Hi Tom,

Thanks for taking the time to pen a comment of considerable length, and for sharing some of your experiences.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what to do with the information you provide. Do you need something from me, or is there anything actionable that readers might take away and apply?

– Bob

Often, the organizational development projects I do start with conflict workshops with teams. Sometimes there is personal work to be done with team members, who may need someone to help them to reflect on their situation and consider reactions and behaviors they are having, and which they might want personally to change.

More often the solution lies in changing the organization in which the team is embedded. Working with the team provides an analysis of the bottle-necks, and what needs to be initiated, as the team often knows very well why it is suffering and where the organization is blocking it.

I rarely see agile coaches able to help with problem, as they are tasked with supporting the team rather than changing the organization, and have neither the status with management nor the self-understanding as organizational developers to be able to get the traction needed.

If organizational change is what the management team is looking for, then the path is open to bringing both congruence and innovation to the organization, by supporting the organization to align itself with the reality it is dealing with through the needs and insights of the people in the teams themselves.. Effectively, this is modern strategy consulting, which starts bottom-up, and later adds a top-down character when the system as a whole begins to shift through management initiatives.