transformation requires the participants in the system to be self-aware. When
the individuals in a system are self-aware, they are able to understand what it
is and what it needs to be. There is an appreciation of all of its parts and how
they relate to each other and to the outside environment. The result is a healthy
system that knows what to do next and is capable of acting quickly.
Bob Waterman, author of In Search of Excellence and The Renewal Factor,
illustrates the workings of whole system transformation in a Japanese banking
organization during a consultation by his company:
“I was part of a team working with the Sanwa Bank in Japan, now one of the
largest banks in the world. It’s unusual for anyone from the outside, let alone a
foreign consulting firm, to be working with a Japanese company. Fortunately,
the problem—a substantial market share loss—was fairly easy to solve intellec-
tually. After a few months we were ready to go to the board (called the jomus)
to present our analysis and recommendations.
“But a couple of strange things were going on at Sanwa. At the beginning
of the project we had asked for a full-time Sanwa team to complement our own
team. Joint consultant and client task forces are more effective than solo consul-
tant teams. The client members know their way around the organization and
where the facts are buried; and, too, they are there after the outside consultants
have left. After a long negotiation in which we thought Sanwa management had
agreed with us, we figured that two or three of their people would join forces
with us the next day. Twenty showed up.
“‘What’s this?’ we wanted to know. ‘Your study team,’ they explained. We
protested that what we had meant by a team was smaller—certainly not twenty
people. They said we had done such a good job of explaining the need for a
client team that they thought they would do it right. We couldn’t understand why
this otherwise bright group of executives insisted on such a large team when it
was obvious that the problem solving would have been more efficient with a
smaller one. But they were paying the bills, so we lurched forward with our
unwieldy gang of twenty.
“After two months we presented our results. The team of twenty reacted with

horror. They explained that before we talked to the jomus, we should discuss
our findings with a fairly large group of people around the bank. They started a
list that grew to several hundred people. We told them that would take a few
months, reminded them of the project’s cost, and suggested again that we sim-
ply report our solution to the board and get on with restoring market share.
They reminded us that they were paying the bills and suggested we do it
their way.
“Several months later we finally made the presentation to the jomu-kai (the
board leadership). It lasted only an hour and was mainly ceremonial. By then all
of the jomus were well acquainted with what we were going to say.
“Then something amazing happened. About two days after the presentation
their market share started to rise! We had never seen results that fast. (In fact,
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as anyone who has consulted will tell you, getting results at all is sometimes a
surprise.)
“Involving twenty people on the team had nothing to do with problem-
solving ‘efficiency.’ Our talking to hundreds more after we had the ‘answer’ to
the market share problem had nothing to do with crisp decision-making. Both
processes had everything to do with getting something done.
“By the time we made the final presentation to the jomus, a significant part
of the entire Sanwa organization had already been involved in the project. All
those study-team members, all their friends in the bank, and all the people we
talked to subsequently understood that market share was of prime concern to
top management. They knew what the study team thought was the root of the
problem. But most important, they had the chance to engage in the problem
themselves. They could, and did, vigorously express their own views on the
cause of the problem and solutions to it. They could, and did, contribute to the
team’s thinking. There was deep wisdom in Sanwa’s insistence that we conduct
the project in a way that at the time appeared to me to be inefficient, burden-

some, and more than a little foolish.
“When Andy Pearson was still president of PepsiCo, he said, ‘We have
120,000 employees stashed in various places around the world, and I frankly
have no idea what the hell they’re doing.’ Throughout the Sanwa project, with
hundreds of people involved, we had no idea what they were all doing. In any
sense of the word control, the project seemed out of control. But in a broader
sense the thing was under control. The market share went up. Give up control,
in the narrow sense, to get control, in a broader sense.
“Later, one of the members of the team of twenty commented about present-
ing the results to the board early. ‘Good show business, bad consulting,’ he said.
It says a lot about why ‘implementation is a bitch’ for so many American and
European managers. We are so busy grandstanding with ‘crisp decisions’ that
we don’t take time to involve those who have to make the decisions work.”
(1987, p. 88–90)
This story demonstrates the power and excitement of involving the organi-
zation as a “whole” rather than working with a very small segment of the bank-
ing organization, as Waterman’s consulting group expected to do. Whole system
transformation occurs when there is a much broader involvement and owner-
ship of issues and responsibilities across an organization, such as Waterman
experienced with the Sanwa Bank. His story represents the kind of whole sys-
tem transformation we are talking about. And quite possibly, the principles of
whole system transformation, which are discussed later in this chapter, were
operative in the bank organization’s transformation and successful resolution
of its market share loss problem. But first, it may be helpful to trace the evolu-
tion of organization development, which grew out of the social movements of
the mid-20th Century, and the development of whole systems thinking.
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THE ORIGINS OF OD IN RELATION TO
WHOLE SYSTEMS THINKING

It was during the 1960s and the tremendous social transformation that OD was
born out of the developments in social psychology and the behavioral sciences.
The National Training Labs of Bethel, Maine, were founded and began to
teach people how to engage in this new process, which was called organization
development. Whole systems thinking had emerged in both Europe and the
United States, particularly in philosophy, science, and organizational change.
Barbara Bunker and Billie Alban (1997) illustrated this development in Large
Group Interventions.
German-born American social psychologist Kurt Lewin, who had fled the
Nazis, had brought Gestalt psychology to the United States in the late 1930s.
According to Bunker and Alban (1997), he was concerned that psychology
might lose relevance to social problems. It was his introduction of field theory in
which human behavior is seen as being influenced by a dynamic field of forces
that helped to create experimental social psychology as a new discipline.
Another significant contributor to the organizational change movement was
Ron Lippitt, described by Art Kleiner (1996) in The Age of Heretics, a history of
the 20th Century social movements, as being one of the heretics from the dom-
inant institutions who in the late 1950s saw the value of human relationships
and community. It was Lippitt’s belief that there was a void of the human spirit
in which corporations could not perform. This view went against the attitudes
of institutions at that time. Further, Lippitt was one of the founders of NTL, who
studied with Kurt Lewin, implementing his action processes within the devel-
oping field of OD. Lippitt saw the world as a whole system and began using his
own concepts to help cities and organizations become what they yearned to be.
Lippitt, like other organizational consultants of the 1950s and 1960s, had stud-
ied with Lewin and used his processes with organizations. Lippitt studied with
Lewin at MIT and joined several other Ph.D. students of Lewin’s to initiate the
Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, as well as to create
the National Training Labs. Ron Lippitt believed that there was an important
dynamic that could be released from people in organizations by combining their

yearnings for the future of the organization. Ron Lippitt brought a creative genius
in the design of processes focused on uncovering the preferred future that ulti-
mately leads to energy creation (Bunker & Alban, 1997; Kleiner, 1996).
In the early days of NTL, organization development (OD) was born, and was
named by people like Dick Beckhard and Peter Vaill. OD had definite strategies
that were primarily based on small group behavioral science theory and actions.
At the time, the traditional method of bringing about whole system change was
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top to bottom, with senior management and a hierarchical process sending
down “the word” on changes through the organization. Such a process tended
to bring about sequential incremental change, which by definition is a slower
type of change involving only a small number of people making the decisions
with the rest of the system being forced to make the changes. However, when
change involves a large group of people, across hierarchical levels, all seeing
the same thing at the same time, it creates wholeness. It is a more rapid change
because people live what they see. When everyone sees change at once, they
begin to live it . . . at once.
In the 1980s, the whole system methodology began to take hold on the
fringes of OD. Its processes were based on open systems theory, with alignment
around a strategic direction broadly shared by senior management and the
whole system. Response to the data that the system came to know about was
rapid. As soon as the whole system shared the data, change began to occur. In
such changes, simultaneous organizational shifts occurred. Some practitioners
began to invent “out of the box,” methods grounded in the small group theory
and interventions that currently existed. These were the beginnings of whole
system transformation in OD.
In our research on whole system transformation in the development of OD,
we have studied its seven key founders and thought leaders: Ronald Lippitt and
Ed Lindaman (“Preferred Futuring,” founded in 1969), Fred Emery and Eric Trist

(“Search Conference,” founded in 1960), Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff
(“Future Search,” founded in 1982), Kathleen Dannemiller (“Whole Scale
Change,” founded in 1982), Harrison Owen (“Open Space Technology,” founded
in 1985), Richard and Emily Axelrod (“The Conference Model,” founded in
1991), and David Cooperrider (“Appreciative Inquiry,” founded in 1987). It is
important to note that these eleven OD consultants have based their methods
on the work of Emery and Trist of the Tavistock Institute in London, Kurt
Lewin’s groundbreaking research on leadership, as well as on Ron Lippitt’s
whole community thinking and other behavioral science theories that were
developed and tested at NTL in the 1950s and 1960s.
With the help of graduate students at Bowling Green State University and
The Pennsylvania State University, we interviewed both the founders and the
followers of each of these founders who had studied with them for over ten
years and were themselves experts. In addition, we have content-analyzed the
published work on these methods (that is, affinity diagramming). Through these
processes, we searched for the commonality of the founders’ methodologies that
might explain the collective wisdom underlying these processes. We identified
five common elements and truths of whole system transformation that we
believe have sustained the success of all of the founders’ processes. We call
these elements because each has a key focus (that is, system, purpose, journey,
theory, and values). We broaden each element into a truth statement that
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captures the essence of the models and practice of the founders. They are truths
because each one depicts what the founders did collectively in their work. These
truths are not necessarily explicit . . . they form an emergent framework that is
based on observing them through their writing and the application of their
methods. What we suspected—and have now confirmed—is that these truths
explain the sustainability and robustness that emerge in the process of trans-
forming a system into wholeness.

THE TRUTHS OF WHOLE SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION
Entrepreneurial spirit and innovativeness was an innate quality of the founders
and a skill important to their continuing work in transforming systems. The
larger implications for you as an organizational leader, consultant (internal or
external), and change agent is that if you draw from these five basic truths, you
can invent your own tools and technologies—and indeed you must invent your
own in order to really transform the systems in which you interact. The field of
OD is ripe for invention and reinvention.
Figure 18.1 presents a visual overview of the relationship among the truths.
As we examined the various methodologies, we found the founders explicitly
published and described how they view a system, create purpose, and design
journeys. Theory is an important supporting link between system, purpose, and
journey. And at the core of each founder’s work are values, driving the devel-
opment and application of the methodology.
WHOLE SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION 445
System
Purpose
Journey
Theory
VALUES
Theory
Theory
Figure 18.1. An Integrated View of the Five Truths
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What is your model for transformation? As you read through this chapter,
determine what you believe and know for each truth and consider writing up
your own approach as a white paper. Use these truths to help you speed up the
process. Pull from all the methods you know . . . explore other methods, get
outside the box, and then come up with an approach that you call your own.
System

Transformation connects all things within and around the system. A system is
comprised of a set of parts or components that are related or interconnected in
such a way as to form an organic whole that focuses on performing a function.
Thus, applied to organizations of people, the term “system” means that it is
composed of two or more people, and perhaps other elements, connected for
the purpose of performing a function.
Our view of systems thinking is to see patterns in the organization as a
whole, instead of just looking at (and fixing) the parts. We believe that real
change comes from seeing and working to reinforce or change system patterns.
The emphasis is on the interaction more than on the analysis of each compo-
nent. All systems are alive and connected to a larger system, because living
components are involved in the system. The impact of change on each compo-
nent and subcomponent of the system will be different.
The people who practice the work of whole system transformation have a
profound appreciation for the power of systems. There is a strong respect for
the potential disaster that can occur from not listening to the system. In the
Westernized world, it seems that we have limited systemic awareness. We are
products (outgrowths) of the industrial revolution from which we were trained
to problem solve, fix what is broken, and almost certainly focus on getting rid
of the people we believe are responsible for the problem. We are often surprised
when the problem reappears, with different leaders, different actions, and dif-
ferent intentions. The reason is by optimizing a part (fix it), we suboptimize the
whole (make things worse).
It is the people within the system who must also choose change if the whole
is to change. It was Eric Trist (1981) who challenged theories of the industrial
revolution by proposing that change can’t be forced and that new ways to shift
paradigms of many people must be invented. It was this principle that influ-
enced Marvin Weisbord (Weisbord & Janoff, 1995) in the creation of his
approach to system-wide change.
Whole system practitioners believe that the only way we can bring

about organizational change in the 21st Century is to look at the whole system.
Piecework solutions cannot resolve complex system-wide problems. Real wis-
dom and synergy come from the interconnectedness of people through shared
information. There is undeniable power in thinking whole system and in being
a whole system as we think. Bringing together various microcosms (cells) of the
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whole organization will enable the organization to see itself as a whole
and therefore be able to change in real time, holistically (Dannemiller Tyson
Associates, 2000).
Purpose
The transformation is clearly purposeful. “If you don’t know where you are going,
any road will get you there,” says the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.
In other words, if you don’t know where you’re going, you literally won’t know
when you get there. And this is why having a clear purpose is so important.
Purpose is defined as a positive difference that occurs through the transfor-
mation. The question is, what will be different in our world because we
embarked on a transformational journey that indeed transformed our organi-
zation and our lives? Or to put it another way, how will the system be differ-
ent? Why should we change? A purpose statement is typically a one-sentence
summary of the main outcomes to be addressed. It is broad enough to allow
for flexibility and innovation, while providing focus and direction for the iden-
tified outcomes.
For example, Harrison Owen (2000) describes the two fundamental princi-
ples of the open space process: passion and responsibility. Passion engages peo-
ple, while responsibility ensures tasks are completed. There is a theme or
question that sets the stage for bringing people together. The focusing theme is
what we will frame as the purpose for their transformation. This focused theme
is what drives the journey of the transformation in the open space process. Sim-
iliarly, David Cooperider and Diana Whitney (1999) discuss the purpose for the

use of appreciative inquiry as cooperatively and systemically searching for the
best in terms of people, organization, and world. It is purpose that drives what
is useful. They are very clear that change must be grounded in purpose. In the
same way, Dannemiller and her colleagues (Dannemiller Tyson Inc., 2000) draw
heavily from Ron Lippitt’s work in which the power of purpose can be seen in
their action learning roadmap. It begins with a clear statement of purpose
describing every numbered step in their roadmap. Each action is “on purpose,”
starting with a series of questions like “What is the purpose?” “Who needs to
be involved?” and “What conversations need to take place?” Any step taken
without a clear statement of purpose is a “throwaway line”—meaning, why
bother? It is our job to ensure that everything we do achieves the results for
which we are aiming.
A common theme to the founders is that purpose for transformational change
should reflect the desires of the people in the organization in order to motivate
and inspire everyone. If it does, everyone will think, “Yes, that is it; that is what
we need!” and will be willing to work hard to make it happen. A compelling
purpose for transforming the organization will call every person to begin to
come together.
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Journey
The transformation is a dynamic journey. The next truth, journey, speaks to the
fact that whole system transformation is comprised of more than just an event.
It is a purposeful system-wide journey of change. The journey is characterized
by key actions, important questions, critical decisions, and ways to evaluate
progress at each step along with way. A transformation journey is an ongoing
process, not a one- or two-day strategic planning session. A strategic planning
session, however, can be a very important step on the transformation journey.
Each of the founders of whole system transformation sees this journey as a
well-designed roadmap, articulated clearly in terms of the purpose and the

results-oriented outcomes of each step as well as the requirements between
steps. The result is a roadmap that describes the purpose-driven processes
needed, as well as the flow of work across the system. When the steps in the
journey are clearly delineated and believable, there will be no unintentional
turnings or wasted detours—rather the change will be a concise and flexible
process that enables rapid deployment.
It is equally important to state the outcomes or specific results to be achieved.
The transformation process is best served when there are agreed-on measurement
criteria for various points in the process. How will we measure success in three
months? Six months? A year? If people can agree on criteria for measuring suc-
cess before they start the work, chances are strong that they will succeed.
Within a journey there can be “accelerator events.” Such an event is intended
to induce a paradigm shift that serves to speed up the process of change through
whole system understanding, support, and direction for the next steps in the
transformation journey. Usually accelerator events include a representative sam-
ple of the whole organization (called a microcosm) in the planning process, as
compared to traditional expert strategic planning. In order to achieve success-
ful actualization of a strategy, leaders of the organization have a clear vision of
where the strategy will lead the organization. In addition, everyone in the orga-
nization, regardless of his or her role, is involved. This type of event can bring
a plan to fruition by giving everyone in the organization the opportunity to inter-
act with a draft strategy initially, rather than when the strategy is pushed down
through the organization. The accelerator event allows the organization to
become one mind (everyone sees and accepts the same data) and one heart
(everyone is connected by a common desire) and then able to create a power-
ful, system-wide action plan to achieve its goals.
Another key aspect of a transformational journey(s) is based on the work of
Lev Vygotsky and Kurt Lewin, called “action learning.” Each step of the jour-
ney informs the next step of the journey. Hence, a journey is planned in process
while it is in fact unfolding—the planning is dynamic. After each step, the fol-

lowing action learning questions are asked:
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• What did we plan to do?
• What did we actually do?
• What actually happened?
• What did we learn?
• What will we do next in our journey based on what we learned?
This process is never-ending. People in an organization learn to ask the right
questions by developing a common database at each step. They are then able
to create a shared vision of the organization’s future. Also, the people of the
organization will be more likely to agree on change goals and specific actions
to achieve those goals. A good method to follow is J. Edward Deming’s (2000)
action learning Plan-Do-Check-Act technique. This approach emphasizes the
continuing, never-ending nature of process improvement. The cycle is really a
simple feedback loop system, as follows:
PLAN—A plan is developed to improve a process.
DO—The plan is tested in a small field test.
CHECK—The results of the test are assessed.
ACT—If successful, the plan is implemented.
The process then begins again and the cycle is repeated. The repetition of the
PDCA cycle, with each cycle producing improvement, leads to continuous
improvement. The process traces an ever-deepening spiral into the mind
and heart of both the organization as a whole and the individuals within the
organization. Consistent across the founding methods is the notion of rapid
changes in a whole system, and that enables clients to create further substan-
tive change by:
• Working together to clarify and connect their own multiple current
realities;
• Working together to unite system-wide desires in a common picture of

the future;
• Working together to reach agreement on the action plans that will move
that organization toward the picture of the future;
• Working together to build processes, structures, and relationships that
keep the organization moving forward; and
• Working together to align organizational leaders and employees capable
of implementing the changes together.
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For example, Cooperrider and Whitney (1999) speak to the change as life
itself rather than an event. The journey they include in their appreciative inquiry
methodology is what they call the 4-D’s:
1. Discover—mobilize a systemic inquiry into the positive change core.
2. Dream—envision the organization’s greatest potential for positive
influence and impact on the world.
3. Design—craft an organization in which the positive core is boldly alive
in all strategies, processes, systems, decisions, and collaborations.
4. Destiny—invite action inspired by the days of discovery, dream, and
design.
Similarly, Dick and Emily Axelrod (2000) describe journey in terms of engag-
ing large numbers of people in system-wide changes that are connected by con-
ferences and walk-throughs encouraged by supporting mechanisms. Each step
in their model describes a step in the journey of change.
Theory
Transformation is guided by theory. The next truth is the notion that the
founders ground themselves in the building blocks of theoretical frameworks.
Each of the founders and all of their followers honor the work of the people who
went before them, who developed theories. As stated by Kurt Lewin, “There is
nothing as practical as a good theory” (Kleiner, 1996, p. 31). In short, when a
growing body of evidence has supported a theory, it is robust. That is, the

method or technique leads to predictable results in a variety of situations. When
you “poke” the system (intervene), you want to be able to predict the “ouch.”
When you can predict the “ouch” from the intervention, you have a robust
intervention. Therefore, it is imperative that you be intentional in the chain reac-
tion you set off. If you know the possible reaction to an intervention, you will
be doing the kind of work that will lead to transformation success.
Transformation journeys are the products of robust theories as demonstrated
in the founders’ work. They instinctively knew that robust theory had to be the
foundation for every design decision on their journeys (interventions, steps,
accelerators, etc.). The founders believed that the use of robust theories would
give them the highest possible chance to be successful in their own work. If
their work were based on robust theory, success could be predicted. Since the
founders were working with whole system interventions, predictable results
were needed. Because the impact is instantaneous, there is no time to go back
once a particular step or technique has been introduced into the system.
The founders had a tendency to write, communicate, teach, and share their
ideas with the world. Eventually, the founders had followers. Their methods
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