Lately, I’ve been immersed in the work of Philippe Bourgois, particularly his research on homeless heroin addicts. This is a natural continuation of my long-standing sociological and political interest in marginalized groups: the downtrodden, residents of housing projects, street gangs, mobsters, and petty criminals. My journey began years ago with Street Corner Society and Tally’s Corner, and Bourgois’ work is a powerful addition to this lineage.

Bourgois exposes fundamental flaws in public policy regarding the treatment of homeless heroin users. He critiques how the system handles everything from recurring abscesses to the misplaced obsession with preventing bloodborne diseases via shared needle use. His central argument is striking: these individuals need ongoing treatment—not cures.

He illustrates the futility of interventions aimed at ending needle sharing, for example, within a culture where sharing—and betrayal—are deeply intertwined. It’s not just addiction; it’s a social world with its own logic, codes, and contradictions.

In contrast to the profound dysfunction Bourgois describes among homeless heroin users, most organizations are not completely broken. Yes, a few may resemble the “deep pits of hell” he portrays, but most are not entirely dysfunctional. Still, all organizations carry some degree of incurable pathology.

These include chronic political infighting, ceremonial status shaming, bureaucratic numbness, narcissistic leadership, and more. Organizational Development (OD) professionals too often approach these issues with an air of misplaced certainty—as if they can be “cured” with the right tool or framework. This is misguided. Coping better? Yes. Solving or eradicating them? No. These pathologies are, by and large, permanent features of collective human endeavor.

Why? Because organizations are, at their core, groups of people coming together to get something done. This dependency naturally breeds anxiety, which manifests as dysfunction. The messiness—conflicts, inefficiencies, and political undercurrents—is the sawdust of collaboration.

At 76, I doubt many are eager to read long reflections like these—especially in an era of Gemini and ChatGPT, with their sleek, bite-sized wisdom. But if you’ve made it this far, here’s my core message:

Don’t try to “fix” organizational pathology. Focus on mitigating it.

This approach has guided my work for over 45 years and has served clients well. No new fad, framework, or tech revolution changes this truth.

Missile alarm- “again? won’t this ever end-continue watching TV and watering my plants”.
Missile alarm 2- this sounds serious, maybe I will check out what’s going on in the shelter. ok-I know. 3/4 of the building, kids playing and screaming, hot as witches’ tit and everyone looking at their cellphone. Going back upstairs.
Missile alarm 3 (middle of the night)- fuck them, I am going back to sleep.
Missile alarm 4 to 9- See #3
Next day-shooting pains in my gums, but not in the same area. Twitch in lips. Very bad itchy back. No “palpable” fear.
Missile alarm 10-in the shelter, daytime. Jesus H Christ, I wonder if the building fell. That was close.
Missile alarm 11-in shelter. “this ain’t no joke”. Still no fear but noise sensitivity developing.
Missile alarm 12-11pm. I am lying in bed. Horrendous fear; shaking from anxiety. It lasts 3-5 seconds, and then, off to sleep. Poor sleep. 3 hours. I am SO fucking tired.
For the rest of the war I am not fearful, just very tired and sensitive to noise. No patience. Anger easily.
It’s over. Itchy back for two more days. My dermatologist (Boaz) says that emotions can make scar tissue sensitive. (from BCC removal)
Then, finally, it’s all over. 9 hours of sleep.
Another beautiful day.

It is not easy to “catch up” on sleep during the day; the phrase “catching up”, if you ask me, does not apply to sleep.

And believe me, I wish it was possible.

Most nights, the following routine applies. Your phone emits a series of screeches warning you that within minutes that sirens will sound in your area. Alas, that is what happens, generally 5 to 10 minutes after the telephone heads up.
Then, you can either go to the shelter, or, stay put.

A few minutes later (7 to 10 minutes), massive booms are heard. These booms are either Iranian missles landing or Iron Dome/David’s Arrow taking the missiles out.
There are no words which can describe the noise. Ten minutes of waiting after which it is safe to leave the shelter. (I no longer go the shelter in the middle of the night.)
All this happens two or three times at night-at about 10 pm, 3 am and 5 am.
Today at 4pm, we had to enter the shelter at 4PM. Everyone looked gutted.
The main complaints in the shelter include poor wifi, weak fans, noise that children make, and sarcastic comments like “are we winning”?

I am an avid reader-but I cannot read in the last few days. However, my house is very clean. My closet is orderly. Everything is, “fix-fox”-in perfect order. I even ironed the shirts that I had made for me in Uganda.

My 16 year old dog, George,  is senile, so he walks very slowly, and often in circles. But he loves to eat and smell leaves. So, he gets about 6-7 outings a day. Or maybe, he is walking me.

I have relatives whose kids are in the service. They are nervous wrecks. Every incoming phone call, every knock on the door triggers fear.

As opposed to situations in the past, no one that I know questions the necessity of what is being done; left, right, centre, secular, religious, Jews, Arabs-wall to wall support for defanging Iran – albeit for very different reasons. Even the Turks support Israel, so that they can take an even bigger bite out of Syria. The most amazing part of this all is that the Jordanian air force downs missiles headed to Israel, Israeli jets fly to Iran over Syria and Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, hasn’t even thrown a stone at us.

We are witnessing a total transformation of the middle east.

I just hope that this ends soon.

I need to get back to the gym.

A Boy Named Sue by the great unforgettable Johnny Cash  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z1Ple-qYuU&list=RD-Z1Ple-qYuU&start_radio=1&ab_channel=JohnnyCash-Topic

In Camus’ classic, L’Etranger (The Stranger), the hero Meursault encounters Salamano coming down the stairs with a dog, and remarks that the dog and his neighbour Salamano have come to look alike.

So much for the metaphor; when a consultant and an organization work together on change, not only does the consultant enable change for the client, the consultant himself undergoes a process of change. This is by and large a very positive phenomenon by which mutual adaptation occurs-augmenting trust.

Here are a few ways that clients have changed me over the years. One client taught me never to discuss ‘too much pressure’ because in this profession, if you cannot take heat, you cannot work in a kitchen. Once I learnt to work around that, my work was successful.

Another client taught me that install-plan-re-install-plan again-and fix was the only business cycle possible. Until I learnt this, I was almost fired. Once I learnt it, I stayed with that client for 15, driving huge change.

And finally, a client taught me that there is no such thing as a merger, just an acquisition. This lesson served me very well and over my long career, I have consulted 14 major acquisitions; and not one merger.

There are other changes as well. The consultant learn the client’s vocabulary (challenging=impossible), slang and informal mores. If language influences behaviour as Jacques Lacan claims, certainly the client’s “patois” (dialect) permeates the consultants’ perception of reality.

If a consultant is not changed by an organization, the danger is that too much background noise will develop, hindering the ability to foster the type of relationship that enables change. So, do not fight it. Leverage your client driven transformation to drive change. That is what the profession is all about-and it works in both directions.

1. Meetings have a bad rap, and the truth is that meetings are a good way to share information, foster cohesion, mitigate conflicts, air differences and deal with areas of overlapping responsibility. Yes, meetings are tedious at times and stray off topic but, meetings certainly beat long email threads. Don’t worry that people moan and groan about “another meeting”. They groan about rain as well.
2. People don’t read, they skim. Not because they are tired or overworked, but because of an outbreak of attention disorder due to excessive use of smartphones. If you cannot be brief, you don’t exist.
3. People complain about how hard they work, and how they are all “in a rush”. However, while people spend a lot of time at work, often they are surfing, texting, or playing busy. Almost everyone can do more work than they are actually doing.
4. Not all outputs at work are measurable. And assisting someone else to “score” can be more valuable than achieving your own pre-defined goal.
5. The more that roles, responsibilities and processes are defined, the more things will fall between the cracks and bucks will be passed. It is impossible to define away complexity.
6. All organizations are extremely political. Politics, the use of persuasion and power, can be used to further the goals of an organization, or to enhance personal power within an organization. So there is good politics and bad politics; there is never “too much” politics.

Veteran Canadian broadcaster Howard Schwartz interviews me on the strategy and tactics of the on-going effort to downsize the American civil service.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/58p8x341zrhfr4a4vy924/An-axe-not-a-scalpel-Podcast-04-25.mp3?rlkey=m4e30guo4c6e9jejefhkgcbqm&st=c1ebga72&dl=0

1. Clients who don’t understand what OD is may want to know what the deliverables are up front before they sign the consulting contract.
2. OD consultants box themselves into a corner if they acquiesce and define measurable outcomes up front.
3. Clients who want detailed proposals are painting themselves, and the consultant into the corner of possible irrelevance.
4. What should the client do if there are no results whatsoever and they feel they are treading on water?

Let’s see how to deal with these issues.

1. Organizational Development does lead to concrete positive changes. Some of these changes happen unexpectedly; some can be planned. Many cannot be planned. “That’s the way it is”. The most meaningful changes happen incrementally, not in “one fell swoop”. Deliverables imply a concrete happening. Change which is set free by OD is a slow, palpable difference is the way things are done which cannot be well defined up front. It can be very partially defined with wide strokes, if needed, but not “set in stone”. Outcomes should be reviewed and revised at least once every two months. I recalibrate outcomes monthly.
2. OD is not measurable. Many things are not measurable, not only OD. Many things that can be measured are meaningless. If you want to hire an OD consultant who is ready to have you measure outcomes? You will hire a 3^rd rate consultant.
3. OD is not a software platform with a clear SOW (scope of work). The more that a proposal goes into fine details, the more likely it is that the proposal will NOT serve as an enabler, but rather as a hindrance with enables the needed flexibility to achieve results.
4. If this is the case, the match between the client and the consultant needs to end. Not every consultant can work with every client. As in all relationships, chemistry is critical.

20% of dogs who are sedated after the age of 14 die, never to wake up from the sedative. Thems is not good numbers.

Nevertheless, George’s halitosis was unbearable. When he yawned, he cleared the room. A Google search on canine health (I hate myself for doing that) revealed the dangers of neglecting a gum cleaning, even it entails possible death during sedation. There is a “easy” dilemma for ya. Reminds me of my dermatologist who chops off melanoma in situ from my body, while telling me that melanoma in situ is over-diagnosed.

George doesn’t care about his breath. I should have mentioned that. George suffers from canine dementia. He is incredibly old for a mid-size poodle yet he is in perfect health. Btw, that is very common on one side of my family: a very long life with all the marbles in disorder.

At times, George walks in circles; he bumps into walls on bad days. He has no sense of direction whatsoever. He gets stuck in corners or bumps into glass doors when the going gets rough.

Were this the case every day, I would have put him down long ago. A long life is not worth it if it entails suffering; that is true for me, and for him.

It is not because of egoism that I decided to risk teeth cum gum cleaning which he underwent today. George loves eating. He loves sniffing at leaves. When the wind blows, he sticks his head out to feel the air at its fullest. He has a will of his own. In the heat-he is unwilling to walk outside. Mid-day outings are a nightmare. In the morning and in the evening, he enjoys the outdoors, albeit his slow gait. A few times each week, he returns to his old ways; jumping up high when I come home, and running around the house, full of energy.

So, I decided to have his gums cleaned as well as removing hair in his ears under full sedation.

Dr Yuval told me that once George woke up, the admin would call me to pick up the boy, probably near noon.

At 11 am I could wait no longer. I went back to the clinic and paced back and forth, like I did when my daughter gave birth.

At 12.30, George emerged from the recuperation theatre. Clean gums; minus 2 teeth, smelling like a lily.

                                     All’s well that ends well-leaving the clinic

Post script.

It was a tough two days after the gum cleansing. The sedation really worsened George’s dementia and he was walking into walls as well as  getting stuck behind doors. It was necessary for me to pull an all nighter.

After 24 hours, he calmed down-after vomiting and crapping all over, again from the sedative. BUT he is fine now- and still smells like a lily.

Never forget, not only is a dog, your best friend, YOU ARE THE DOG’S BEST FRIEND. It is not a one way street.

“The entire community of Organization Development academics and practitioners in Israel stood on the shoulders of Itamar, small as he was in stature”. That is what I wanted to say as he was laid to rest today in Segula Cemetery.

I also wanted to thank him for all that he contributed to me, personally, before he was laid to rest. But I did that in my heart. As is not my habit- I kept quiet at Segula. The stage to talk was for Gaby, Dafna and Orit, his children.

We were professional and business partners for over 30 years. That is a very long time, considering that we agreed on very little, except of course how to practice OD.

As an ex- Argentinian, being on time was not critical for him; as an ex-Canadian it was (and is) very important for me. Itamar gave top-down complex (and brilliant) explanations cum interpretations. My style was/is far more down to earth and eclectic. Itamar was a brilliant academic, teacher and practitioner; I am a practitioner with no academic pretentions.

When I come to think of it, we also had a lot in common, which perhaps explains the 3 decades of partnership. We were both perfectionists when it comes to OD. We both backed our people when they erred. There was zero competition between us, and no backstabbing. Arguments, yes. Backstabbing, no. Itamar and I, luckily, shared a sense of humour and of the hundreds (and hundreds) of hours we worked together, at least 30% were spent laughing. We both worked very very hard, day and night, to do things “comme il faut”.

Yet-I haven’t yet made the main point. Itamar came to Israel without “connections” and initially without a full control of the language. (Itamar claimed that he spoke all languages in Spanish). Yet within just a few years, he had had an incredible impact on the practice of OD in the military, in civil society, and in academia. His impact on commanders, colleagues, students and clients was so phenomenal that I can do them no justice. He towered over the profession for decades.

Thank you, Itamar, from the very bottom of heart, for everything you gave to our country, the army, the profession and especially to me. I will be forever grateful. And the disagreements? Who can manage a 30 year partnership without disagreements, for heaven sake.

PS

Two Allon-Itamar stories

#1

Itamar-For this insurance policy, I need your date of birth.

Allon-1949

Itamar-Are you sure?

Allon-Are you trying to convince me I was born in another year?

#2

Allon- Itamar, I don’t understand what you have told me, and you have said it three times. Will you stop repeating yourself?

Itamar-I myself am just starting to understand.