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The Field of Organization Development Can Be A Viable Career Shift
for Lawyers
Do you want to use some of the skills that you have
developed as a lawyer, but not use them in the legal arena?
If you enjoy conveying information and explaining complex concepts,
working dynamically with assorted groups of individuals, speaking
extemporaneously, facilitating group interaction, and/or preparing training and
procedural materials, you may want to investigate the varied field of
Organization Development (OD). There
are many facets to OD. Some OD
practitioners work with human resources and personnel issues.
Others contribute to the development of organizations and their systems.
Yet others train personnel on either substantive subjects (i.e.
recordkeeping, research skills, or production flow) or on relationship issues
(i.e. conflict resolution, management skills, effective communication).
Many OD people work as independent consultants, others work for
consulting agencies, still others work in-house. A
good resource, which illustrates the panoply of practices, is Gale Research,
Inc.’s Training and Development
Organizations Directory, available at public libraries.
This publication is useful to locate OD companies that are in your locale
and area of expertise, as well as relevant associations for effective networking
in OD. To
better illustrate the diversity of OD, here are examples of several people who
work in this field: ¨
One woman
consults mainly with government entities that are having internal communication
difficulties. Her responsibilities
are to interview the members of the troubled department, then design, develop,
and facilitate programs to assist all members to examine, articulate, and
resolve the issues that are causing the problems.
¨
A second
OD person is hired by a training company to learn its already-developed programs
(for example: “Effective Communication Skills,” “Good Management
Skills”) and go into a client company to present these “canned products”
in a facilitated, effective, and stimulating manner. ¨
A third
OD person is hired by companies to work with them to develop appropriate
personnel practices and procedures, then to document them by writing personnel
and procedure manuals. There are degrees and credentials in organization development and the related OD fields that can be pursued, but many practitioners come to the field from unrelated areas, relying on transferred experience rather than underlying education. That is why lawyers, with their multiple skills, can often readily move into OD, particularly those lawyers with a labor law background in personnel issues. However,
if you desire to
hone your OD skills, the American Society for Training and Development [Box
1443, 1640 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22313; (703) 683 8100] offers workshops
and classes to reacquaint practitioners with atrophied skills and to teach and
develop new ones. ASTD has local
chapters nationwide with job listings and education and networking meetings.
The membership is made up of individuals working as employees or
consultants in training and/or organization development in business, government,
non-profits, and education. ©
2000 Hindi Greenberg. No
reproduction by any means without express written permission from Hindi
Greenberg. Hindi Greenberg, J.D.,
was a business litigator for ten years before founding Lawyers in Transition(sm)
in 1985. She is known nationwide for her expertise on career options for lawyers and is a speaker, outplacement advisor and consultant on options, job satisfaction and career change for bar associations, law firms, law schools and individual lawyers. She has been widely interviewed by both the legal and general national media and was called "the Ann Landers for lawyers" by the Los Angeles Times. Her newest book is the best-selling The Lawyer's Career Change Handbook :... published by Avon Books/HarperCollins. Hindi may be contacted at mailto:info@lawyersintransition.com or visit her site at: http://www.lawyersintransition.com |
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