual facilitation, group process consultation, and human interaction laboratory facilitation.
- Areas that are seen as key aspects of OD practitioner roles, tasks and activities. These include, for example, working with change, organisation design, large scale intervention, coaching, and team effectiveness coaching.
- Key theories that inform OD design and intervention work, such as design thinking, appreciative inquiry, dialogic OD, Gestalt, and human systems dynamics.
Four important notes:
- The list of specialisms in this app are by no means exhaustive. Even the 27 types of OD specialisms listed in this article are not exhaustive. There are at least two reasons for not aiming to be comprehensive in listing specialisms. First of all, it is almost impossible to write about every other field of expertise that has a close relationship with OD practice. Secondly, this app is a community platform. So, the hope is that users will feel encouraged to suggest additional OD specialisms that they believe should be added to the app.
- Please bear in mind that, while most OD professionals are—and should be—able to talk about many specialisms to their clients, very few will have more than 3-4 areas of deep knowledge. And, of course, the choice of the subject areas will depend on your own motivation and drive. For a long time, I was only interested in large group complex change and very little else. That’s OK, but there needs to be working knowledge of some of the other interrelated specialism fields. The point is to set realistic expectations for yourself, and see your own development in ‘bite-size’ chunks. Choosing 3 or 4 OD specialisms as areas you want to develop over the next few years will often lead to growing interest in other areas of specialism. It is a gradual development process and not a once-and-for-all journey.
- There are many overlapping competences between the Foundational OD Competences section and the Specialisms section. Rather than seeing that overlapping as messy, you are invited to see them as mutually enabling. After you chose which OD specialisms are important to you, read what the contributor shared, pulling out the specific standards they have associated with the specialism. As you do this, you may discover that you already possess some of those requirements, which you can confirm when you go to the Foundational OD Competences section. The interaction between the specialisms and the competence sections will become obvious to you.
- Finally, all the OD specialism contributors have followed this pattern:
a) They share their journey of getting into the specialism. It is very interesting to find out how others end up specialising in what they love doing.b) They define what their specialism is, giving a mini-introduction to the subject.
c) They share what are the required standards for practitioners who specialise in this area.
d) They share how you may develop in this area – if you chose to do so.
e) They kindly share profile and contact information.
Have fun, click any that are important to you. Read about them and see whether they are the areas you in which you want to achieve mastery.