Managing organizational development projects by paradoxes

Carrying out organizational development projects in an enterprise entails a complex situation with different aspects to be included and a dynamic environment with many uncertainties. Planning and managing such initiatives represents a challenge to management. An action research project carried out in an industrial enterprise is used as a reference for introducing the notion of managing projects by paradoxes. Management of projects is viewed as a task of navigating in a force field of basic, but conflicting criteria. This represents intrinsic forces that are inherent in every project and may imply that the actors involved are confronted with dilemmas or paradoxes. In view of the ambiguous and dynamic nature of the environment it is not possible to develop a solution once and for all in the initial phase. It is a continuous management task to find solutions that represent a proper balance between opposite criteria. Four paradoxes will be introduced and discussed with reference made to the case project. At the end of the paper implications will be outlined for managing organizational projects by paradoxes.