Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

Chapter 2.6 Training for Organizational Development
Responsibility of consultant and trainer
Organizational development is the life of some and just a business for others. Managers do it,
because they must do it. The place and time is determined. They have no choice. They are more
or less qualified for such a job. However, they may need external assistance. In practice, they
always need it, because manages are rarely in a position to organize and manage all kinds of
human processes that must be initiated and conducted to achieve certain ends. When the needs
are understood (or at least recognized as vague feelings), and managers see somebody who
presumably may help – then the demand arises and a great hunting season for consultants and
trainers results.
The term ‘manager’ marks a certain kind of job, not a qualification grade. We have discussed the
peculiarity of this job. Now we will agree on what we understand about consulting and training as
jobs. Let’s ask the ‘free encyclopaedia’ first:
“Management consulting… refers to both the practice of helping companies to improve
performance through analysis of existing business problems and development of future plans, as
well as to the firms that specialize in this sort of consulting. …Management consultants generally
bring formal frameworks or methodologies to identify problems or suggest more effective or
efficient ways of performing business tasks.
Training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes as a result of the teaching of
vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relates to specific useful skills.
Organizational Training and Development is the field concerned with workplace learning to
improve performance. Such training can be generally categorized as on-the-job or off-the-job. …
An advantage of off-the-job training is that it allows people to get away from work and totally
concentrate on the training being given. This is most effective for training attitudes, concepts, and
ideas.’ (www.en.wikipedia.org)
Thus, the one who pretends to help organizations through analysis of existing problems and
development of future plans may be considered a consultant. Sometimes (especially when the
attitudes, concepts and ideas of personnel must be addressed) the help may take the form of
designing and conducting training. Before this, somebody should help the provisional client
understand that training is needed.
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