Shawnee Love   •  
March 18, 2014

After rereading last week’s post on Organizational Development (OD), I realized I had left readers hanging by not sharing what to look for in a good OD practitioner. Aside from the ability to herd cats, here are 5 must have qualities/ abilities for the OD practitioner you hire:

• Business acumen- Anyone developing your business must have a broad and deep understanding of your industry and/or type of business.
• Strategic- Long range perspective and critical analysis are required to build something sustainable.
• Creative- While best practices can be good suggestions or guides, the best OD practitioners are able to build something new.
• Execution- It isn’t good enough to know what to do, OD involves successfully implementing the changes as well.
• Communication- At the heart of everything to do with people is the ability to communicate effectively.

This “secret sauce” of qualities and abilities isn’t always found in one person, which is why you can often see OD done by team or task force.

Any must have’s you would add?