Organizational Clarity: When is an Internal/External Organization Development Professional needed to create Organizational Change?

In one of my classes for Organization Development we were asked about what we as individuals would choose from possible candidates form the Organization Development (OD) field in regard to a particular skill set we believed is needed. The skill set of this individual must be one that can easily facilitate Organizational Change in the best or Worse case scenario. This is a fictional account for this assignment, of course, is with an organization that has an unlimited budget and resources was crafted with those variables in mind. Please post any comments or questions to facilitate a discussion in the comments sections below.

Please read the exercise on Page 292 in your text and answer the following questions. Check back often to create dialogue and discuss your answers.

When would you use an internal consultant for this position? When would you use an external consultant? Why?

The best way to answer this question and overcome any team building exercise to effectively assess and craft a program that meets the organizational goal of increasing team productivity is to hire an outside consultant. One of the skills I chose was Objectivity, and to be totally objective the Organization Development (OD) Practitioner should come into the organization from the outside, although one would argue an internal consultant would be more effective (Anderson, D. L. (Ed.), 2011). However, in this scenario even the leader is “feels” that the team functions “well” but wants to improve the team’s performance with this type of indecision from management I would hazard a guess that might be the prevailing attitude of the organization. Therefore, bringing in an outside consultant who can objectivity look into the processes and procedures decisively is needed to overcome this possible roadblock of Organizational culture.

Reference
Anderson, D. L. (Ed.). (2011). Cases and Exercises in Organization Development & Change. Sage.