Diagnostic and Dialogic Yachts Competing Round the Globe: How did They Fare?

Abstract

As a practitioner recently turned scholar, my view is that organization development practices too often prioritize the organizational outcomes of change and, in doing so, overlook human outcomes. Using a personal experience from a round-the-world yacht race as a template, I explain how change practices can influence the lives of those involved. Halfway through the race, I switched boats from one managed with diagnostic practices to one managed dialogically. It was the dialogic boat that precipitated a more enriching human outcome. Here, I deconstruct the effect of these contrasting change practices on my experience.