O&A was founded in 1995 by G. Viswanath and began with the dream of making organisations more humane and effective. Every one of us has immense potential and if organisations were to allow this potential to emerge, then the work place would be vibrant and exciting with all kinds of possibilities. O&A also began out of dissatisfaction with the existing priorities in organisations, where people seemed to be viewed as instruments of profitability rather than partners in creating a different future. Many organisations seemed to have no vision of how to further the cause of people's development as the foundation to the organisation's growth and development.

In its formative years, O&A relied on its strong background in an applied behavioural sciences orientation and this was appreciated by the client systems, as experiential learning appealed to participants. This appeal also reinforced the belief within O&A that people and their motivations were more similar than different, irrespective of the environment in which they functioned – corporate, NGO or education. Inner needs were universal - the need for affiliation, achievement, openness, acceptance, recognition and so on. And in much of our early work, it became more and more clear that every new group, each set of participants, irrespective of the actual theme of the intervention, had a need to bond, to be understood, to achieve, to learn from their mistakes and so on.

In 2001, Ganesh Anantharaman joined O&A as consultant, and is principal consultant now. The consulting team of Viswanath and Ganesh is a versatile team with complementary skills and competencies. We also have partners and collaborators who work with us on specific projects, bringing a pool of varied competencies and greater strength to our work.