Ironies in Organizational Development Second Edition, Revised and Expanded pdf

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Ironies in
Organizational
Development
Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
Robert T. Golembiewski
The University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia, U.S.A.
Copyright © 2002 by Marcel Dekker, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 0-8247-0807-5
First edition: Transaction Publishers, 1990.
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To Peg, my companion in moving toward awareness of my human irony, which
can be expressed in such ways:
I am most myself when we are together
I am strongest when I recognize my multiple dependencies on her
I am most comfortably alone in her presence.
Those variants all say much the same thing, one more time, moja kochana.

Preface
ORIENTATION TO THE SECOND EDITION
This second edition of Ironies in Organizational Development contains 25
chapters plus an overview and they represent a complex mixture —of the old
and the new, of the tried-and-true as well as the speculative, of the here-and-
now with a dash or two of the by-and-by. To provide some specificity, most
of the major components of this volume did not appear at all in the first edi-
tion, and 11 chapters were part of the previous book but are revised here—bring-

ing points up to date, citing new research, and eliminating mistakes. Some
questions follow, quite naturally. Why this particular assemblage? And why
now?
Some early delineation of what follows and why, has a high priority. Let’s
focus immediately on several aspects of why, saving the what for later in this
Preface.
Organizational Development (OD) practice has been quite successful, by
and large. Nonetheless, there has been too little translation of that success into
broad analytical frameworks that not only reflect an intellectual grasp of what
we know but also substantially enrich praxis. This expresses the basic irony moti-
vating this book. One reader perceptively expressed the barrier that this book
seeks to help surmount—or, perhaps better said, to transform from liability into
substantial asset:
Applications have not yet yielded theory. The consequence of this is that
too often OD successes rest on the talent and instinct of the intervenor.
Generalizability of outcomes, and even more widespread application of
successful techniques, will inevitably be constrained to the degree that
v
vi Preface
the “science” of organizational development is not asserted in analytic
frameworks.
Now is a very good time for me to summarize what we have learned, as
well as to be clearer about reasonable aspirations for what is still to come. Having
passed normal retirement age, I do not sense that time has run out for me. But
a new urgency has taken hold, without doubt, and this second edition is one
manifestation of this being the time for more integrative summary than was possi-
ble a decade ago.
So, let’s get going with an emphasis on what we can expect from OD, with
a bit more about why. Four emphases provide further and useful delineation for
present purposes, although readers no doubt will have their multiple and addi-

tional reactions. Note also that a few central citations can only be suggestive, if
only because the full body of my OD work probably encompasses 400 published
items. So far, I have not counted.
It has become my habit to respond to a pervasive rhythm in my work in
OD, in part by plan and in part by serendipity. Either alone or usually with several
OD reference teams, I have gone through a number of approximately 10-year
cycles. Typically, each begins with an application—more likely in business than
in public agencies, and more likely at middle to executive levels of management
than at operating levels. Working materials and article-length pieces will be pro-
duced during the early years of each cycle, but I like to express their summary
sense and substance in one or more hardcover books at the end of each cycle.
This intent dominated as 2000 closed another full cycle for me, and I trust
it has the same double-barreled effects as its predecessors. That is, the hardcover
formalizations of the period of applications in organizational and personal learn-
ing at once summarize several years of effort both by me and, typically, by several
project teams with variable memberships, and those formalizations also serve as
a platform whose syntheses and shortfalls should guide the next full cycle of
more comprehensive applications. In short, each cycle looks backward, as it were,
the better to see the next steps.
In introductory preview, this book targets the results of a number of applica-
tion ↔ reflection cycles, with an emphasis on ironies that can be exploited to
raise OD success rates.
ABOUT SEVERAL CYCLES
To be more specific, five cycles seem to adequately cover the territory referred
to above. In reverse order, these cycles will be briefly outlined later. Immediately,
the underlying philosophy has a direct form. Those who will not learn from their
experience, especially from positive experience, will be condemned to relive their
Preface vii
history if they do not regress. Hence, there are special challenges in recognizing
OD’s ironies and using them to leverage future performance.

Now for a sketch of the cycles, conveniently in reverse order.
Cycle V, 1990–2000: Accents on Synthesis
This cycle has a definite integrative and macro focus, along with several exten-
sions of success rate studies. They represent the fullest detailing of planned
change of which I am now capable, and build on the substantial efforts of others,
sometimes in research in which I was involved but as a less central figure.
It seems both fitting and convenient to me that this fifth cycle’s expression
be a second edition of Ironies in Organizational Development (1990), much en-
larged and expanded. This assemblage is perhaps especially legitimated by the
emphasis on large-organization dynamics, while earlier cycles tend to feature
small-group arenas of application. Notably, both micro- and macro-levels feature
the same values, methods, and approaches.
Cycle V is characterized by three specific features. First, several macro-
programs have been completed, with the signal recognition being receipt of the
1997 Grand Award for OD Applications, Worldwide, from the Organization De-
velopment Institute. Second, studies of OD success rates also add great detail to
lines of inquiry begun in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Third, much recent
research is added. For example, substantial development was reported on the
concept of psychological burnout, which showed great integrative potential in
relating various themes in the behavioral sciences and OD, and built on early
syntheses in the first edition of Ironies in Organizational Development. The lead-
ing book-length treatment was Global Burnout, by Golembiewski and associates
(1996).
Cycle IV, 1975–1990: Applications in Planned Change,
Sometimes Macro-Scale and Often Conceptual
This cycle featured extensive work in several substantial systems, in business
and government. Both start-ups and organization renewals were involved. Related
evaluations appeared in several sources (especially Golembiewski, 1985, and
Golembiewski and Kiepper, 1985). Some of this work also was recognized with
two McGregor Awards, the only double-winners in that competition. The major

summary treatment appeared in Ironies in Organization Development (1990), as
well as Humanizing Public Organizations (1986), and found most telling atten-
tion expression in trinitarian change.
Major emphases in Cycle IV deserve highlighting. Several macro-applica-
tions were started; new work in OD success rates saw several start-ups, all of
viii Preface
which, if not conclusive, at least were more ambitious than earlier studies. A
large number of micro-applications were made and, in many cases, they also
required extension and integration. In sum, Cycle IV was essentially in-process,
and several of its themes required extension in Cycle V.
Cycle III, 1970–1975: Applications in Planned Change,
Largely Micro-Scale
This cycle involved a kind of winnowing of sources in planned change via OD
ventures in which I was involved, typically as a member of application teams.
A major expression of this work was the two-volume Approaches to Planned
Change (Golembiewski, 1979), which summarized numerous applications in or-
ganizations and introduced others. Key here was a project that combined basic
concepts of change with a useful application (Golembiewski, 1976). This project
won a McGregor Award.
Cycle II, 1960–1975: Gearing Up in Techniques and Ways
and Means
Cycle II overlaps a bit with Cycle I, and their focus in common is instrumental.
The skill-building was both quantitative and qualitative. For example, a Ford
Foundation Grant in Mathematical Applications in Business reflected the first
theme. And the latter theme was largely embodied in skill-building in process
analysis and the “laboratory” model of change. A National Science Foundation
grant was central here, and my progress in change-agent skills and attitudes was
reflected in several sources: a book of readings that went through four editions
(Golembiewski and Blumberg, 1970, 1972, 1973, and 1997), a “how to” book
(Golembiewski and Blumberg, 1976), and a major effort to move both OD and

myself into macro-analysis (Golembiewski, 1972).
Cycle I, 1955–1965: Gearing Up in Concepts and Ethics
Here, the emphasis is essentially on defining a career focus, and I have been
pretty lucky, since I have had few problems of changing my mind when I made
false starts. Almost from the start of my serious development, the issues have
been:
Organizational, as in large collective enterprises, both public and private,
often approached by various arrays of designs building upon learning in
small groups (e.g., Golembiewski, 1962c)
Normative, as in what is right in our organizational lives, and what needs
correction or fundamental revision
Instrumental,oraction, research, as in the design of ways and means of
achieving normative goals in large organizations
Preface ix
The major products of this initial cycle appeared in several extended written
products. They began with my doctoral dissertation (Golembiewski, 1958) and
include several books (Golembiewski, 1962b, 1962c, 1965).
Notably, also, when I was transitioning from one cycle to another, I was
very lucky in having available useful resources. Arthur Blumberg helped in early
transitions from academic to consulting modes, and numerous others—especially
Stokes Carrigan and Rick Hilles—played a central role by locating sites for appli-
cations that also had research potential.
CHAPTERS: OLD, NEW, AND OTHERWISE IN THIS
SECOND EDITION
The chapters have their own life histories, and four classes of them can be distin-
guished. First, 15 chapters are published here for the first time in the present
form. Second, the essentials of several other chapters were published originally
in sources unlikely to gain the attention of ODers, in part because I was then
less clear about the significant role the pieces could play in understanding the
status of OD and, especially, about how to foster tomorrow’s development. Third,

some chapters were in substance published in major sources, as well as in the
first edition. Fourth, the basic contents of a few chapters were published originally
in books that are now out of print. The hope is that they can gain new life from
republication in the present context.
So why combine chapters with these diverse life histories into a single
volume? For openers, at least two-thirds of the chapters probably will be news
even for the reasonably well-read ODer, and the volume as a totality can provide
an upscale view of the state of the art for many possible readers: for managers,
for new specialists in OD (of whom there are always legions), and for students
of organizations who do not follow the twists and turns of the OD literature but
whose own work not only is relevant to OD but also can be enriched by it.
Moreover, the basic rationale for inclusion in this second edition (hereafter
referred to as Ironies II) is that its chapters en masse can provide a kind of launch-
ing pad for theoretical progress in OD, which is often seen as pleasantly stuck—
in other words, robust enough to support great and growing consulting activity,
but having a theoretical base that lags far behind practice.
Basically, Ironies II seems to me to enrich both theory and practice, and
I believe it does so in ways that will surprise even close readers of the original
volume. Indeed, surprises of the good fits below often kept me going. In any
case, the chapters whose essentials have been published typically were written
as stand-alone pieces, and some people paid less attention to the words than to
what they fancied as the underlying music—that OD was seriously inadequate
and stuck, even if comfortably so.
A sharp contrast seems fair enough to me. Ironies II shows how OD is
x Preface
quite effective, and yet can be substantially built upon and beyond. Sev-
eral of its chapters, as stand-alone publications, seemed to say to some,
especially to those applying OD as consultants: “Your baby sure is ugly.” This
book corrects that perception by showing how even major criticisms are the
foundation for major developments when presented in the context of other ma-

terials.
IRONIES AS CONTEXT OR MEDIUM FOR MESSAGES:
THE NEW COMBINATION
Let me make the last point again: Ironies II provides a vehicle for rectifying such
a misinterpretation of my basic view of OD, both by critics and by friends. This
book provides not only the words, and some music, but also reasonably precise
directions for producing a better OD tune from our past experiences pushed to
outline OD’s future, if at times only dimly.
In addition, Ironies II provides a context that unifies and, even more sig-
nificantly, highlights the constructive character of much research and application.
Moreover, in the aggregate, the volume reflects the prudent hopefulness of that
context. Individually, that is, most of the chapters pose real challenges for some
OD practitioners and theorists, and may even encourage despondency. For both
virginal and previously published chapters, Ironies II provides a developmental
context and thrust that saves them from charges of mere carping, as that focus
also highlights constructive aspects of positions that some saw as negative and
as raining on OD’s parade.
Ironically, this book proposes two main arguments: that OD does quite
well, in general, but that in numerous particulars it can do much better, with
modest expenditures of wit and will. Ironies II provides a positive context for
some individual chapters that could be interpreted as grumpy or even malevo-
lent—as never being satisfied or, worse still, as implying grave doubts about the
integrity of the entire OD enterprise. Rather, Ironies II as a totality encourages
various “stretches” that will save us from the Dr. Feelgood-ism that sooner or
later can only jeopardize vitality and growing comprehensiveness, but those
stretches also need to be viewed as ways to improve on a level of general perfor-
mance that is far from shabby. Those stretches are not cries of despair; they are
intended as directions for theoretical development that will raise the level of the
conscious practice of intervention in social systems. Consulting competencies
and sensitivities often have filled in the gaps in theory, but we cannot always

rely on that happy outcome.
So this book has a simple format, although details in specific chapters will
be daunting.
Preface xi
Irony I: Substantial Success but Pessimism About Practice (Chapters
1–3)
Irony II: Substantial Success with Insufficient Attention to Replication
(Chapters 4–6)
Irony III: Substantial Success in Global Applications While Neglecting
Alternative Ethics at Work (Chapters 7–9)
Irony IV: Substantial Success Without Consensus About a Learning
Model (Chapters 10–11)
Irony V: Substantial Success While Inadequately Assessing Large-Sys-
tem Interventions and Their Effects (Chapters 12–15)
Irony VI: Substantial Success Without Specifying Contextual Differences
(Chapters 16–17)
Irony VII: Substantial Success Without Differentiating People (Chapters
18–20)
Irony VIII: Substantial Success While Neglecting Easy Pieces (Chapters
21–23)
Irony IX: Substantial Success Without Differentiating Kinds of Change
and Designs (Chapters 24 and 25)
Postscripts About Multiple Ironies (Chapter 26)
Each of the first 25 chapters contributes toward the same conclusion, and
the last provides a summary of that conclusion. All the chapters provide handy
ways to enhance success rates in OD from their already substantial levels.
The final chapter constitutes neither the necessary nor the sufficient catalog
of all ironies. Overall, the chapter does provide several “next bites.” They will
sate Rabelaisian appetites, although this chapter will challenge those seeking to
swallow “the whole thing.”

RIGHT NOW AS THE CONGENIAL MOMENT
Finally, right now seems an opportune time to bring together the present assem-
blage of chapters under the rubric of ironies. More accurately, I should write that
right now is even more opportune than the time of the first edition.
And what are the characteristics of this “right now?” Two dominate. As
the introduction and Chapters 1–3 show, OD theory and practice have a solid
track record, and those several estimates of success rates cannot be dismissed
cavalierly. Concern was expressed about OD’s efficacy even by its proponents
and, curiously, a kind of minor despair set in among some aficionados in the face
of earlier estimates in Ironies I. Today’s estimate provides a more solid base of
optimism on which to build. Sharp increases in the ability to provide detailed
illustrations of what can be done—either immediately or as items on variously
xii Preface
distant agendas—constitute the second major sense of right now as the opportune
time. The message to OD intervenors who are more comfortable with lower suc-
cess rates is clear: measure up or muster out.
In sum, the augmented optimism about success rates is here seen as provid-
ing the critical medium in which challenging suggestions can be responded to—
specifically, by reducing defensiveness or despondency. In contrast, the message
in Ironies I of several of the chapters—perhaps especially its final chapter—
came too soon. Those essential messages often came through as “Your baby sure
is ugly,” to people who had seen OD as comely, even handsome. Then, they
were unclear as to what was to be done about the critical messages. Ironies II
reflects the desire to test a new combination, better than its predecessor—to re-
spond to an older message in some cases, new contexts and information in all
cases.
THE INTENDED AUDIENCES
As noted above, the intended audiences are OD consultants, both old hands and
the large numbers of entrants that always seem to be with us; managers facing
the challenge of continuous change and seeking a sense of value-guided methods;

and the many researchers who work in organization behavior and theory, includ-
ing social psychologists as well as colleagues from numerous disciplines and
specializations.
Some supportive readers see the actual audience as being largely restricted
to the last-identified specialists, with but a few from among OD consultants and
even fewer from among managers. As one reader concludes: “Much of [Ironies]
is simply too sophisticated to be grasped by the practicing OD professional, and
too technical to be of much practical significance or even terribly interesting to
them.”
This position about OD practitioners rests on some daunting realities, of
course. Many ODers got their training on the job. Their initial experiences as
military officers, ministers, or whatever were variously supplemented, but, in
general, their methodological and theoretical concerns have been less cultivated.
Relatedly, the common wisdom has always given preeminence to personal quali-
ties in OD, as in the dictum that ODers’ own warm bodies are their most effective
tool for intervention. That position has merit. However, a daunting reality takes
precedence: that OD practitioners experience a great turnover. For example, 50%
or more of the attendees at the annual meetings of the Organization Development
Network, year in and year out, are first-timers. Early training and socialization
are thus continuously pressing needs, as well as conveniently available.
But such realities are not sufficient to deter this analysis from also targeting
OD practitioners and managers—just the opposite, in fact. Basically, what exists
provides only herniating guidance for closer approaches to some ideal condition.
Preface xiii
In addition, three specific points imply that the targeting of Ironies II is not simply
a kind of misguided willfulness. Like Panasonic, to begin, Ironies II seeks to be
a bit ahead of its time. The book is oriented toward where OD is going—say,
in five to ten years—and pays attention to where OD has been only in the sense
of providing a take-off platform. Specifically, this book seeks to meet in future
orbit with the sharp increases in theoretically and methodologically aware ODers

now being trained for the first time (e.g., Golembiewski, 2000).
In significant addition, various socio-politico-economic authorities have a
real interest in Ironies II. Consistently, they pursue more with less in many senses.
OD provides an approach to conserving people and resources in the pursuit of
burgeoning priorities. Those interested in getting more with less will profit from
this book.
Is the proposed reach within OD’s grasp? The immediate past implies an
affirmative answer. The stakes have been raised greatly in the training of ODers,
as in the increase in conspicuous doctorate and numerous master’s degree pro-
grams. Finally, what follows often requires only a bit of a stretch to enrich OD
and to heighten its already substantial success rates.
REFERENCES
Golembiewski, R. T. (1958). The small group, public administration, and organizations.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1962a). Organization as a moral problem, Public Administration
Review, 22: 51–58.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1962b). Behavior and organization. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1962c). The small groups. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1965). Men, management, and morality. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1972). Renewing organizations. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1986). Humanizing public organizations. Mt. Airy, MD: Brighton
Publishing.
Golembiewski, R. T. (2000). OD in higher education, Organization Development Journal,
18: 6–9.
Golembiewski, R. T., and Blumberg, A. (1970, 1972, 1973, 1977). Sensitivity training
and the laboratory approach. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock.
Golembiewski, R. T., and Blumberg, A. (1976). Learning and change in groups. London:
Penguin.
Golembiewski, R. T., and Kiepper, A. (1985). High performance and human costs.New
York: Praeger.

Contents
Preface v
Introduction xix
Irony I: Substantial Success but Pessimism About Practice
1. Undercutting the Irony of Ironies with Early and Recent Data:
Increasing Confidence About Domestic Success Rates over the
Decades 1
2. Further Weakening the Irony of Ironies: Success Rates in
Global Settings 49
3. Challenging a Critical Assumption of the Capstone Irony:
Putting “Positive Response Bias” into Reasonable Perspective 81
Irony II: Substantial Success with Insufficient Attention
to Replication
4. Toward Building Work Cultures to Order: Illustrating
Replications of Generic Designs 95
5. Saving Conceptual Shortfalls from Themselves: Enriching New
Public Management (NPM) as Exemplar 131
6. Checking Downstream Progress, Years Later: Replication as a
Stream of Events over Time 157
xv
xvi Contents
Irony III: Substantial Success in Global Applications While Neglecting
Alternative Ethics at Work
7. Responsible Freedom as the Goal in OD, Part I: Some Basic
Conceptual Distinctions 183
8. Responsible Freedom as the Goal in OD, Part II: Two Western
Work Ethics as the Base 197
9. Responsible Freedom as the Goal in OD, Part III: Confucian
Work Ethic as the Base 211

Irony IV: Substantial Success Without Consensus About a Learning
Model
10. Not Every Learning Design Works Every Time: Toward an
“Optimum Discrepancy” to Better Target Interventions 231
11. Not Every Design “Works” Everywhere: Greater Sensitivity to
Interaction of Situations and Designs 255
Irony V: Substantial Success While Inadequately Assessing Large-
System Interventions and Their Effects
12. Illustrating Large-System Change in Business: Detailing a
Design for Strategic Planning and its Effects 281
13. Illustrating Large-System Change in Government: Examining
Some Surprises in Labor/Management Cooperation 321
14. Illustrating Large-System Change in Health Care: Reorganizing
a Medical-Surgical Ward 347
15. Illustrating Large-System Change at the Interface: Testing Some
Features of the Common Wisdom 381
Irony VI: Substantial Success Without Specifying Contextual
Differences
16. A Probably Modest Contribution to Success Rates: Fine-Tuning
OD Designs to Kinds of Crises 407
17. A Big Contributor to Heightened Success Rates, Almost
Undoubtedly: OD Designs Improve Group Properties and
Reduce Burnout 429
Contents xvii
Irony VII: Substantial Success Without Differentiating People
18. Acknowledging Some Limitations of “One Person, One Vote”:
Survey/Feedback Realities and Classes of Respondents 449
19. Highlighting Differences in Personal Slack for Choice and
Change, Part I: A Preliminary Profile for Burnout in OD 475
20. Highlighting Differences in Personal Slack for Choice and

Change, Part II: Burnout as Covariant of Many Managerially
Relevant Measures, Just About Everywhere 497
Irony VIII: Substantial Success While Neglecting Easy Pieces
21. Enlarging the Empowering Potential of the Workweek: Flexible
Work Hours as Exemplar 511
22. Enhancing the Empowering Potential of the Concept
“Workplace”: Flexi-Place as Exemplar 531
23. Enhancing the Empowering Potential of the Concept
“Development”: Demotion as Exemplar 545
Irony IX: Substantial Success Without Differentiating Kinds of Change
and Designs
24. Defining “Change” as Trinitarian: Estimating Whether “Change”
Occurs, and How Much, Requires Specifying the Kind of
Change 565
25. Really Appreciating Appreciative Inquiry: Extending OD
Technology/Values and Success Rates While Preserving the
Essentials 591
Postscript About Multiple Ironies
26. Reducing Ironies and Increasing Success Rates: Tactics and
Strategies 605
Author Index 651
Subject Index 663

Introduction
THE IRONY OF IRONIES IN ESTIMATING OD
CONSULTING COMPETENCIES
This book revels in multiple ironies, and perhaps the basic one matches success
with failure. To illustrate: Organization Development (OD) theory typically re-
flects major analytical gaps that need filling, and yet in practice OD success rates
seem to be quite high. Indeed, early estimates of those success rates seem to

surprise most of the OD literati, not to mention those suspicious of OD or even
overtly hostile to its values and approaches.
Other ironies are related to this central one. Thus, two questions express
other important moorings of this book, and this pair of queries also provides the
basic structure for this Introduction. These questions direct attention to what this
book explores, and why:
How can OD have high success rates and yet rely on format theory that is
patently fragmentary and incomplete?
If OD has high success rates, why bother much about improving its theoreti-
cal base?
WHAT IS OD?
The attention here to ironies is in large part motivated by OD’s values and ap-
proaches, which provide reasons why OD works despite theoretical lacunae—
why those success rates provide good targets for further upgrading, as well as why
people should be motivated to improve an average performance that is already
attractive.
xix
xx Introduction
Attention here is barely illustrative, yet unavoidable. OD here is seen as a
value-loaded enterprise with an associated technology for intervening in organi-
zation and process (e.g., Golembiewski, 1979, especially Vol. 1; Golembiewski,
1995). In short, I see my role as an OD intervenor as helping induce greater
responsible freedom (see Chapters 7 through 9). The freedom comes in a con-
certed effort to meet personal needs at work while meeting work demands, and
also in empowering employees as well as unfettering modes.
Three basic approaches to such personal need-meeting can be distin-
guished: interpersonal and group processes, or how people relate and communi-
cate; structural features, or how people are linked in coordinated and intendedly
cooperative networks; and policies or procedures, or the rules of the game that
encompass and direct both processes and structure in action. Documenting in any

depth the need-meeting potential of these three basic OD approaches would dis-
tract this analysis, but the range of issues has been raised elsewhere (e.g., Burke,
1982; Golembiewski and Kiepper, 1988; Golembiewski, 1995), and a brief sketch
does the job for present purposes. Consider interaction processes that are both
unfettering and empowering. I like to think of regenerative and degenerative in-
teraction in such direct terms (Golembiewski, 1979, Vol. 2, esp. pp. 162–175).
See Figure 1.
Not only do individuals prefer regenerative interaction, in general, but it
also generates consequences that facilitate responsible behavior in organizations.
For example, individuals are less burdened with repressed materials, and real
issues tend to surface that can be solved without creating greater problems in the
process. Degenerative interaction, in contrast, contributes little to either freedom
or its responsible manifestations. Thus, important substance or feeling can remain
unexpressed and, at an extreme, norms may develop about “not rocking the boat.”
Degenerative interaction can lead to organizational mischief via such conse-
quences, even when—and perhaps especially when—everyone is “trying hard.”
More fully, degenerative interaction will be characterized by this pattern of pro-
gressively more serious effects between people and groups:
Communication and decision-making processes become increasingly bur-
dened
Individuals become less effective at isolating and resolving substantive is-
sues
The amount of unfinished business increases
Individuals feel diminished interpersonal competence and psychological
failure; that is, they fail to solve problems such that they remain solved,
and without creating other (and often more formidable) problems
Individuals become more dependent and cautious, which can lead to “don’t
rock the boat” attitudes and thus reinforce and deepen the tendencies
outlined above