ABSTRACT
Using an example from a highly skilled surgical department of a big hospital in Israel, in this chapter, I show how the HOOD (habitus-oriented OD) helped me define and effectively cope with the department’s problem of intensive conflictual interactions. According to the contact client and other significant figures in the department, the conflictual interactions were the sole result of Dr. Goldberg’s (a senior physician) aggressive psychological dispositions, her “stubborn personality”. HOOD, however, allowed me to understand the department’s problem of conflictual interactions also, perhaps mainly, as a result of Dr. Goldberg’s social dispositions, or habitus, derived from the department’s social structure. This understanding helped to create a change process that focuses on changing the department’s stormy social structure, produced mainly by the department head and other significant figures who, like the senior Dr. Goldberg, were involved in constant power struggles.
