ABSTRACT
This chapter emphasizes an old chestnut —when to provide organization development (OD) consultation, and when to withhold it from a client —whose discussion is good for sharpening distinctions as well as for providing advance warnings about personal and professional dilemmas. In the late 1960s convention-goers debated whether an OD consultant should provide services to organized crime. There are basic defenses available to ODers against Judas goatship: a diligent attention to the maxim that OD intervenors should emphasize creating choices and an awareness of them, as opposed to triggering or forcing change. Judas goatship can be as alive and insidious when consultants are unaware of it in self or others, as when they actively despise that role. The four varieties of Judas goats may help reduce their incidence and hence contribute some to the resolution of the central question: when to proffer and when to withhold OD services? The varieties are: pied pipers, unaware collaborators, determined even-uppers, and misguided stimulators.
