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

absence of one who was previously present, or different external circumstances, may change the
balance and help to flush out the full picture. Thus, our general and principal rule is – never think
you know everything that is important for the training that is going to happen. Some relevant things
will happen, or will come to the surface, only during the training.
People in a group know much more about how things are in reality. They never need a consultant
to explain to them how things are (remember the story of consultant who counted sheep for the
shepherd?). They would rather tell the consultant. What they may need, and often expect from a
consultant is assistance in understanding why something is like it is. That is a very difficult point -
because the consultant normally has no answer. He or she is not a part of the organization. He or
she does not know the actual story, the cause, how it appeared, what other factors are involved,
and so on. It is a kind of paradox – during the course of training – all relevant information belongs
to the trainees, and not to the trainer. All mistakes also belong to the trainees (and may be
supplemented by the trainer’s mistakes). Mistakes usually relate not only to matters of facts, but to
perception and interpretation of facts. The trainer may misinterpret the facts just because he or she
lacks information. Something was said to him. Something else was hidden.
Once we had a group of trainees from a regional administration. They were learning how to solve
problems and had found themselves in an absolutely hopeless bind with the issue they were
working with; it seemed to be very tangled, too complicated and absolutely vague. As was
discovered with the trainer’s assistance, the only obstacle was that one member of the group, who
proposed the issue for discussion, could not disclose one small but essential fact related to his
boss. Without this small information they could make only absolutely irrelevant conclusions (as
consultants’ conclusions often are).
The trainer should resist the temptation to give direct advice. Instead, he or she should ensure that
all relevant information is culled from the participants and is available for common use during
discussions. For the trainer himself, it is the best way to understand what is actually going on in the
organization. Observing the trainees’ behaviour, listening to them, making notes, provoking
discussion in a direction that sheds light on shadowy issues - that is the primary objective for a
trainer if he wants to know the organization and be really useful.
Usually when a group of people from an organization pass through a 2-3-day training, they
discover a lot of new things about themselves and their organization. Some things that were
somehow always known but not addressed for a long time come to the surface and require
solutions. A trainer may be able to give assistance in finding these solutions. That is what training
is about for participants - to learn how to interact together and find solutions for organizational
problems. It is not about getting advice about how to live and how to work.
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