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Organisation Development
What is OD?
Organisation Development (OD) is "an effort, planned, organisation-wide,
and managed from the top, to increase organisation effectiveness and
health through planned interventions in the organisation's processes,
using behavioural-science knowledge." In essence, OD is a planned system
of change.
Planned. OD takes a long-range approach to improving organisational
performance and efficiency. It avoids the (usual) "quick-fix".
Organisation-wide. OD focuses on the total system.
Managed from the top. To be effective, OD must have the support of
top-management. They have to model it, not just espouse it. The OD
process also needs the buy-in and ownership of workers throughout the
organisation.
Increase organisation effectiveness and health. OD is tied to the
bottom-line. Its goal is to improve the organisation, to make it more
efficient and more competitive by aligning the organisation's systems
with its people.
Planned interventions. After proper preparation, OD uses activities
called interventions to make systemwide, permanent changes in the
organisation.
Using behavioural-science knowledge. OD is a discipline that combines
research and experience to understanding people, business systems, and
their interactions.
Organisation Development (OD) is the process of improving organisations.
The process is carefully planned and implemented to benefit the
organisation, its employees and its stakeholders. The organisation is
assessed to create an understanding of the current situation and to
identify opportunities for change that will meet business objectives.
Why Do OD?
Human resources - our people may be a large fraction of our costs of
doing business. They certainly can make the difference between
organisational success and failure. We better know how to manage them.
Changing nature of the workplace. Our employees today want feedback on
their performance, a sense of accomplishment, feelings of value and
worth, and commitment to social responsibility. They need to be more
efficient, to improve their time management. And, of course, if we are
to continue doing more work with less people, we need to make our
processes more efficient.
Global markets. Our environments are changing, and our organisations
must also change to survive and prosper. We need to be more responsible
to and develop closer partnerships with our customers. We must change to
survive, and we argue that we should attack the problems, not the
symptoms, in a systematic, planned, humane manner.
Accelerated rate of change. Taking an open-systems approach, we can
easily identify the competitions on an international scale for people,
capital, physical resources, and information.
Objectives of Organisational Development
As objectives of organisational development are framed keeping in view
specific situations, they vary from one situation to another. In other
words, these programmes are tailored to meet the requirements of a
particular situation. But broadly speaking, all organisational
development programmes try to achieve the following objectives:
Making individuals in the organisation aware of the vision of the
organisation. Organisational development helps in making employees align
with the vision of the organisation.
Encouraging employees to solve problems instead of avoiding them.
Strengthening inter-personnel trust, cooperation, and communication
for the successful achievement of organisational goals.
Encourage every individual to participate in the process of planning,
thus making them feel responsible for the implementation of the plan.
Creating a work atmosphere in which employees are encouraged to work
and participate enthusiastically.
Replacing formal lines of authority with personal knowledge and skill.
Creating an environment of trust so that employees willingly accept
change.
According to organisational development thinking, organisation
development provides managers with a vehicle for introducing change
systematically by applying a broad selection of management techniques.
This, in turn, leads to greater personal, group, and organisational
effectiveness.
Who Does OD?
To be successful, OD must have the buy-in, ownership, and involvement of
all stakeholders, not just of the employees throughout the organisation.
OD is usually facilitated by change agents - people or teams that have
the responsibility for initiating and managing the change effort. These
change agents may be either employees of the organisation (internal
consultants) or people from outside the organisation (external
consultants.)
When is an Organisation Ready for OD?
There is a formula, attributed to David Gleicher, which we can use to
decide if an organisation is ready for change:
Dissatisfaction x Vision x First Steps > Resistance to Change
This means that three components must all be present to overcome the
resistance to change in an organisation: Dissatisfaction with the
present situation, a vision of what is possible in the future, and
achievable first steps towards reaching this vision. If any of the three
is zero or near zero, the product will also be zero or near zero and the
resistance to change will dominate.
Prerequisites for Organisational Development
HR must inform the employees the outcomes of an Organisational
Development
HR dept role acquires bigger dimension
Tune training plans to gain productivity
Enhance analytical skills, prevent crisis
Resolve the interpersonal conflicts in gentle manner
Draw OD agenda with staff and employee consent
Help people connect to actions to accomplish goals
The Organisational Development Process
The OD Process is based on the Action Research model which begins with
an identified problem or need for change. The process proceeds through
assessment, planning of an intervention, implementing the intervention,
gathering data to evaluate the intervention, and determining if
satisfactory progress has been made or if there is need for further
intervention. The process is cyclical and ends when the desired
developmental result is obtained.
The OD process begins when an organisation recognises that a problem
exists which impacts the mission or health of the organisation and
change is desired. It can also begin when leadership has a vision of a
better way and wants to improve the organisation. An organisation does
not always have to be in trouble to implement organisation development
activities.
Once the decision is made to change the situation, the next step is to
assess the situation to fully understand it. This assessment can be
conducted in many ways including documentation review, organisational
sensing, focus groups, interviewing, or surveying. The assessment could
be conducted by outside experts or by members of the organisation.
After the situation is assessed, defined, and understood, the next step
is to plan an intervention. The type of change desired would determine
the nature of the intervention. Interventions could include training and
development, team interventions such as team building for management or
employees or the establishment of change teams, structural
interventions, or individual interventions.
Once the intervention is planned, it is
implemented.
During and after the implementation of the intervention, relevant data
is gathered. The data gathered would be determined by the change goals.
For example, if the intervention were training and development for
individual employees or for work groups, data to be gathered would
measure changes in knowledge and competencies.
This data is used to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. It
is reported to the organisations decision-makers. The decision-makers
determine if the intervention met its goals. If the intervention met its
goals, the process can end, which is depicted by the raising of the
development bar. If it did not, the decision is made whether to continue
the cycle and to plan and carry out another intervention or to end it.
Different Ways of OD Implementation
Set clear goals, explain at the earliest
Build talent pool to make succession easy
Personal touch makes people happy and more involved into their work.
Inner resources must be the first option for HR recruitment and
development
Introduce the performance and talent management systems
Build loyalty
Innovation
Health habits makes a healthy work place
Retain the talent
Create a vision
Recruit the right people for right tasks
Training techniques used for improve the O.D intervention
Reward & recognize the people ideas
Encouraging people to take risks
Empowering the employees redefine horizons of team performance
Group mentoring disperse diverse skills sets
Balance anxiety at the right level to be successful OD
Shared values and mission bring success to OD implementation
Shared vision keeps great teams in form
Organisation Effectiveness Strategies
To improve organisation effectiveness and/or individual employee
effectiveness to increase productivity, work satisfaction and profit for
the organisation. The strategies appearing below "Organisation" and
"Employee" Effectiveness are enumerated -
Action Research - An assessment and problem solving process aimed at
improved effectiveness for the entire organisation or specific work
units. The consultant helps the client organisation identify the
strengths and weaknesses of organisation and management issues and works
with the client in addressing problem opportunities. (Some form of
action research is generally applied as a foundation for other
consulting strategies.)
Conflict Management - Bringing conflicts to the surface to discover
their roots, developing a common ground from which to resolve or better
manage conflict. Consultants serve as facilitator in a conflict
situation or train employees to better understand and manage conflict.
Executive Development - One-on-one or group developmental consultation
with CEO's or VP's to improve their effectiveness.
Goal Setting - Defining and applying concrete goals as a road map to
help an organisation get where it wants to go. (Can also be applied to
employee development.)
Group Facilitation - Helping people learn to interact more effectively
at meetings and to apply group guidelines that foster open
communication, participation and accomplishment.
Managing Resistance to Change - Helping clients identify, understand,
and begin to manage their resistance to planned organisational change.
Organisational Restructuring - Changing departmental and/or individual
reporting structures, identifying roles and responsibilities,
redesigning job functions to assure that the way work gets done in the
organisation produces excellence in production and service.
Project Management - The general management of specific work, blending
diverse functions and skills, usually for a fixed time and aimed at
reaching defined outcomes.
Self-Directed Work Teams - Developing work groups to be fully
responsible for creating a well defined segment of finished work.
Socio-technical Systems Design - Designing and managing organisations to
emphasise the relationship between people's performance, the workplace
environment and the technology used to produce goods and services in
order to effect high level productivity.
Strategic Planning - A dynamic process which defines the organisation's
mission and vision, sets goals and develops action steps to help an
organisation focus its present and future resources toward fulfilling
its vision.
Team Building - Improving how well organisation members help one another
in activities where they must interact.
Total Quality Management - Through work process analysis, teambuilding,
defining quality and setting measurable standards, the consultant
assists the organisation in becoming more cost effective, approach
zero-defects and be more market-driven.
Career Counseling - Focused attention on goal setting, career selection
and job seeking help individuals make career decisions.
Creative Problem Solving - Organisation members use practical problem
solving models to address existing problems in a systematic, creative
manner.
Leadership Development - Training in select areas which change managers
to leaders. Includes visioning, change management and creative problem
solving.
Management Development - Training in various management skill areas with
particular focus on performance management, communications and problem
solving.
Workforce Diversity - Facilitating understanding between groups toward
the goal where differences among people in an organisation become the
strengths for competitive advantage, productivity and work satisfaction.
Organisation Development Interventions
Organisation Development (OD) interventions techniques are the methods
created by OD professionals and others. Single organisation or
consultant cannot use all the interventions. They use these
interventions depending upon the need or requirement. The most important
interventions are,
1. Survey feedback
2. Process Consultation
3. Sensitivity Training
4. The Managerial grid
5. Goal setting and Planning
6. Team Building and Management by Objectives
7. Job enrichment, changes in organisational structure and participative
management and Quality circles, ISO, TQM
Survey feedback: The intervention provides data and information to the
managers. Information on attitudes of employees about wage level, and
structure, hours of work, working conditions and relations are collected
and the results are supplied to the top executive teams. They analyse
the data, find out the problem, evaluate the results and develop the
means to correct the problems identified. The teams are formed with the
employees at all levels in the organisation hierarchy ie, from the rank
and file to the top level.
Process Consultation: The process consultant meets the members of the
department and work teams observes their interaction, problem
identification skills, solving procedures etc. He feeds back the team
with the information collected through observations, coaches and
counsels individuals and groups in order to mould their behavior.
Goal setting and Planning: Each division in an organisation sets the
goals or formulates the plans for profitability. These goals are sent to
the top management which in turn sends them back to the divisions after
modification. A set of organisation goals thus emerge.
Managerial grid: This identifies a range of management behavior based on
the different ways that how production/service oriented and employee
oriented states interact with each other. Managerial grid is also called
instrumental laboratory training as it is a structured version of
laboratory training. It consists of individual and group exercises with
a view to developing awareness of individual managerial style
interpersonal competence and group effeciveness. Thus grid training is
related to the leadership styles. The managerial grid focuses on the
observations of behaviour in exercises specifically related to work.
Participants in this training are encouraged and helped to appraise
their own managerial style.
There are six phases in grid OD:
First phase is concerned with studying the grid as a theoretical
knowledge to understand the human behavior in the Organisation.
Second phase is concerned with team work development. A seminar helps
the members in developing each members perception and the insight into
the problems faced by various members on the job.
Third phase is inter-group development. This phase aims at developing
the relationships between different departments
Fourth phase is concerned with the creation of a strategic model for the
organisation where Chief Executives and their immediate subordinates
participate in this activity.
Fifth phase is concerned with implementation of strategic model..
Planning teams are formed for each department to know the available
resources, required resources, procuring them if required and
implementing the model.
Sixth Phase is concerned with the critical evaluation of the model and
making necessary adjustment for successful implementation.
Management by Objectives (MBO) is a successful philosophy of management.
It replaces the traditional philosophy of Management by Domination.
MBO led to a systematic Goal setting and Planning. Peter Drucker the
eminent management Guru in 1959 first propagated the philosophy, since
then it has become a movement.
MBO is a process by which managers at different levels and their
subordinates work together in identifying goals and establishing
objectives consistent with Organisational goals and attaining them.
Team building is an application of various techniques of Sensitivity
training to the actual work groups in various departments. These work
groups consist of peers and a supervisor.
Sensitivity training is called a laboratory as it is conducted by
creating an experimental laboratory situation in which employees are
brought together. The Team Building technique and training is designed
to improve the ability of the employees to work together as teams.
Job enrichment is currently practiced all over the world. It is based on
the assumption in order to motivate workers, job itself must provide
opportunities for achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement
and growth. The basic idea is to restore to jobs the elements of
interest that were taken away. In a job enrichment programme the worker
decides how the job is performed, planned and controlled and makes more
decisions concerning the entire process.
Factors Affecting Organisation Development
The organisational employees have fixed attitudes. They do not change
their attitude and their habits.
The expert (Change agent) could not convince the traditional
employees.
Improper execution of OD techniques and strategies
Lack of co-operation between the top management and lower employees
Lack of commitment and misunderstanding among the employees
Lack of leadership skills and responsibility
Lack of facilities and lack of trustworthiness
Lack of morale and job satisfaction
Lack of Division of Labour and
complex production process and working condition
Difficulties of Organisation Development
Non co-operation and coordination of employees
Conflicts among the top people
Unavailability of required resources
Changing trends within short period
High competition and technological changes
Lack of long term applicability
Conclusion
To conclude, OD initiatives not only provide direction in times of
crisis, they but are a route to efficient organisational functioning.
Identifying loopholes in the system, improving discipline, enhancing
industry best practices, delegating job roles, business planning and
development, role mapping, are some of the few things OD initiatives
help tracking.
OD initiatives contribute to evolving a shared understanding and action
choices to facilitate organisation to become dynamic and identify those
processes which contribute to the stagnation of organisation as whole or
in parts of organisation like its function, department, divisions or
group of people at different levels. It facilitates initiation of those
organisation processes across levels for shared understanding of vision,
mission, values, structure, policies and strategies so that the employee
and the organisation can be revitalized, renewed and reenergized. OD
assists employees to acknowledge personal space in organisational
lifecycle and helps create rhythmic interface so that fulfilment and
achievement is experienced by individuals and systems simultaneously. It
also helps in building a new legacy and heritage where institution,
organisation and individuals can discover newer horizons.
q
Shallu Chopra
schopra@devalt.org
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