Somehow
courses those are practical and application oriented never attracted me. When
the topics like HRA Audit or competency mapping were proposed for my PhD
thesis, I literally ran away from the place. Theoretical, imaginative and far
away from the utility concepts mesmerizes me. That is the reason I had to
struggle reading ‘7 habits of effective people’ and ‘how to win and influence
people’. Though they are path-braking books, since they deal with absolutely
practical ideas, I used to get bored. I read them just for the sake of reading them;
otherwise people might consider me as an illiterate.
Recently
the coordinator asked me whether I would like to teach “OC&D”
(Organizational Change and Development). Light years back I had studied the
course as a student, and the professor who taught me was brilliant and I have
lots of respect for him. But I could not remember anything apart from writing an
assignment for the course. So I opened the text book on the subject to find out
what does it deal with, and in the first lesson it elaborates the theory of
change according to Levin. In summary it says that the change process is
“Freezing, Moving and unfreezing”, it sounded to me like “Getting up from the
bed, eating and going back to the bed”. To explain this process they have given
big diagram with all kinds of squares and circles.
What
really shocked me was that I was under the impression that this course comes
under HR area, now only I was told that it comes under OB
area. I always thought that OB guys are direct descendants of Sigmund Freud,
and conveniently I omitted B.F.Skinner as part of OB
field.
So
if I have to teach OC&D, first and foremost I had to change my mental block
that practical things are important in life. Teaching how to walk or how to
swim also come under serious academic disciplines. And one should not look down
upon these realities of life. And I should remember that if complicated things
can be made simple then it is also possible to make simple things complicated.
