Oh we’ve got trouble!

Right here in OD city!

With a capital T,

that rhymes with C,

that stands for complexity!

Oh we’ve got trouble!

We’ve got terrible terrible trouble!

We’ve got to find a way to make OD relevant despite VUCA!

I’m talking about VUCA, don’t you understand?

That’s Volatility , Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (Oh my!)

Today’s problem’s are different don’t you know

You can’t rely on the OD methods of the past

There’s AI

Generations X, Y and Z

And above all else, complexity!

Friend, either you’re closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster Indicated by the presence of VUCA in the problems faced by contemporary OD

Well, ya got trouble my friend

Right here I say, trouble right in OD City

Why sure, I’m a Lewinian Certainly, mighty proud I say, I’m always mighty proud to say it I consider that the hours I spent studying Lewin and the other founders of OD were golden… Helped you cultivate horse sense and a cool head and a keen eye

Did you ever break and try to create a new cultural homeostasis

By involving the people who do the work and are facing the problems?

But just as I say it takes judgement, brains and maturity to acknowledge VUCA

As the dangerous threat that it is

I say that any fool

Can grab a flipchart and ask a work team to analyze their own problems and come up with their own solutions

And I call that reckless

The first big step on the road to disaster

I say, first, catching fish with help, and then catching their own fish, with out recognizing the tsunami they are in

… And the next thing you know your customers are trying to do their own thinking

And solve their own intergroup problems

Without understanding the desperate situation that VUCA represents

And that is why we need new models

So we can save them from themselves

And teach the next generation of OD professionals

And get that sales boost and thrill that comes with new

Lewin was fine in his day and age and all that but…

Like to see some cocky worker implementing their own solutions? Make your blood boil

Well I should say

Now friends, let me tell you what I mean

You got V, U, C, A,

Four different ways that the sky is falling

All packaged together and operating in one big scary acronym!

Ways that mark the difference between an expert and a rube With a capital “R” and that almost rhymes with “C” and that stands for complexity!

Now listen folks

I know you are the right kind of OD professionals

The kind that doesn’t make waves with the current direction of the field

If we don’t come up with new OD and new interpretations of the old

Here’s what’s gonna happen

All week long your OD City professionals will be fritterin’ away I say, your professionals will be fritterin’

Fritterin’ away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too

Doing Lewinian stuff such as

Working on the customer’s goals, involving the people who are facing the problems, and transferring skills

Never mind gettin’ expert analysis done

Never mind changing the structure

Never mind flattening the organization, getting rid of supervisors or changing their names

…because as everyone knows hierarchy is out of style old-fashioned trouble (trouble, trouble, trouble)

Never mind taking a survey and being the expert that tells everyone what it means and what to do

Or talking to management for the employees instead of helping them talk directly to each other

Or starting change wherever it emerges without alignment in the system

Never mind many of the trends of “new” OD

And that’s trouble

You got trouble, folks, right here in OD City,

trouble with a capital “T” And that rhymes with “C” and that stands for complexity!

… Trouble (oh, we got trouble) Right here in OD City (right here in OD City) With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “C” and that stands for complexity (that stands for complexity) We’ve surely got trouble (we’ve surely got trouble) Right here in OD City (right here) Gotta figure out a way to keep the young OD professionals enraptured after school (We gonna have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble)

… OD professionals, heed this warning before it’s too late Watch for the tell-tale signs of complexity Do you live in an age with new technology?

Did your customers go through a pandemic?

Are they trying to figure out hybrid work?

Are some of their employees from generation Z (trouble, trouble, trouble)

Do they meet on-line and from remote locations?

Is their workforce diverse?

Are certain words creeping into their conversation Words like, like “sus”? (Trouble, trouble, trouble) And “resonates’? (Trouble, trouble, trouble)

And “agency”? (Trouble, trouble, trouble)

… Well if so, my friends, you got trouble (oh we got trouble) Right here in OD City (right here in OD City) With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “C” and that stands for complexity (that stands for complexity) We’ve surely got trouble (we’ve surely got trouble) Right here in OD City (right here) Remember Volatility , Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity! (We’re gonna have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble)

… Oh, we got trouble, we’re in terrible, terrible trouble Addressing contemporary problems with old solutions is the devil’s tool (devil’s tool)

To believe Lewin’s old methods apply today you must be a fool! Oh, yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble (Oh yes we got trouble here, we got big, big trouble) With a “T” (with a capital “T”) Gotta rhyme it with “C” (gotta rhyme with “C”) And that stands for complexity (that stands for complexity)!

Adapted with great respect from “Ya Got Trouble” by Meredith Willson, a song from the Music Man, in case you don’t know. Disclaimer: My blog posts mostly explore leadership, change, and topics relevant to the general population. This one is satire directed at a tendency in the OD profession to hypothesis (without any real research) that the world is significantly different “today” for many reasons, “complexity” being a favorite claim, and thus solutions must be new fangled as well. I don’t buy it. If you know me you know I apply Kurt Lewin’s social science (even though it is new…less than a century old lol) for the practical reason that it is the most universally reliable method of individual, organizational, and social change that I am aware of, and I have explored many approaches, integrating some into my methods, and discarding others (even if they are popular). I am in conflict with much of the OD profession regarding these matters, and that is disappointing but ok.