Someone this week contacted me saying: I thought I would just drop you a quick email to see if you have any useful article or fact sheet on 'self as instrument'. I am doing my Organisation Development core practice programme piece of work on self as instrument. I think this is a useful concept for organisation design practitioners to explore, not least because 'self as instrument', is 'one of the unique trademarks of Organisation Development' and 'By embracing that role [of self as instrument] we fully recognize the fact that we 'ourselves' are the ultimate instrument that needs to be deployed to shift the client system. ... We do not think this type of training exists among strategic planners or technical experts in organisation design'. (See p.22 Organization Development: A Practitioner's Guide for OD and HR, by Dr Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge, Dr Linda Holbeche),
I was struck by the last statement. Organisation designis about organisation change and development and needs the full suite of practitioner skills (see my blog on organisation design the organisation development way)