James J. Hall

The L&D Guide to Organization Development

ATD’s Organization Development Handbook is a tactical, hands-on book for those in learning and development looking to make that first step into organization development or those who are a one-person band doing both. While many books and textbooks exist on organization development—the effort to improve an organization’s capability through the alignment of strategy, structure, people, rewards, metrics, and management processes—this volume is the first of its kind to address OD from the talent development and, specifically, L&D perspective.

More than ever, L&D professionals are taking on organization development work to drive organizational effectiveness and performance. Sometimes this happens out of choice when seeking a new career challenge, and other times out of necessity when the organization adds OD to their responsibilities. In either case, L&D professionals need new knowledge and skills—as well as insight into how to utilize their analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation abilities—to become successful in creating OD solutions.

Edited by OD practitioner and expert Brian J. Flores, this volume includes in-house experts and consultant contributors from the OD field itself as well as those who crossed over from L&D to OD. Readers will learn how to apply the foundations of organization development to their multiculturalism, upskilling and reskilling, soft skill development, and succession planning processes and programs. 

ATD's Organizational Development Handbook

AllSteel Names J Johnson

TELUS, Canada’s fastest-growing telecommunications company, has always taken pride in delivering excellent customer service. In 2013, J.D. Power and Associates ranked it among Canadian telecom’s leaders in customer satisfaction. CEO Darren Entwistle attributes this success to an inclusive corporate culture that empowers team members to deliver what customers need and want: “Our team, and the incredible culture we’ve built, is our company’s most valuable asset and the secret to our success.”However, the company’s call center learning team wanted to further improve the customer experience and began developing a new customer service model in late 2013. Called the Customer Experience Blueprint (CEB), the model would equip the organization’s 7,000 call center agents with a process to efficiently and effectively handle any customer interaction.To ensure CEB’s success, the team wanted the program’s target audience to play an active role in developing the service model and its user training program. The plan was simple: They would collaborate with frontline agents to design the service model and its training, epitomizing TELUS’s inclusive culture. The program would include self-paced e-learning and serious games, as well as coaching and instruction by managers.