Management & Organization development

Management
Management in all business and human organization activity is the act of getting people together to
accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or
directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose
of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources,
financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.

Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management.

History
The verb manage comes from the Italian maneggiare (to handle — especially tools), which in turn
derives from the Latin manus (hand). The French word mesnagement (later ménagement) influenced the
development in meaning of the English word management in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Some definitions of management are:

Organization and coordination of the activities of an enterprise in accordance with certain policies
and in achievement of clearly defined objectives. Management is often included as a factor of production
along with machines, materials, and money. According to the management guru Peter Drucker (1909–2005),
the basic task of a management is twofold: marketing and innovation.

Directors and managers who have the power and responsibility to make decisions to manage an
enterprise. As a discipline, management comprises the interlocking functions of formulating corporate policy
and organizing, planning, controlling, and directing the firm's resources to achieve the policy's objectives.
The size of management can range from one person in a small firm to hundreds or thousands of managers in
multinational companies. In large firms the board of directors formulates the policy which is implemented by
the chief executive officer.

Theoretical scope

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), who wrote on the topic in the early twentieth century, defined
management as "the art of getting things done through people". She also described management as
philosophy. One can also think of management functionally, as the action of measuring a quantity on a
regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan; or as the actions taken to reach one's intended goal. This
applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Frenchman Henri Fayol
considers management to consist of seven functions:

 planning
 organizing
 leading
 co-ordinating
 controlling
 staffing
 motivating

Some people, however, find this definition, while useful, far too narrow. The phrase "management is
what managers do" occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of defining management, the shifting nature of
definitions, and the connection of managerial practices with the existence of a managerial cadre or class.

One habit of thought regards management as equivalent to "business administration" and thus
excludes management in places outside commerce, as for example in charities and in the public sector. More
realistically, however, every organization must manage its work, people, processes, technology, etc. in order
to maximize its effectiveness. Nonetheless, many people refer to university departments which teach
management as "business schools." Some institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name
while others (such as the Yale School of Management) employ the more inclusive term "management."
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English speakers may also use the term "management" or "the management" as a collective word
describing the managers of an organization, for example of a corporation. Historically this use of the term
was often contrasted with the term "Labor" referring to those being managed.

Nature of managerial work

In for-profit work, management has as its primary function the satisfaction of a range of
stakeholders. This typically involves making a profit (for the shareholders), creating valued products at a
reasonable cost (for customers), and providing rewarding employment opportunities (for employees). In
nonprofit management, add the importance of keeping the faith of donors. In most models of
management/governance, shareholders vote for the board of directors, and the board then hires senior
management. Some organizations have experimented with other methods (such as employee-voting models)
of selecting or reviewing managers; but this occurs only very rarely.

In the public sector of countries constituted as representative democracies, voters elect politicians to
public office. Such politicians hire many managers and administrators, and in some countries like the United
States political appointees lose their jobs on the election of a new president/governor/mayor.

Historical development
Difficulties arise in tracing the history of management. Some see it (by definition) as a late modern
(in the sense of late modernity) conceptualization. On those terms it cannot have a pre-modern history, only
harbingers (such as stewards). Others, however, detect management-like-thought back to Sumerian traders
and to the builders of the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Slave-owners through the centuries faced the problems
of exploiting/motivating a dependent but sometimes unenthusiastic or recalcitrant workforce, but many pre-
industrial enterprises, given their small scale, did not feel compelled to face the issues of management
systematically. However, innovations such as the spread of Arabic numerals (5th to 15th centuries) and the
codification of double-entry book-keeping (1494) provided tools for management assessment, planning and
control.

Given the scale of most commercial operations and the lack of mechanized record-keeping and
recording before the industrial revolution, it made sense for most owners of enterprises in those times to
carry out management functions by and for themselves. But with growing size and complexity of
organizations, the split between owners (individuals, industrial dynasties or groups of shareholders) and day-
to-day managers (independent specialists in planning and control) gradually became more common.

Early writing

While management has been present for millennia, several writers have created a background of
works that assisted in modern management theories.

Sun Tzu's The Art of War

Written by Chinese general Sun Tzu in the 6th century BC, The Art of War is a military strategy
book that, for managerial purposes, recommends being aware of and acting on strengths and weaknesses of
both a manager's organization and a foe's.

Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince

Believing that people were motivated by self-interest, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513
as advice for the leadership of Florence, Italy. Machiavelli recommended that leaders use fear—but not
hatred—to maintain control.

Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations

Written in 1776 by Adam Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher, The Wealth of Nations aims for
efficient organization of work through Specialization of labor. Smith described how changes in processes
could boost productivity in the manufacture of pins. While individuals could produce 200 pins per day,
Smith analyzed the steps involved in manufacture and, with 10 specialists, enabled production of 48,000 pins
per day.
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19th century

Classical economists such as Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) and John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
provided a theoretical background to resource-allocation, production, and pricing issues. About the same
time, innovators like Eli Whitney (1765 - 1825), James Watt (1736 - 1819), and Matthew Boulton (1728 -
1809) developed elements of technical production such as standardization, quality-control procedures, cost-
accounting, interchangeability of parts, and work-planning. Many of these aspects of management existed in
the pre-1861 slave-based sector of the US economy. That environment saw 4 million people, as the
contemporary usages had it, "managed" in profitable quasi-mass production.

By the late 19th century, marginal economists Alfred Marshall (1842 - 1924), Léon Walras (1834 -
1910), and others introduced a new layer of complexity to the theoretical underpinnings of management.
Joseph Wharton offered the first tertiary-level course in management in 1881.

20th century

By about 1900 one finds managers trying to place their theories on what they regarded as a
thoroughly scientific basis (see scientism for perceived limitations of this belief). Examples include Henry R.
Towne's Science of management in the 1890s, Frederick Winslow Taylor's The Principles of Scientific
Management (1911), Frank and Lillian Gilbreth's Applied motion study (1917), and Henry L. Gantt's charts
(1910s). J. Duncan wrote the first college management textbook in 1911. In 1912 Yoichi Ueno introduced
Taylorism to Japan and became first management consultant of the "Japanese-management style". His son
Ichiro Ueno pioneered Japanese quality assurance.

The first comprehensive theories of management appeared around 1920. The Harvard Business
School invented the Master of Business Administration degree (MBA) in 1921. People like Henri Fayol
(1841 - 1925) and Alexander Church described the various branches of management and their inter-
relationships. In the early 20th century, people like Ordway Tead (1891 - 1973), Walter Scott and J. Mooney
applied the principles of psychology to management, while other writers, such as Elton Mayo (1880 - 1949),
Mary Parker Follett (1868 - 1933), Chester Barnard (1886 - 1961), Max Weber (1864 - 1920), Rensis Likert
(1903 - 1981), and Chris Argyris (1923 - ) approached the phenomenon of management from a sociological
perspective.

Peter Drucker (1909 – 2005) wrote one of the earliest books on applied management: Concept of the
Corporation (published in 1946). It resulted from Alfred Sloan (chairman of General Motors until 1956)
commissioning a study of the organisation. Drucker went on to write 39 books, many in the same vein.

H. Dodge, Ronald Fisher (1890 - 1962), and Thornton C. Fry introduced statistical techniques into
management-studies. In the 1940s, Patrick Blackett combined these statistical theories with microeconomic
theory and gave birth to the science of operations research. Operations research, sometimes known as
"management science" (but distinct from Taylor's scientific management), attempts to take a scientific
approach to solving management problems, particularly in the areas of logistics and operations.

Some of the more recent developments include the Theory of Constraints, management by
objectives, reengineering, Six Sigma and various information-technology-driven theories such as agile
software development, as well as group management theories such as Cog's Ladder.

As the general recognition of managers as a class solidified during the 20th century and gave
perceived practitioners of the art/science of management a certain amount of prestige, so the way opened for
popularised systems of management ideas to peddle their wares. In this context many management fads may
have had more to do with pop psychology than with scientific theories of management.

Towards the end of the 20th century, business management came to consist of six separate branches,
namely:

 Human resource management

 Operations management or production management
 Strategic management
 Marketing management
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 Financial management
 Information technology management responsible for management information systems

21st century

In the 21st century observers find it increasingly difficult to subdivide management into functional
categories in this way. More and more processes simultaneously involve several categories. Instead, one
tends to think in terms of the various processes, tasks, and objects subject to management.

Branches of management theory also exist relating to nonprofits and to government: such as public
administration, public management, and educational management. Further, management programs related to
civil-society organizations have also spawned programs in nonprofit management and social
entrepreneurship.

Note that many of the assumptions made by management have come under attack from business
ethics viewpoints, critical management studies, and anti-corporate activism.

As one consequence, workplace democracy has become both more common, and more advocated, in
some places distributing all management functions among the workers, each of whom takes on a portion of
the work. However, these models predate any current political issue, and may occur more naturally than does
a command hierarchy. All management to some degree embraces democratic principles in that in the long
term workers must give majority support to management; otherwise they leave to find other work, or go on
strike. Despite the move toward workplace democracy, command-and-control organization structures remain
commonplace and the de facto organization structure. Indeed, the entrenched nature of command-and-control
can be seen in the way that recent layoffs have been conducted with management ranks affected far less than
employees at the lower levels of organizations. In some cases, management has even rewarded itself with
bonuses when lower level employees have been laid off.

Management topics
Basic functions of management

Management operates through various functions, often classified as planning, organizing,

leading/directing, and controlling/monitoring.

 Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future (today, next week, next month, next year,
over the next 5 years, etc.) and generating plans for action.
 Organizing: (Implementation) making optimum use of the resources required to enable the
successful carrying out of plans.
 Staffing: Job Analyzing, recruitment, and hiring individuals for appropriate jobs.
 Leading/directing: Determining what needs to be done in a situation and getting people to do it.
 Controlling/Monitoring, checking progress against plans, which may need modification based on
feedback.

Formation of the business policy

 The mission of the business is its most obvious purpose -- which may be, for example, to make soap.
 The vision of the business reflects its aspirations and specifies its intended direction or future
destination.
 The objectives of the business refers to the ends or activity at which a certain task is aimed.

The business's policy is a guide that stipulates rules, regulations and objectives, and may be used in the
managers' decision-making. It must be flexible and easily interpreted and understood by all employees.

The business's strategy refers to the coordinated plan of action that it is going to take, as well as the resources
that it will use, to realize its vision and long-term objectives. It is a guideline to managers, stipulating how
they ought to allocate and utilize the factors of production to the business's advantage. Initially, it could help
the managers decide on what type of business they want to form.

How to implement policies and strategies

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 All policies and strategies must be discussed with all managerial personnel and staff.
 Managers must understand where and how they can implement their policies and strategies.
 A plan of action must be devised for each department.
 Policies and strategies must be reviewed regularly.
 Contingency plans must be devised in case the environment changes.
 Assessments of progress ought to be carried out regularly by top-level managers.
 A good environment and team spirit is required within the business.
 The missions, objectives, strengths and weaknesses of each department must be analysed to
determine their roles in achieving the business's mission.
 The forecasting method develops a reliable picture of the business's future environment.
 A planning unit must be created to ensure that all plans are consistent and that policies and strategies
are aimed at achieving the same mission and objectives.
 Contingency plans must be developed, just in case.

All policies must be discussed with all managerial personnel and staff that is required in the
execution of any departmental policy.

Organizational change is strategically achieved through the implementation of the eight-step plan of
action established by John P. Kotter: Increase urgency, get the vision right, communicate the buy-in,
empower action, create short-term wins, don't let up, and make change stick.

Where policies and strategies fit into the planning process

 They give mid- and lower-level managers a good idea of the future plans for each department in an
organization.
 A framework is created whereby plans and decisions are made.
 Mid- and lower-level management may add their own plans to the business's strategic ones.

Multi-Divisional management hierarchy

The management of a large organization may have three levels:

 Senior management (or "top management" or "upper management")

 Middle management
 Low-level management, such as supervisors or team-leaders
 Foreman
 Rank and File
Top-level management

 Require an extensive knowledge of management roles and skills.

 They have to be very aware of external factors such as markets.
 Their decisions are generally of a long-term nature
 Their decisions are made using analytic, directive, conceptual and/or behavioral/participative
processes
 They are responsible for strategic decisions.
 They have to chalk out the plan and see that plan may be effective in the future.
 They are executive in nature.
Middle management
 Mid-level managers have a specialized understanding of certain managerial tasks.
 They are responsible for carrying out the decisions made by top-level management.
Lower management
 This level of management ensures that the decisions and plans taken by the other two are carried out.
 Lower-level managers' decisions are generally short-term ones.

Foreman / lead hand

 They are people who have direct supervision over the working force in office factory, sales field or
other workgroup or areas of activity.
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Rank and File

 The responsibilities of the persons belonging to this group are even more restricted and more
specific than those of the foreman.

Organization development
Organization development (OD) is a planned, organization-wide effort to increase an organization's
effectiveness and viability. Warren Bennis, has referred to OD as a response to change, a complex
educational strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values, and structure of organization so that
they can better adapt to new technologies, marketing and challenges, and the dizzying rate of change itself.
OD is neither "anything done to better an organization" nor is it "the training function of the organization"; it
is a particular kind of change process designed to bring about a particular kind of end result. OD can involve
interventions in the organization's "processes," using behavioural science knowledge as well as
organizational reflection, system improvement, planning, and self-analysis.

Kurt Lewin (1898 - 1947) is widely recognized as the founding father of OD, although he died
before the concept became current in the mid-1950s. From Lewin came the ideas of group dynamics, and
action research which underpin the basic OD process as well as providing its collaborative consultant/client
ethos. Institutionally, Lewin founded the "Research Center for Group Dynamics" at MIT, which moved to
Michigan after his death. RCGD colleagues were among those who founded the National Training
Laboratories (NTL), from which the T-group and group-based OD emerged. In the UK, the Tavistock
Institute of Human Relations was important in developing systems theories. The joint TIHR journal Human
Relations was an early journal in the field. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences now a the leading
journal in the field.

The term "Organization Development" is often used interchangeably with Organizational

effectiveness, especially when used as the name of a department within an organization. Organization
development is a growing field that is responsive to many new approaches including Positive Adult
Development.

Overview

At the core of OD is the concept of organization, defined as two or more people working together
toward one or more shared goal(s). Development in this context is the notion that an organization may
become more effective over time at achieving its goals.

OD is a long range effort to improve organization's problem solving and renewal processes,
particularly through more effective and collaborative management of organizational culture, often with the
assistance of a change agent or catalyst and the use of the theory and technology of applied behavioral
science. Although behavioral science has provided the basic foundation for the study and practice of
organizational development, new and emerging fields of study have made their presence known. Experts in
systems thinking, leadership studies, organizational leadership, and organizational learning (to name a few)
whose perspective is not steeped in just the behavioral sciences, but a much more multi-disciplinary and
inter-disciplinary approach have emerged as OD catalysts. These emergent expert perspectives see the
organization as the holistic interplay of a number of systems that impact the process and outputs of the entire
organization. More importantly, the term change agent or catalyst is synonymous with the notion of a leader
who is engaged in doing leadership, a transformative or effectiveness process as opposed to management, a
more incremental or efficiency based change methodology.

Organization development is a "contractual relationship between a change agent and a sponsoring

organization entered into for the purpose of using applied behavioral science and or other organizational
change perspectives in a systems context to improve organizational performance and the capacity of the
organization to improve itself".

Organization development is an ongoing, systematic process to implement effective change in an

organization. Organization development is known as both a field of applied behavioral science focused on
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understanding and managing organizational change and as a field of scientific study and inquiry. It is
interdisciplinary in nature and draws on sociology, psychology, and theories of motivation, learning, and
personality.

Contractual relationship

Although neither the sponsoring organization nor the change agent can be sure at the outset of the
exact nature of the problem or problems to be dealt with or how long the change agents' help will be needed,
it is essential that some tentative agreement on these matters be reached. The sponsoring organization needs
to know generally what the change agent's preliminary plan is, what its own commitments are in relation to
personal commitments and responsibility for the program, and what the change agent's fee will be. The
change agent must assure himself that the organization's, and particularly the top executives', commitment to
change is strong enough to support the kind of self-analysis and personal involvement requisite to success of
the program. Recognizing the uncertainties lying ahead on both sides, a termination agreement permitting
either side to withdraw at any time is usually included.

Change agent

A change agent in the sense used here is not a technical expert skilled in such functional areas as
accounting, production, or finance. He is a behavioral scientist who knows how to get people in an
organization involved in solving their own problems. His main strength is a comprehensive knowledge of
human behavior, supported by a number of intervention techniques (to be discussed later). The change agent
can be either external or internal to the organization. An internal change agent is usually a staff person who
has expertise in the behavioral sciences and in the intervention technology of OD. Beckhard reports several
cases in which line people have been trained in OD and have returned to their organizations to engage in
successful change assignments. In the natural evolution of change mechanisms in organizations, this would
seem to approach the ideal arrangement. Qualified change agents can be found on some university faculties,
or they may be private consultants associated with such organizations as the National Training Laboratories
Institute for Applied Behavioral Science (Washington, D.C.) University Associates (San Diego, California),
the Human Systems Intervention graduate program in the Department of Applied Human Sciences
(Concordia University, Montreal, Canada), Navitus (Pvt) Ltd (Pakistan), and similar organizations.

The change agent may be a staff or line member of the organization who is schooled in OD theory
and technique. In such a case, the "contractual relationship" is an in-house agreement that should probably be
explicit with respect to all of the conditions involved except the fee.

Sponsoring organization

The initiative for OD programs comes from an organization that has a problem. This means that top
management or someone authorized by top management is aware that a problem exists and has decided to
seek help in solving it. There is a direct analogy here to the practice of psychotherapy: The client or patient
must actively seek help in finding a solution to his problems. This indicates a willingness on the part of the
client organization to accept help and assures the organization that management is actively concerned.

Applied behavioral science

One of the outstanding characteristics of OD that distinguishes it from most other improvement
programs is that it is based on a "helping relationship." Some believe that the change agent is not a physician
to the organization's ills; that s/he does not examine the "patient," make a diagnosis, and write a prescription.
Nor does s/he try to teach organizational members a new inventory of knowledge which they then transfer to
the job situation. Using theory and methods drawn from such behavioral sciences as
(industrial/organisational psychology, industrial sociology, communication, cultural anthropology,
administrative theory, organizational behavior, economics, and political science, the change agent's main
function is to help the organization define and solve its own problems. The basic method used is known as
action research. This approach, which is described in detail later, consists of a preliminary diagnosis,
collecting data, feedback of the data to the client, data exploration by the client group, action planning based
on the data, and taking action.

Systems context
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OD deals with a total system — the organization as a whole, including its relevant environment or
with a subsystem or systems — departments or work groups — in the context of the total system. Parts of
systems, for example, individuals, cliques, structures, norms, values, and products are not considered in
isolation; the principle of interdependency, that is, that change in one part of a system affects the other parts,
is fully recognized. Thus, OD interventions focus on the total culture and cultural processes of organizations.
The focus is also on groups, since the relevant behavior of individuals in organizations and groups is
generally a product of group influences rather than personality.

Improved organizational performance

The objective of OD is to improve the organization's capacity to handle its internal and external
functioning and relationships. This would include such things as improved interpersonal and group
processes, more effective communication, enhanced ability to cope with organizational problems of all
kinds, more effective decision processes, more appropriate leadership style, improved skill in dealing with
destructive conflict, and higher levels of trust and cooperation among organizational members. These
objectives stem from a value system based on an optimistic view of the nature of man — that man in a
supportive environment is capable of achieving higher levels of development and accomplishment. Essential
to organization development and effectiveness is the scientific method — inquiry, a rigorous search for
causes, experimental testing of hypotheses, and review of results.

Organizational self-renewal

The ultimate aim of OD practitioners is to "work themselves out of a job" by leaving the client
organization with a set of tools, behaviors, attitudes, and an action plan with which to monitor its own state
of health and to take corrective steps toward its own renewal and development. This is consistent with the
systems concept of feedback as a regulatory and corrective mechanism.

Early development

Kurt Lewin played a key role in the evolution of organization development as it is known today. As
early as World War II, Lewin experimented with a collaborative change process (involving himself as
consultant and a client group) based on a three-step process of planning, taking action, and measuring
results. This was the forerunner of action research, an important element of OD, which will be discussed
later. Lewin then participated in the beginnings of laboratory training, or T-groups, and, after his death in
1947, his close associates helped to develop survey-research methods at the University of Michigan. These
procedures became important parts of OD as developments in this field continued at the National Training
Laboratories and in growing numbers of universities and private consulting firms across the country.

The failure of off-site laboratory training to live up to its early promise was one of the important
forces stimulating the development of OD. Laboratory training is learning from a person's "here and now"
experience as a member of an ongoing training group. Such groups usually meet without a specific agenda.
Their purpose is for the members to learn about themselves from their spontaneous "here and now"
responses to an ambiguous hypothetical situation. Problems of leadership, structure, status, communication,
and self-serving behavior typically arise in such a group. The members have an opportunity to learn
something about themselves and to practice such skills as listening, observing others, and functioning as
effective group members.

As formerly practiced (and occasionally still practiced for special purposes), laboratory training was
conducted in "stranger groups," or groups composed of individuals from different organizations, situations,
and backgrounds.A major difficulty developed, however, in transferring knowledge gained from these
"stranger labs" to the actual situation "back home". This required a transfer between two different cultures,
the relatively safe and protected environment of the T-group (or training group) and the give-and-take of the
organizational environment with its traditional values. This led the early pioneers in this type of learning to
begin to apply it to "family groups" — that is, groups located within an organization. From this shift in the
locale of the training site and the realization that culture was an important factor in influencing group
members (along with some other developments in the behavioral sciences) emerged the concept of
organization development.

Case history
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The Cambridge Clinic[citation needed] found itself having difficulty with its internal working
relationships. The medical director, concerned with the effect these problems could have on patient care,
contacted an organizational consultant at a local university and asked him for help. A preliminary discussion
among the director, the clinic administrator, and the consultant seemed to point to problems in leadership,
conflict resolution, and decision processes. The consultant suggested that data be gathered so that a working
diagnosis could be made. The clinic officials agreed, and tentative working arrangements were concluded.

The consultant held a series of interviews involving all members of the clinic staff, the medical
director, and the administrator. Then the consultant "thematized", or summarized, the interview data to
identify specific problem areas. At the beginning of a workshop about a week later, the consultant fed back
to the clinic staff the data he had collected.

The staff arranged the problems in the following priorities:

Role conflicts between certain members of the medical staff were creating tensions that interfered
with the necessity for cooperation in handling patients.

The leadership style of the medical director resulted in his putting off decisions on important
operating matters. This led to confusion and sometimes to inaction on the part of the medical and
administrative staffs.

Communication between the administrative, medical, and outreach (social worker) staffs on mutual
problems tended to be avoided. Open conflicts over policies and procedures were thus held in check, but
suppressed feelings clearly had a negative influence on interpersonal and intergroup behavior.

Through the use of role analysis and other techniques suggested by the consultant, the clinic staff
and the medical director were able to explore the role conflict and leadership problems and to devise
effective ways of coping with them. Exercises designed to improve communication skills and a workshop
session on dealing with conflict led to progress in developing more openness and trust throughout the clinic.
An important result of this first workshop was the creation of an action plan that set forth specific steps to be
applied to clinic problems by clinic personnel during the ensuing period. The consultant agreed to monitor
these efforts and to assist in any way he could. Additional discussions and team development sessions were
held with the director and the medical and administrative staffs.

A second workshop attended by the entire clinic staff took place about two months after the first. At
the second workshop, the clinic staff continued to work together on the problems of dealing with conflict and
interpersonal communication. During the last half-day of the meeting, the staff developed a revised action
plan covering improvement activities to be undertaken in the following weeks and months to improve the
working relationships of the clinic.

A notable additional benefit of this OD program was that the clinic staff learned new ways of
monitoring the clinic's performance as an organization and of coping with some of its other problems. Six
months later, when the consultant did a follow-up check on the organization, the staff confirmed that
interpersonal problems were now under better control and that some of the techniques learned at the two
workshops associated with the OD programs were still being used.

Understanding organizations

Weisbord presents a six-step model for understanding organization:

 Purposes: The organization member are clear about the organization’s mission and purpose and
goal agreements, whether people support the organization’ purpose.

 Structure: How do we divide up the work? The question is whether there is an adequate fit between
the purpose and the internal structure.

 Relationship: Between individual, between units or department that perform different tasks, and
between the people and requirements of their job.
 Management & Organization development

 Rewards: The consultant should diagnose the similarities between what the organization formally
reward or punished for doing.

 Leadership: Is to watch for blips among the other boxes and maintain balance among them

 Helpful mechanism: Is a helpful organization that must attend to in order to survive which as
planning, control, budgeting, and other information systems that help organization member
accomplish.

Modern development

In recent years, serious questioning has emerged about the relevance of OD to managing change in
modern organizations. The need for "reinventing" the field has become a topic that even some of its
"founding fathers" are discussing critically.

With this call for reinvention and change, scholars have begun to examine organizational
development from an emotion-based standpoint. For example, deKlerk (2007) writes about how emotional
trauma can negatively affect performance. Due to downsizing, outsourcing, mergers, restructuring, continual
changes, invasions of privacy, harassment, and abuses of power, many employees experience the emotions
of aggression, anxiety, apprehension, cynicism, and fear, which can lead to performance decreases. deKlerk
(2007) suggests that in order to heal the trauma and increase performance, O.D. practitioners must
acknowledge the existence of the trauma, provide a safe place for employees to discuss their feelings,
symbolize the trauma and put it into perspective, and then allow for and deal with the emotional responses.
One method of achieving this is by having employees draw pictures of what they feel about the situation, and
then having them explain their drawings with each other. Drawing pictures is beneficial because it allows
employees to express emotions they normally would not be able to put into words. Also, drawings often
prompt active participation in the activity, as everyone is required to draw a picture and then discuss its
meaning.

Action research

Wendell L French and Cecil Bell define organization development (OD) at one point as
"organization improvement through action research". If one idea can be said to summarize OD's underlying
philosophy, it would be action research as it was conceptualized by Kurt Lewin and later elaborated and
expanded on by other behavioral scientists. Concerned with social change and, more particularly, with
effective, permanent social change, Lewin believed that the motivation to change was strongly related to
action: If people are active in decisions affecting them, they are more likely to adopt new ways. "Rational
social management", he said, "proceeds in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of
planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of action".

Lewin's description of the process of change involves three steps :

 "Unfreezing": Faced with a dilemma or disconfirmation, the individual or group becomes aware of a
need to change.

 "Changing": The situation is diagnosed and new models of behavior are explored and tested.

 "Refreezing": Application of new behavior is evaluated, and if reinforcing, adopted.