Power processes are central to the creation and
change of discourses
Drawing on aspects of the critical perspective,
change agents need to understand how power is
used to create, sustain and change the prevailing
or privileged discourses or narratives guiding how situations are experienced. This means
change agents who apply New OD approaches
should explicitly recognize and attend to the
power and political processes underlying the
situations they address, and the methods they
employ. From this perspective, change methods
assuming consensual processes among presumed
‘equals’, facilitated by ‘neutral’ consultants, will,
at best, ‘misread’ the underlying power dynamics.
Instead, understanding how various forms of
power and persuasion are used to help facilitate
negotiated agreements becomes an ethical if not a
practical imperative. This is true, even when the
dominant approaches used by change agents are
to help foster ‘power equalization’ among the
participants.