CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
When he invited me to Kimono, David (the board member) defined Kimono’s problem as a psychological phenomenon. For him, and probably for the rest of the board members, Kimono’s poor performance is the product of John and Bill’s personal inability to communicate effectively.
As accepted in today’s modern individualistic social structure and in mainstream OD then David viewed John and Bill as psychological subjects who are the producers of meaning, values and behavioral norms (like Kimono’s poor performance) and therefore they should be the target of the organizational change process. For him, all the consultant (me) had to do in order to stop the poor performance was to fix its source, that is, to help John and Bill grow personally and improve their communication skills.
The HOC, on the other hand, views managers mainly as sociological subjects. The managers then are not only the producers of meaning, values and behavioral norms, but also the products of meaning, values and behavioral norms defined by the organization’s social structure. From this perspective, one that views John and Bill as sociological subjects, we can understand Kimono’s poor performance not solely as a product of John and Bill’s ineffective communication but of the interaction between that communication and Kimono’s social structure diffused by the contested habitus. John and Bill adopted the contested habitus and, in fact, in their daily reciprocal communication refined and improved it.
