Organization Development
Meaning :-
Organizational development is a technique used for bringing change in the
entire aspect of the organization, rather than focusing attention on the
individuals. So that change is readily absorbed.
Organizational development is a critical and science-based process that
helps organizations build their capacity to change and achieve greater
effectiveness by developing, improving, and reinforcing strategies,
structures, and processes.
Definition of OD
According to French and Bell, "Organizational development is a long range
effort to improve an organization's problem-solving and renewal
processes, particularly, through a more effective and collaborative
management of organization culture with special emphasis on the culture
of formal work teams with the assistance of a change agent or catalyst and
the use of the theory and technology of applied behaviour science,
including action research".
According to Burke, "Organizational development is a planned process
of change in an organization's culture through the utilization of behavioural
science, technology, research and theory".
According to R. Beckhard, "Organizational development is an effort
(1) planned,
(2) organization wide,
(3) managed from the top,
(4) to increase organization effectiveness and health and
(5) through planned intervention in the organization's processes using
behavioral science knowledge" .
Characteristics of organizational
development
There are seven characteristics of organizational development:
1. Humanistic Values: Positive beliefs about the potential of employees
(McGregor's Theory Y).
2. Systems Orientation: All parts of the organization, to include structure,
technology and people, must work together.
3. Experiential Learning: The learners' experiences in the training
environment should be the kind of human problems they encounter at work.
The training should NOT be all theory and lecture.
4. Problem Solving: Problems are identified, data is gathered, corrective
action is taken, progress is assessed and adjustments in the problem
solving process are made as needed. This process is known as Action
Research.
5. Contingency Orientation: Actions are selected and adapted to fit the
need.
6. Change Agent: Stimulate, facilitate and coordinate change.
7. Levels of Interventions: Problems can occur at one or more level in the
organization so the strategy will require one or more interventions.
Objectives of organizational development
There are five objectives of organizational development:
1. Improve organizational performance as measured by profitability, market share,
innovativeness, etc.
2. Make organizational better adaptive to its environment which always keeps on
changing.
3. Make the members willing face organizational problems and contribute creative
solutions to the organizational problems.
4. Improve internal behaviour patterns such as interpersonal relations, intergroup
relations, level of trust and support among the role players.
5. Understand own self and others, openness and meaningful communication and
involvement in planning for organizational development.
Process of organizational
development
This process will begin when a problem is identified. This system
can be used to make improvements on just about any situation or
problem that a business faces. It is a broad set of steps that are
easily understood, and provide companies with the ability to quickly
make changes in an attempt to solve issues. Once the changes are
made, they can be evaluated to see if the problem was resolved,
and if not, it will continue through the development process.
This process runs through the following steps:
1. Initial Diagnosis of the Problem:
In the first step, the management should try to find out an overall view of
the situation to find the real problem. Top management should meet the
consultants and the experts to determine the type of programmer that is
needed. In the first stage only, the consultants will meet various persons
in the organisation and interview them to collect some information.
2. Data Collection:
In this stage, the consultant will make the surveys to determine the
climate of the organisation and the behavioural problems of the
employees.
The consultant will meet groups of people away from their work
environment to get some answers to the questions such as:
(i) What specific job conditions contribute most to their job effectiveness?
(ii) What kind of conditions interferes with their job effectiveness?
(iii) What changes would they like to make in the working of the
organization?
3. Data Feedback and Confrontation:
The data which has been collected in the second step will be given to the
work groups, who will be assigned the job of reviewing the data. Any
areas of disagreement will be mediated among themselves only and
priorities will be established for change.
4. Planning Strategy for Change:
In this stage, the consultant will suggest the strategy for change. He will
attempt to transform diagnosis of the problem into a proper action plan
involving the overall goals for change, determination of basic approach
for attaining these goals and the sequence of detailed scheme for
implementing the approach.
5. Intervening in the System:
Intervening in the system refers to the planned programmed activities
during the course of an OD programme. These planned activities bring
certain changes in the system, which is the basic objective of OD. There
may be various methods through which external consultant intervene in
the system such as education and laboratory training, process
consultation, team development etc.
6. Team Building:
During the entire process, the consultant encourages the groups to
examine how they work together. The consultant will educate them about
the value of free communication and trust as essentials for group
functioning. The consultant can have team managers and their
subordinates to work together as a team in OD sessions to further
encourage team building. Following the development of small groups,
there may be development among larger groups comprising several
teams.
7. Evaluation:
OD is a very long process. So there is a great need for careful monitoring
to get precise feedback regarding what is going on after the OD
programmer starts. This will help in making suitable modifications
whenever necessary. For evaluation of OD programmer, the use of
critique sessions, appraisal of change efforts and comparison of pre and
post training behavioural patterns are quite effective.
The steps in OD are part of a whole process, so all of them need to be
applied if a firm expects to get the full benefits of OD. An organisation
which applies only a few steps and leaves the others will be disappointed
with the results.
Organization Development
Interventions
OD interventions are the building blocks which are the planned
activities designed to improve the organisation’s functioning through
the participation of the organisational members.
OD interventions include team development, laboratory training,
managerial grid training, brainstorming and intergroup team building.
The intervention should take place at all three levels, namely,
individual, group and organisation.
OD Interventions Meaning
OD intervention refers to the range of planned, programmatic
activities client and consultant participate in during the course of
OD program.
OD intervention is a sequence of activities actions and events
intended to help an organisation improve its performance and
effectiveness.
Organizational Development: Steps in OD
Interventions
The following eight steps in any OD intervention program are in
accordance with those in action research.
1. Entry: The requirement for change within a company becomes
apparent. An issue is identified. Somebody, or a group of individuals
within the organisation, search for a person who is skilled enough to
examine the problem or facilitate change.
2. Start-up: The change agent gets into the scene. He works to
describe issues surrounding the problem and tried to secure
commitment to a change attempt.
3. Assessment and Feedback: The change agent collects details
about the situation and provides decision makers as well as those
having a stake in the change process feedback with regards to
the information.
4. Action Planning: The change agent works jointly with management
and other stake holders to formulate a corrective-action plan.
5. Intervention: The change agent helps in implementing the action
plan and the change process is carried out.
6. Evaluation: The change agent assists the management and other
stakeholders to evaluate the change effort’s progress.
7. Adoption: Members of the company acknowledge ownership of the
change, and the change is implemented throughout the
organisation.
8. Separation: The change agent prepares to leave the organization.
As part of the process, the change agent works to disengage while
making certain that development will proceed after his or her
departure. This step is achievable due to the fact that the knowledge
and skills of the change agent have been transferred to the
organisation.
Models of Organisation
Development
Among the models of OD developed by the behavioural scientists, the
following three models are very popularly discussed in organizational
behavior.
They are:
1. Kurt Lewin’s Unfreezing, Changing and Refreezing Model,
2. Greiner’s Equential Models, and
3. Leavitt’s System Model
These are discussed in seriatim.
Lewin’s Model:
Lewin’s model is based on premises that before actually introducing a
change organisation needs to be prepared for change, motivated to
change and established and integrated the change into behaviour of
organisation Accordingly, Lewin has nomenclature these steps as
unfreezing, changing and refreezing. A brief description of these follows.
Unfreezing:
No change occurs in a vacuum of no prior perspective. To the extent the
new perspective differs from the old one, the old one then implies
doubting of its own existence. This necessitates unlearning of old things
in order to learn new things. The same is called unfreezing. Unfreezing
involves encouraging individuals to discard old behaviour by shaking up
the equilibrium that maintains status quo. Thus, unfreezing implies
creating the need for change, motivating people for change and
minimizing resistance to change.
Changing:
Having unlearned his past experience, the individual is ready for new
behaviour and a change in perspective. Efforts are made to substitute
new attitudes, values and behaviour for old ones. This implies transition
from old behaviour to experimentation with new behaviour.
Refreezing:
In this final step, new attitudes, values, and behaviors are established as
the new status quo. For this, the new ways of operating are cemented in
and reinforced. This implies stabilizing and integrating the change by
reinforcing the new behaviour and integrating them into formal and
interpersonal relationships and in one’s personality.
Larry Grainer’s Model:
According to Griener, change occurs in terms of certain sequential stages.
The external stimulus pressurises the management of organisation to
initiate change process. The management in response to stimulus is
motivated to take actions to introduce change in organisation. Following
the actions, the various change stages occur in a sequential manner such
as diagnosis of the problem, invention of a new solution,
experimentation with new solution and reinforcement from positive
results.
Leavitt’s Model:
Leavitt’s OD Model is founded on the interactive nature of the various
subsystems in a change process. In an organisational system, there are
four interacting sub-systems- tasks, structure, people and technology.
Due to their interacting nature, change in any one of the sub-systems
tends to have consequences for the other sub-systems also.
Change in any one of the sub-systems can be worked out depending
upon the situation. How the various sub-systems, according to Leavitt,
interact with each other in a change processes depicted in the following.
Principal of organizational
development
1. Organizational Development Is Evolving
Organizational Development (OD) is still quite new and is therefore
a practice that is still evolving. The definition, as such, isn’t fully set
yet and new principles are added or amended regularly. However, it is
about an approach that is fully based on values and that celebrates the
dynamic nature of any organization. It attempts to ensure that
organizations are able to reach and sustain the state that it wants to
achieve, thereby benefiting its employees and its customers and
networks.
2. Setting Goals
In order for organizational development to be able to make a
difference, they have to first set goals.
“Increased productivity and performance, better profitability and
improved employee morale are among the common goals
companies have when hiring OD professionals.”
Goals need to be dynamic and achievable. This is why a three-year
strategy is usually developed, together with a rolling action plan. As
actions are completed, new actions emerge that help the company as a
whole to move forward towards bigger and better goals. This strongly
involves increasing employee engagement and job satisfaction, as the
workforce is the key towards achieving any goals.
3. Organizational Development Is Based on Values
The key to organizational development, once the strategy and
goals have been set, is to focus on values.
“The practice of OD is grounded in a distinctive set of core
values and principles that guide behavior and actions.”
These values include inclusion and respect, authenticity,
collaboration, empowerment and self-awareness. These are all
soft skills, which means that it is about more than simply
sending each employee on a training course to increase their
skills. It is about creating a culture that is adopted throughout
the organization and that is supportive of development and
inclusion.
4. Organizational Development Is About Change
People, unfortunately, are resistant to change. They are
comfortable in, or at least accepting of, their current situation
and are afraid that change will be for the worse. Organizational
development aims to break through this barrier. This means
that they have to focus on company-wide interventions, which is
a massive change in its own right.
“In general, organizations that wish to achieve a high degree of
organizational change will employ a full range of interventions,
including those designed to transform individual and group
behavior and attitudes. Entities attempting smaller changes
will stop short of those goals, applying interventions targeted
primarily toward operating policies, management structures,
worker skills, and personnel policies.”
Because these changes are so wide and affects every echelon of
the organization, it is very important that it is properly prepared
and researched first. This is precisely why a good company has
their own organizational development department, or even
brings in a consultant to do the work. If that isn’t done, and the
job is given as a secondary role to someone else, it becomes
increasingly difficult to implement change, as the people
themselves will be resistant to the change they want to
implement themselves. Those who work in organizational
development have to empower management to achieve
strategic realization. The key to that, in turn, is developing
motivational leadership.
“Concentrating on achieving sustained performance through
personal growth, value-based relationships and planning that
recognizes human dynamics.”
