Professionalism, Professionalization & OD

The PastThe Present

Future Scenarios

Organization Development Institute

35th Annual Information Exchange

May 16-20, 2005

Orisha A. Kulick, R.O.D.P., M.S., M.A., L.C.S.W., J.D.

Copyright; All Rights Reserved. 2005

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Speaker’s Perspective

JD degree, law license DePaul University, Chicago Illinois Attorney General’s Office

MA degree in clinical social work, LCSW University of Chicago Hospital based and private practice

psychotherapy Master’s degree in OD

Loyola University, Chicago Leadership development project manager

for United Airlines

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Interest in Professionalism

Personal experience in law, psychotherapy, OD

Co-author of chapter in Research in Organizational Change and Development

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Goal for Presentation

Outline how occupations historically have become professions

Note characteristics of OD today and their impact on professional status

Consider future OD action scenarios to help OD become a globally recognized profession

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The Past

Historic criteria for building and identifying professions (Wilensky 1964): Full-time occupation First training school First university school First local professional association First national professional association First state licensing law Creating a formal code of ethics

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Value criteria

Freidson (2001) includes an additional value criteria for a profession:

“. . . an ideology that asserts greater commitment to doing good work than to economic gain and to the quality rather than the economic efficiency of work.”

Example: ODI’s work in assisting foreign countries during troubled times

See appendix A for Freidson’s five criteria

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Profession Criteria Applied to OD

Participation by all applying the historic and values criteria to OD

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What is OD?

The four part occupational control system (Torres 1991):

Free market occupational system – buyer beware e.g., janitors and auto mechanics

Technical occupational system – high criticality of knowledge, less complexity than professionals, e.g., computer programmers, police officers

Scientific occupational system – complexity of knowledge equal to professionals, yet lower perceived criticality, e.g., sociologists

Professional occupational system – trust us because we have the highest level of perceived criticality of knowledge for societal welfare and the highest level of complexity of knowledge

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Dynamic View of Professionalism

Krause (1996)

Free market/capitalism

Professions/guild power The State/licensure

Example of dynamics: The medical profession

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Professionals in OD Today

David Maister (1997) definition of professionalism: Trust and respect are granted to

individuals earning trust and respect in the service of their clients

Applies to any occupation

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Future Action Scenarios

1) Focus on OD ethics - current negative opinions of consultants: One global umbrella OD organization

(ODI?) monitors ethical violations of its members and expels violators after a fair hearing

Benefits: Umbrella organization members in good standing

have a competitive advantage over non-members The consumer is protected as is the reputation of

OD

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Future Action Scenarios

2) Focus on OD ethics – current negative opinion of consultants: Aggressively market the ethical

monitoring activity of the one global umbrella organization

Benefits: Wide recognition of umbrella organization members as

ethical i.e., trust us vs. buyer beware Potential members learn that they will be preferred for

hiring, thereby making membership more attractive A positive dynamic results with increased and

continued trust – more members, more power, more business for members

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Future Action Scenarios3) Focus on achieving high membership

percentage of all OD practitioners in one global umbrella organization

Combine with other existing organizations for critical mass

Consider the legal model in which lawyers with different specialties (but with similar basic education) all belong to the large bar associations

Benefits: Triangle power – ability to control professional work by

pushing back on the forces of the state and the free market

The strength to protect OD boundaries from other professions/occupations

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Future Action Scenarios

4) Enhance OD education: Link curricula of all OD schools to the same

competencies Include a mandatory clinical internship Require continuing education as part of

membership in one global OD organization (ODI?)

Benefit: OD consultants are viewed as competent based

upon their education (with work experience bringing increased competency)

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Next Steps

Discuss within ODI and with other organizations

Decide Act

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A Broader Application Since all professions are experiencing triangle

pressure from the free market and the state: We should use OD competencies to reach out to the

established professions to help them work together to make the case for the continuation of professions as a viable third force in society (to balance the free market & state)

Why do this: Because professions have the social structure to add new knowledge to fields of study and are not only motivated by profit/cost cutting. Therefore, it’s the right thing to do to help society. By helping society, OD will also be establishing itself as a profession that has what Freidson (2001: 222) describes as “transcendent values [that] add moral substance to the technical content of disciplines.”

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A Final Thought

Quotation from Freidson (2001: 212) on the future of the professions:“I believe that should current trends continue without pause, subject to no strong countervailing forces, professionals will indeed become merely technical experts, in the service of the political and cultural economy.”

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Appendix AEliot Freidson is a professor emeritus of sociology at New York University and

visiting professor of sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. He describes work as either being professional, free market or bureaucratically controlled. Professionals are specialized workers who control their own work. Free market workers are controlled by consumers. And in a bureaucracy, managers dominate.

Freidson (2001: 127) lists the five interdependent elements of professionalism:

specialized work in the officially recognized economy that is believed to be grounded in a body of theoretically based, discretionary knowledge and skill and that is accordingly given special status in the labor force;

exclusive jurisdiction in a particular division of labor created and controlled by occupational negotiation;

a sheltered position in both external and internal labor markets that is based on qualifying credentials created by the occupation;

a formal training program lying outside the labor market that produces the qualifying credentials, which is controlled by the occupation and associated with higher education; and

an ideology that asserts greater commitment to doing good work than to economic gain and to the quality rather than the economic efficiency of work.

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References Freidson, E. (2001). Professionalism: The Third Logic. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press. Krause, E.A. (1996). Death of the Guilds: Professions, states, and the

advance of capitalism, 1930 to the present. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Maister, D.H. (1997). True professionalism: The courage to care about your people, your clients, and your career. New York: Free Press.

Torres, D.L. (1991). What, if anything, is professionalism?: Institutions and the problem of change. In S.B. Bacharach (Ed.), Research in the sociology of organizations (Vol. 8, pp. 43-68). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Weidner, C.K., II & Kulick, O.A. (1999). The Professionalization of organization development: A status report and look to the future. In W. A. Passmore & R.W. Woodman (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development (Vol. 12, pp. 319-371). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Wilensky, H.L. (1964). The professionalization of everyone? The American Journal of Sociology, 70, 137-151.