CHANGE whose ally?: ‘The Seventies is the decade of organisation development.’

The re‐appraisal facing the training world at this time will sort out the positive thinkers from the negative. Many will see the inevitable dialogue as simply disruptive; on the other hand, those who have already anticipated the changing role of the training function will welcome the opportunity to examine progress since the '64 Act and plan for the future. The seventies have already been described as the decade of organisation development; development, that is, of the combined human and physical resources of the firm into a cohesive whole. Change within the individual is the largest single factor in achieving change within the organisation. Those who once decided to work in training must now decide whether they intend to grasp the opportunity to play the larger, more exciting role of creating change within the firm. This requires us to define what the changing role will be and the new skills which must be mastered.