We Are Prisoners of Systems

You make an excellent point about how to approach OD.  Use systems analysis.  Focus on how the overall system forces persons in it to behave in certain ways.  In Total Quality Management, on which your humble servant here did his dissertation for his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the approach is to work from the top (system) down to the individual.  Individual behaviors cannot, do not drive systems, unless the individual has "life-and-death" power over the organization.  Even then, systems can push back against such devils.  As you point out, a single individual cannot "flip" and organization; therefore, merit pay for producing more "widgets" than others on an assembly line does not work in business, industry overall; it does not work in education.  Greed drives our society at the top; greed cannot, does not make systems work, improve, for that takes cooperation, sharing, mutual gain, not everybody for himself or herself.  Yes, it is about systems, always, in OD.  Dr. Rux