O.D. Institute Newsletter

September 2005

 

Some OD Thoughts
By
Roland Sullivan
E-mail R2004@RolandSullivan.com

1. Long term I believe China will normalize and change more toward the western ways. They will need to if they are to take advantage of the opportunities.  And the West will need to change toward the culture norms of China. Recently I interviewed a Global executive and one of his two main messages was that if the USA wants to do business with other parts of the world then people must authentically want to understand other cultures deeply and then establish solid long term relationships with people from the other cultures.  I believe OD can facilitate such change.

2. Practicing OD, edited by Rothwell and myself is the first OD book translated into Chinese.  People from China have a high interest in learning OD.  Rothwell teaches OD in China 3-4 times per year.

3. Personally I now see myself as a global citizen.  I have a partnership in the Middle East with Mubie, who comes from India and the UAE and was educated in the USA.  It is my philosophy that all people are wonderful. The more diverse they are from my rural mid-west roots the better.  I want to learn and be with people until I observe them doing or being unethical or invasive to basic human rights.  Then I politely move away from them if they hurt people.

4. Oh yes, our secondary education is in bad shape.  My daughter is just getting ready to go to university.  I hope she matures and grows and learns and changes through her educational venture.  Now all my education at the university level was fantastic.  I was in a seminary to get my BA.  We were on the front end of T-Groups and community learning.  It was fantastic.  No drugs.  Discipline. Never wasted a minute.  Lead a very balanced life style.  Lots of sports.  Many hours of late night deep personal talk with fellow students.  A strong spiritual life.  An exciting and stimulating academic education.  Even had a priest for philosophy that I was never sure if he believed in God or not. He certainly made me think!

Then I hit graduate school in the late 60’ and I wanted to be a change agent.  Even statistics was taught in a t-group or lab environment. Then I went on to Loyola and they created a special pure OD program for me and I became the first graduate of their OD program.

Then the highlight of my life... off to second masters at Pepperdine.  Fantastic.  So I feel so bad for those people that did not have a thrilling graduate program. 

5. I personally am interested in Education so I work with EMPI -- one of he first Lab OD/HRD schools in India... or at least a new school wanting to bring OD to India. Am working with Udai and his daughter. Udai studied at NTL and Columbia with Matt Miles and brought OD to India and also HRD.  There is a great market for HR but not as much of a need for OD.

6. Last point.  I believe we need to collaborate with the Chinese.  They have many people who deserve basic food, education, spirituality and health care.

Return to O.D. Institute Home Page | Newsletter Archive