Table Of ContentOrganization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Lesson 01
The Challenge for Organizations
We live in a world that has been turned upside down. Companies are pouring money, technology,
and management expertise into regions that were once off limits, acquiring new enterprises,
forming joint ventures, creating new global businesses from the ground up. Many major
companies are going through significant changes, including outsourcing, downsizing,
reengineering, self-managed work teams, flattening organizations, and doing routine jobs with
automation and computers. Some experts contend that if you can describe a job precisely or write
rules for doing it, the job will probably not survive.
Change is avalanching down upon our heads and most people are utterly unprepared to cope with
it. Tomorrow’s world will be different from todays, calling for new organizational approaches.
Organizations will need to be adapting to these changes market conditions and at the same time
coping with the need for a renewing rather than reactive workforce. Every day managers are
confronting massive and accelerating change. As one writer comments, “Call it whatever you like
– reengineering, restructuring, transformation, flattening, downsizing, rightsizing, a quest for
global competitiveness – it’s real, it’s radical and it’s arriving every day at a company near you.”
Global competition and economic downturns have exposed a glaring weakness in American
organizations: the fact that many organizations have become overstaffed, cumbersome, slow and
inefficient. To increase productivity, enhance competitiveness and contain costs, organizations
are changing the way they are organized and managed.
The successful twenty-first century manager must deal with a chaotic world of new competitors
and constant innovation. In the future the only winning companies will be the ones that respond
quickly to change. Preparing managers to cope with today’s accelerating role of change is the
central theme/purpose of my lectures (concern of this book). Modern manager must not only be
flexible and adaptive in a changing environment but must also be able to diagnose problems and
implement change programs.
Tom Peters suggests that “the time for 10 percent staff cuts and 20 percent quality
improvement is past”.
Organizations are never completely static. They are in continuous interaction with external forces
(see figure below). Changing consumer lifestyles and technological breakthroughs all act on the
organization to cause it to change. The degree of change may vary from one organization to
another, but all face the need for adaptation to external forces. Many of these changes are forced
upon the organization, whereas others are generated internally. Because change is occurring so
rapidly, there is a need for new ways to manage it.
The Organizational Environment:
The Growth and
Relevance of OD:
Organizations must
adapt to
increasingly
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
complex and uncertain technological, economic, political, and cultural changes. The rapidly
changing conditions of the past few years have shown that the organizations are in the midst of
unprecedented uncertainty and chaos, and nothing short of a management revolution will save
them. Three major trends are shaping change in organizations: globalization, information
technology, and managerial innovation.
First: globalization is changing the markets and environments in which organizations operate as
the way they function. New governments, new leadership, new markets, and new countries are
emerging and creating a new global economy. The toppling of the Berlin Wall symbolized and
energized the reunification of Germany: entrepreneurs appeared in Russia, the Balkans, and
Siberia as the former Soviet Union evolves, in fits and starts, into separate, market-oriented
states; and China emerged as an open market and as the governance mechanism over Hong Kong
to represent a powerful shift in global economic influence.
Second: information technology is redefining the traditional business model by changing how
work is performed, how knowledge is used, and how the cost of doing business is calculated. The
way an organization collects, stores, manipulates, uses, and transmits information can lower costs
or increase the value and quality of products and services. Information technology, for example,
is at the heart of emerging e-commerce strategies and organizations. Amazon.com, E-Trade, are
among many recent entrants to the information economy, and the amount of business being
conducted on the Internet is projected to grow at double-digit rates for well over ten years.
Moreover, the underlying rate of innovation is not expected to decline. Electronic data
interchange, a state-of-the-art technology application a few years ago, is now considered routine
business practice. The ability to move information easily and inexpensively throughout and
among organizations has fueled the downsizing, delayering, and restructuring of firms. The
Internet and the World Wide Web have enabled a new form of work known as telecommuting;
organization members can work from their homes or cars without ever going to the office.
Finally, information technology is changing how knowledge is used. Information that is widely
shared reduces the concentration of power at the top of the organization. Organization members
now share the same key information that senior managers once used to control decision making.
Ultimately, information technology will generate new business models in which communication
and information sharing is nearly free.
Third: managerial innovation has responded to the globalization and information technology
trends and has accelerated their impact on organizations. New organizational forms, such as
networks, strategic alliances, and virtual corporations, provide organizations with new ways of
thinking about how to manufacture goods and deliver services. The strategic alliance, for
example, has emerged as one of the indispensable tools in strategy implementation. No single
organization, not even IBM, Mitsubishi, or General Electric, can control the environmental and
market uncertainty it faces. Sun Microsystems’ network is so complex that some products it sells
are never touched by a Sun employee. In addition, new methods of change, such as downsizing
and reengineering, have radically reduced the size of organizations and increased their flexibility,
and new large-group interventions, such as the search conference and open space, have increased
the speed with which organizational change can take place. Managers, OD practitioners, and
researchers argue that these forces not only are powerful in their own right but are interrelated.
Their interaction makes for a highly uncertain and chaotic environment for all kinds of
organizations, including manufacturing and service firms and those in the public and private
sector. There is no question that these forces are profoundly affecting organizations.
Fortunately, a growing number of organizations are undertaking the kinds of organizational
changes needed to survive and prosper in today’s environment. They are making themselves more
streamlined and nimble and more responsive to external demands. They are involving employees
in key decisions and paying for performance rather than for time. They are taking the initiative in
innovating and managing change, rather than simply responding to what has already happened.
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development is playing an increasingly key role in helping organizations change
themselves. It is helping organizations assess themselves and their environments, and revitalize
and rebuild their strategies, structures, and processes. OD is helping organization members go
beyond surface changes to transform the underlying assumptions and values governing their
behaviors. The different OD concepts and methods increasingly are finding their way into
government agencies, manufacturing firms, multinational corporations, service industries,
educational institutions, and not-for-profit organizations. Perhaps at no other time has OD been
more responsive and practically relevant to organizations’ needs to operate effectively in a highly
complex and changing world.
What is Organization Development (OD)?
What makes one organization a winner, whereas another fails to make use of the same
opportunities? The key to survival and success lies not in the rational, quantitative approaches,
but rather in a commitment to irrational, difficult-to-measure things like people, quality, customer
service, and more importantly, develop the flexibility to meet changing conditions. For example,
in a study that examined the “high tech-high touch” phenomenon at Citicorp, the crucial
component in adapting to technological change was the human factor. Employee involvement and
commitment is the true key to successful change.
Defining Organization Development (OD):
The words organization development refers to something about organizations and developing
them. “An organization is the planned coordination of the activities of a number of people for the
achievement of some common explicit purpose or goal, through division of labor and functions,
and through a hierarchy of authority and responsibility.” Organizations are social systems
possessing characteristics and OD efforts are directed toward organizations or major subparts of
them.
Development is the act, process, result, or state of being developed – which in turn means to
advance, to promote the growth of, to evolve the possibilities of, to further, to improve, or to
enhance something.
Two elements of this definition seem important: first, development may be an act, process, or end
state; second, development refers to “bettering’ something.
Combining these words suggests that organization development is the act, process, or result of
furthering, advancing, or promoting the growth of organization. According to this definition,
organization development is anything done to “better” an organization. But this definition is too
broad and all-inclusive. It can refer to almost anything done in an organizational context that
enhances the organization – hiring a person with needed skills, firing an incompetent, merging
with another organization, installing a computer, removing a computer, buying a new plant, and
so on. This definition serves neither to identify and specify nor to delimit (perhaps something
done to “worsen” an organization would be ruled out). The term organization development must
be given added meaning, must refer to something more specific, if productive discourse on the
subject is desired.
Another way of defining OD is to examine the following definitions which have been (suggested
in the literature).
Definition of Organization Development (OD):
OD is an effort (1) planned, (2) organization-wide, and (3) managed from the top, to (4) increase
organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in the organization’s
“processes,” using behavioral science knowledge. (Richard Beckhard)
Analysis of the definition suggests that OD is not just “anything done to better an organization”;
it is a particular kind of change process designed to bring about a particular kind of end result.
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
OD thus represents a unique strategy for system change, a strategy largely based in the theory and
research of the behavioral sciences, and a strategy having a substantial prescriptive character. OD
is thus a normative discipline, it prescribes how planned change in organizations should be
approached and carried out if organization improvement is to be obtained.
In summary, OD is a process of planned system change that attempts to make organizations
(viewed as social-technical systems) better able to attain their short- and long-term objectives.
This is achieved by teaching the organization members to manage their organization processes
and culture more effectively. Facts, concepts, and theory from the behavioral sciences are utilized
to fashion both the process and the content of the interventions. A basic belief of OD theorists and
practitioners is that for effective, lasting change to take place, the system members must grow in
the competence to master their own fates.
Finally, it is important to note that OD has two broad goals: organization development and
individual development. Although it is not stated explicitly in the above definitions, improving
the quality of life for individuals in organizations is a primary goal of organization development.
Enhancing individual development is a key value of OD practitioners and a key outcome of most
OD programs.
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Lesson 02
OD: A Unique Change Strategy
Consulting to organizations can take many forms. For example, Edgar Schein describes three
consulting models:
i. Purchase of Expertise Model
ii. Doctor-patient Model
iii. Process Consultation Model
In the “purchase of expertise model,” a leader or group identifies a need for information or
expertise that the organization cannot supply. The leader hires a consultant to obtain the
information and make a report, often including recommendations for action. Example would be
(1) surveying consumers or employees about some matter, (2) finding out how best to organize
the company after a merger, or (3) developing a marketing strategy for a new product. This is a
typical consulting approach that is widely used.
In the “doctor-patient model,” a leader or group detects symptoms of ill health in some part of
the organization, and calls in a consultant who diagnoses the situation, identifies the causes of
problems and then, like a physician, prescribes a cure. Examples would be calling in “the doctor”
to examine (1) low morale at a particular plant, (2) being over budget and behind schedule on a
major project, or (3) a high-performing manager who suddenly becomes a low-performer. This
too is a well-known, traditional approach to consultation.
In the “process consultation model,” the consultant works with the leader and group to diagnose
strengths and weaknesses, identify problems and opportunities, and develop action plans and
methods for reaching desired goals. In this model the consultant assists the client organization in
becoming more effective at examining and improving its own processes of problem solving,
decision-making and action taking. This third model, typical in OD, encourages greater
collaboration between clients and consultants, engages the resources and talents of the clients,
and strengthens clients’ abilities to improve their work processes. Examples would include
working on any of the previously mentioned problems, but using a collaborative, participative,
you-can-figure-out-the-right-answer-yourselves approach. An organization development
consultant typically suggests general processes and procedures for addressing problems and
issues. The consultant helps the clients generate valid data and learn from the data. The OD
consultant is an expert on process-how to “go about” effective problem solving and decision
making.
Thus, OD differs substantially from traditional “expert” models of consulting in its overall
approach. Likewise, OD practitioners have different goals and focus on different targets
compared with other consulting models. Here is a list of “primary distinguishing characteristics of
organization development”
1. Change: OD is a planned strategy to bring about organizational change. The change effort
focuses on the human and social side of the organization and in so doing, also intervenes in the
technological and structural sides.
2. Collaborate: OD typically involves a collaborative approach to change that includes the
involvement and participation of the organization members most affected by the changes.
Participation and involvement in problem solving and decision making by all levels of the
organization are hallmarks of OD.
3. Performance: OD programs include an emphasis on ways to improve and enhance
performance and quality.
4. Humanistic: OD relies on a set of humanistic values about people and organizations that aims
at making organizations more effective by opening up new opportunities for increased use of
human potential.
5. Systems: OD represents a systems approach concerned with the interrelationship of divisions,
departments, groups, and individuals as interdependent subsystems of the total organization.
6. Scientific: OD is based upon scientific approaches to increase organization effectiveness.
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
While the six characteristics, described above, describe organization development, let us add
another means of identifying OD.
An OD Program is a long-range, planned, and sustained effort that unfolds according to a
strategy.
The key elements here are long range, planned and sustained, and strategy.
Let’s look at each one independently:
Long-range: The reason for OD practitioners and theorists conceptualizing OD programs in
long-range terms are several. First, changing a system’s culture and processes is a difficult,
complicated, and long-term matter if lasting change is to be effected. OD programs envision that
the system members become better able to manage their culture and processes in problem-solving
and self-renewing ways. Such complex new learning takes time. Second, the assumption is made
that organizational problems are multifaceted and complex. One-shot interventions probably
cannot solve such problems, and they most assuredly cannot teach the client system to solve them
in such a short time period.
There is a long-range time perspective on the part of both the client system and the consultant in
OD program. Both parties envision an ongoing relationship of one, two, or more years together if
things go well in the program. A one-short intervention into the system is thus not organization
development according to this criterion even though the intervention may be one that is used in
OD efforts.
Planned and Sustained effort: OD involves deliberately planned change, as contrasted with
system “drifts.” Unlike an innovative project or program it is generally not limited to a specific
period of time. To implement OD, an organizational subsystem – such as a Department of OD –
is created and charged with the specific responsibility for planning, managing, and evaluating the
continuous process of organizational self-renewal. Members of such a subsystem act as inside
change agents or OD development specialists … and usually link with outside consultants to
carry out their mission. The essential concept is that some fraction of an organization’s resources
is devoted to continuous organizational maintenance, rebuilding, and expansion. Such a concept
is familiar to managers in the field of plant maintenance but is much less widely known and
accepted in the maintenance of the human organization.
Organizations are not easily or quickly transformed. The available evidence suggests that in large
organizations two to three years of OD effort is typical before the completion of serious and self-
sustaining change. In addition, it must be borne in mind that an organization is never transformed
permanently. Instead, institutionalized, built-in OD functions must continually be involved in
facing the dilemmas and vicissitudes of organizational renewal.
There is, however, a point that is a source of some confusion. When some good management
practices are taking place in an organization without an OD program – for example, a manager
has worked out effective ways to manage team and inter-group culture and processes – is that
organization development? We do not think so. OD practitioners try to inculcate good
management practices in organizations, that is, they try to help organization members learn to
manage themselves and others better. But many managers and many organizations are
competently managing their affairs without help from organization development consultants and
OD programs; what they are doing would not be called OD even though they may be using some
techniques found in the OD technology. OD practitioners did not invent good management
practices; OD practitioners are not the sole source for learning good management practices; and
finally, the term organization development is not synonymous with the term good management.
Strategy: OD programs unfold according to a strategy. A part of the planned nature of OD
programs almost always involves an overall strategy even though the strategy may be only dimly
obvious and articulate, and even though the strategy may emerge and change shape over time.
(From our experience, the more viable OD efforts have a fairly clear and openly articulated
strategy.) Consultants and clients develop overall goals and paths to goals on organization
development programs, and these guide the programmatic activities. It is preferable and usual for
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
the strategy to be developed out of the diagnosed problems of the client system, the client
system’s desires and capabilities, and the consultant’s capabilities and insights into client system
needs.
The OD consultant establishes a unique relationship with client system members:
Probably the most fundamental differences between organization development programs and
other organization development programs are found in the role and behavior of the consultant vis-
à-vis the client system. In OD the consultant seeks and maintains a collaborative relationship of
relative equality with the organization members. Collaboration means “to labor together” –
essentially it implies that the consultant does not do all the work while the client system passively
waits for solutions to its problems; and it means that the client system does not do all the work
while the consultant is a disinterested observer. In organization development, consultant and
client co-labor.
A second distinguishing feature of the consultant-client relationship is that it is one of relative
equality – the two parties come together as relative equals, each possessing knowledge and skills
different from but needed by the other. The client group is encouraged to critique the consultant’s
program and his or her effectiveness in terms of meeting client system needs and wants. In OD
the consultant’s role is generally that of a facilitator, not an expert on matters of content; the
consultant acts primarily as a question-asker, and secondarily as an answer-giver.
The consultant’s role is often described as nondirective and that is partially true, but the rationale
behind this nondirective posture is less well understood. The OD consultant role rests on three
beliefs. The first belief is simply an affirmation of the efficacy of division of labor and
responsibility: let the consultant be responsible for doing what he or she does best (structuring
activities designed to solve certain problems); and let the client system do what it does best (bring
to bear its special knowledge and expertise on the problem and alternative solutions). The second
belief is derived from the question: Where is the best solution to this problem likely to be found?
In situations where the consultant is an expert role, the answer to the question is that the best
solution is in the consultant’s head due to that person’s education, experience, and expertise. Both
clients and consultant believe this. In organization development situations where the consultant is
playing an enabling and facilitating role, the answer is that the best solution is in the heads of the
client members and the challenge is to structure situations to allow it to become known. The third
belief is that the responsibility for changing something rests ultimately in the client system
members, not in the consultant. Therefore the members of the client system must “own” the
problem and the solution, and that is best done when they generate both the problems and the
solutions. This belief no doubt rests on Lewin’s conceptualization of “own” and “induced” forces.
Lewin believed, and demonstrated, that an individual’s own forces toward a particular behavior
were more powerful in determining the behavior than forces/motives/pushes induced by some
outside agent.
The consultant is both expert and directive on matters relating to the best ways to facilitate/enable
the client group to approach, diagnose, and solve its problems. In organization development, it is
this expertise that the clients expect from the consultant - the expertise to offer the clients
effective ways to work on problems, not answers to problems.
The nature of the intervention differentiates OD from other improvement strategies:
OD consultants fashion, conduct, or cause to happen, interventions – structured sets of activities
and events in the life of the organization designed to achieve certain outcomes. As indicated in
Fig (definitions of OD), the nature of these interventions is that they are reflective, self-analytical,
self-examining, proactive, diagnostically oriented, and action oriented. Further, they focus on the
organization culture and its human processes. OD consultants try to inculcate diagnostic skills,
self-analytical skills, and reflexive skills in organization members, based on the belief that the
organization’s members must be able to diagnose situations accurately in order to arrive at
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
successful solutions. But there are several additional beliefs in this statement. Diagnosis and self-
reflection are necessary skills to have for problem solution – that is a belief of OD consultants.
But who should possess those skills? “The client system members,” answer OD consultants;
“me,” answer expert consultants. This is a key difference in the OD prescription. Another belief
involved here is the belief that both the problems and the solutions to the problems abound in the
client system members. Teaching the client system to diagnose and solve problems and take
corrective actions is the goal of the OD consultant. The overriding goal is that the client system
members learn to do it themselves. This tenet derives from nondirective therapy notions
suggesting that responsibility for improvement and change rests in the individual (organization)
that needs to change, not some outside agent. This is supported by most discussions of normalcy
and maturity in psychotherapy that include the patient’s ability to solve problems, adapt
effectively, and cope effectively as criteria for a healthy organism. Many authors, including
Gordon Lippitt, speak of the organization “learning from experience,” and the OD literature
suggests that “learning how to learn” is a desired outcome of OD interventions. This is what is
being discussed: that the client system becomes expert in self-examination, diagnosis, and
corrective action taking.
Planning, problem solving, and self-renewal are also mentioned as important processes for the
client system to be reflexive about. The same overriding goal applies here: the client system
members must learn to manage these processes effectively by themselves. There is thus a unique
character to the nature of OD interventions: the intent that the client system becomes proficient in
solving its own problems – present and future – by itself. The ancient Chinese proverb seems to
describe the underlying rationale: ‘Give a man a fish, and you have given him a meal; teach a
man to fish, and you have given him a livelihood.”
System improvement: The emphasis of OD is on the system, rather than the individual, as the
target of change. In this respect the approach differs from “sensitivity training” and “management
development.” “System” may mean either an entire organization or a subsystem such as an
academic department or team of teachers. The emphasis however is always on improving both the
ability of a system to cope and the relationships of the system with subsystems and with the
environment. Individuals, of course, often gain insights and new attitudes during such
improvement processes, but the primary concern of OD is with such matters as adequate
organizational communication, the integration of individual and organizational goals, the
development of a climate of trust in decision making, and the effect of the reward system on
morale.
Reflexive, self-analytic methods: OD involves system members themselves in the assessment,
diagnosis, and transformation of their own organization. Rather than simply accepting diagnosis
and prescription from an outside “technocratic” expert, organization members themselves, with
the aid of outside consultants, examine current difficulties and their causes and participate
actively in the reformulation of goals, the development of new group process skills, the redesign
of structures and procedures for achieving the goals, the alteration of the working climate of the
system, and the assessment of results.
The targets of OD interventions differentiate OD from other improvement strategies:
The OD prescription calls for certain configurations of people as targets of OD interventions –
intact work groups, two or more work-related groups, subsystems of organizations, and total
organizations. Katz and Kahn speak of “role sets,” the offices (positions) and people an individual
interacts with while performing role-relevant behavior in an organization. They state:
Each member of an organization is directly associated with a relatively small number of others,
usually the occupants of offices adjacent to his in the work-flow structure or in the hierarchy of
authority. They constitute his role set and typically include his immediate supervisor (and perhaps
his supervisor’s immediate supervisor), his subordinates, and certain members of his own or other
virtue of the work-flow, technology, and authority structure of the organization.
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Many of an individual’s values, norms, and perceptions of organizational reality are derived from
contact with role-set members. Role enactment problems derive from interaction with role-set
members. A person’s immediate work group, immediate supervisor, and immediate subordinates
are immensely important factors for an individual’s effectiveness in an organization. OD
interventions concentrate on work-relevant constellations of people in the belief that these groups
have inherent in them considerable power to determine individual and group behavior and also
contain many of the sources of organizational problems.
What goes on between units is also of vital importance in organizational effectiveness. OD goes
beyond intact work teams and also focuses on enhancing key interdependences across units and
levels. For example, data are typically collected about the degree of cooperation versus
dysfunctional competition between the various units, and identified problems are then worked on
with members of the relevant groups present. Thus, intergroup configurations are a second major
target of OD interventions.
A third target of OD interventions is the organization’s processes and culture. In a sense, OD is
comprehensive long-term effort to collaboratively manage the culture of an organization (since
processes can be considered part of organization culture). As shown in Figure 1, some of the
authors mention culture and some of the authors mention human and social processes as the
targets of OD interventions. Problem-solving, planning, self-renewal, decision-making, and
communications processes are identified as important processes. This focus on culture and
processes is simply a part of the bet/hypothesis/belief system that OD consultants have: culture
and processes are important strategic leverage points in an organization for bringing about
organization improvement and change. Other consultants and practitioners make different bets on
the best strategic leverage points – the technology of the organization, the structure of the
organization, its design, and so forth. OD consultants, because they are working with a behavioral
science knowledge base, focus on culture and processes. And the OD prescription suggests that
these two targets are important ingredients in the process of planned organizational change.
OD consultants utilize a behavioral science base:
This is a characteristic of the practice of OD, but it is shared by many different improvement
strategies. The behavioral science knowledge base of the practice of OD contributes to its
distinctive gestalt. OD is an applied field in which theories, concepts, and practices from
sociology, psychology, social psychology, education, economics, psychiatry, and management
are brought to bear on real organizational problems.
The desired outcomes of OD are distinctive in nature:
The desired outcomes of OD efforts are both similar to other improvement strategies, and
different from other improvement strategies. OD programs and efforts are designed to produce
organizational effectiveness and health, better system functioning, greater ability to achieve
objectives, and so forth, as shown in some of the definitions in Figure 1. But some of the
definitions point additional desired outcomes: outcomes relating to a changed organizational
culture, to changed processes (especially renewal and adaptation processes) and to the
establishing of norms of continual self-study and pro-action.
Michael Beer lists the aims of OD as: “(1) enhancing congruence between organizational
structure, processes, strategy, people, and culture; (2) developing new and creative organizational
solutions, and (3) developing the organization’s self-renewing capacity.’ It is these self-renewal
outcomes that seem particularly distinctive in the OD process.
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
Lesson 03
What an “ideal” effective, healthy organization would look like?
Numbers of writers and practitioners in the field have proposed definitions which, although they
differ in detail, indicate a strong consensus of what a healthy operating organization is.
An effective organization is one in which:
1. The total organization, the significant subparts, and individuals, manage their work
against goals and plans for achievement of these goals.
2. Form follows function (the problems, or task, or project, determines how the human
resources are organized).
3. Decisions are made by and near the sources of information regardless of where these
sources are located on the organization chart.
4. The reward system is such that managers and supervisors are rewarded (and punished)
comparably for:
Sort-term profit or production performance, Growth and development of their
subordinates, and creating a viable working group.
5. Communication laterally and vertically is relatively undistorted. People are generally
open and confronting. They share all the relevant facts including feelings.
6. There is a minimum amount of inappropriate win/lose activities between individuals and
groups. Constant effort exists at all levels to treat conflict, and conflict situations, as
problems subject to problem-solving methods.
7. There is high “conflict” (clash of ideas) about tasks and projects, and relatively little
energy spent in clashing over interpersonal difficulties because they have been generally
worked through.
8. The organization and its parts see themselves as interacting with each other and with a
larger environment. The organization is an “open system.”
9. There is a shared value, and management strategy to support it, of trying to help each
person (or unit) in the organization maintains his (or its) integrity and uniqueness in an
interdependent environment.
10. The organization and its members operate in an “action-research” way. General practice
is to build in feedback mechanisms so that individuals and groups can learn from their
own experience.
The only constant is Change:
Although many organizations have been able to keep pace with the changes in information
technology, few firms have been able to adapt to changing social and cultural conditions. In a
dynamic environment, change is unavoidable. The pace of change has become so rapid that it is
difficult to adjust to or compensate for one change before another is necessary. Change is, in
essence, a moving target. The technological, social, and economic environment is rapidly
changing, and an organization will be able to survive only if it can effectively respond to these
changing demands. As we move into the twenty first century, increases in productivity of 100
percent, not 10 percent, will be required for corporations to compete effectively.
Given this increasingly complex environment, it becomes even more critical for management to
identify and respond to forces of social and technical change. In attempting to manage today’s
organizations, many executives find that their past failures to give enough attention to the
changing environment are how creating problems for them. In contrast 3M Corporation has
developed an outstanding reputation for innovation. 3M is big but acts small. 3M’s 15 percent
rule allows its people to spend up to 15 percent of the work week on anything as long as it is
product related. The most famous example to come out of this is Post-it note.
The Organization of the Future:
Organization Development – MGMT 628 VU
