With the doctorate degree behind me, the year 2019 begins with a concerted effort to explore the new opportunities that lie ahead for me. So, recently I have been reaching out to my professional network to talk about the landscape of today’s professional world and where I might fit in. In preparation for this, I’ve had to update my resume and think about ways to talk about the past four years, and why, at this stage of my life, I would set aside the pursuit of my professional career in order to attain a Doctorate degree in Organization Development. Hadn’t I already learned enough from my experience?
It doesn’t help that a lot of people are simply unfamiliar with the field of organization development or have outdated perceptions of what the field is about. But I can’t fault them for this. It’s basically where I was when I started in the program.
I was attracted to the field of organization development more through intuition than knowledge of the field. It started with observations I was making about the relationship between a firm’s business success and their organization culture. I came to realize that often the most significant barrier to success was not a product or a marketing strategy or even leadership, but the organization itself. I began to notice how an organization’s culture, their ability to attract and retain talent, their ability to work across teams and innovate, their structure and their incentives all impacted their business success, and that there was a need for greater alignment between an organization’s culture, their business model and their brand.
The practical, cohort design of my doctorate program provided a way for me to follow my intuition. Rather than being narrowly focused on the preparation of doctoral candidates for careers in academia, this program was designed for people like me, whose intent was to continue working in their respective fields after receiving their degree. This allowed me to focus my studies on ways of helping organizations get out of their own way and to be better aligned for success.
In hindsight, my intuition served me well. I found organization development to be a match for someone like me; a systems thinker, who likes to integrate formal knowledge with practical experience and creative thinking. More importantly, I found the structure of the program provided me with a way to systematically and deeply reflect upon my diverse career experiences and to integrate those experiences into new learning that offers valuable insight into helping organizations grow more purposefully, profitably and sustainably.
The philosopher John Dewey said that we don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience. And it was only when I decided to set aside the day-to-day demands of a professional career to pursue my doctorate that I was really able to ‘learn’ from my experience.
Hello, I'm Lisa Meyer 