Resistance came fast. Derek, the sales head, complained that changes felt “too slow.” The COO missed his old reports. But Maya had learned the most critical OD skill:
She started with the sales team. They were siloed, anxious, and drowning in internal approvals. The head of sales, a bullish man named Derek, crossed his arms. “HR is just going to give us another wellness app,” he grumbled. Resistance came fast
Maya had been in HR for twelve years. She knew compensation bands, compliance matrices, and performance improvement plans like the back of her hand. But when the CEO of NexGen Solutions called her into his office, he didn’t ask about headcount or benefits. They were siloed, anxious, and drowning in internal
One year later, the CEO asked Maya to run another engagement survey. She laughed. Maya had been in HR for twelve years
The guide’s final chapter read: “Your goal as an OD practitioner is to make yourself unnecessary. If the system needs you to stay healthy, you’ve built dependency, not development.”
Maya gathered her findings into a single slide deck—but not a polished boardroom version. She used the method: raw, anonymous quotes, process maps with red zones, and a question at the end: “What part of this system do you own?”
The next morning, Maya refused to write another exit interview summary. Instead, she asked the CEO for something radical: three weeks of “listening.”