O.D . AND SOME OF ITS PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES

ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
the management of change

Robert H. Rouda & Mitchell E. Kusy, Jr.

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(C) copyright 1995 by the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry.

This is the third in a series of articles which originally appeared in Tappi Journal in 1995-96, to introduce methods addressing the development of individuals and organizations through the field of Human Resource Development. (The article has been updated, and is reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.)

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WHAT IS OD?

Beckhard (1) defines Organization Development (OD) as "an effort, planned, organization-wide, and managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization's processes, using behavioral-science knowledge." In essence, OD is a planned system of change.

• Planned. OD takes a long-range approach to improving organizational performance and efficiency. It avoids the (usual) "quick-fix".
• Organization-wide. OD focuses on the total system.
• Managed from the top. To be effective, OD must have the support of top-management. They have to model it, not just espouse it. The OD process also needs the buy-in and ownership of workers throughout the organization.
• Increase organization effectiveness and health. OD is tied to the bottom-line. Its goal is to improve the organization, to make it more efficient and more competitive by aligning the organization's systems with its people.
• Planned interventions. After proper preparation, OD uses activities called interventions to make systemwide, permanent changes in the organization.
• Using behavioral-science knowledge. OD is a discipline that combines research and experience to understanding people, business systems, and their interactions.

We usually think of OD only in terms of the interventions themselves. This article seeks to emphasize that these activities are only the most visible part of a complex process, and to put some perspective and unity into the myriad of OD tools that are used in business today. These activities include Total Quality Management (an evolutionary approach to improving an organization) and Reengineering (a more revolutionary approach). And there are dozens of other interventions, such as strategic planning and team building. It is critical to select the correct intervention(s), and this can only be done with proper preparation.

WHY DO OD?

• Human resources -- our people -- may be a large fraction of our costs of doing business. They certainly can make the difference between organizational success and failure. We better know how to manage them.
• Changing nature of the workplace. Our workers today want feedback on their performance, a sense of accomplishment, feelings of value and worth, and commitment to social responsibility. They need to be more efficient, to improve their time management. And, of course, if we are to continue doing more work with less people, we need to make our processes more efficient.
• Global markets. Our environments are changing, and our organizations must also change to survive and prosper. We need to be more responsible to and develop closer partnerships with our customers. We must change to survive, and we argue that we should attack the problems, not the symptoms, in a systematic, planned, humane manner.
• Accelerated rate of change. Taking an open-systems approach, we can easily identify the competitions on an international scale for people, capital, physical resources, and information.

WHO DOES OD?

To be successful, OD must have the buy-in, ownership, and involvement of all stakeholders, not just of the employees throughout the organization. OD is usually facilitated by change agents -- people or teams that have the responsibility for initiating and managing the change effort. These change agents may be either employees of the organization (internal consultants) or people from outside the organization (external consultants.)

Effective change requires leadership with knowledge, and experience in change management. We strongly recommend that external or internal consultants be used, preferably a combination of both. ("These people are professionals; don't try this at home.")

Bennis (2) notes that "external consultants can manage to affect ... the power structure in a way that most internal change agents cannot." Since experts from outside are less subject to the politics and motivations found within the organization, they can be more effective in facilitating significant and meaningful changes.

WHEN IS AN ORGANIZATION READY FOR OD?

There is a formula, attributed to David Gleicher (3, 4), which we can use to decide if an organization is ready for change:

Dissatisfaction x Vision x First Steps > Resistance to Change

This means that three components must all be present to overcome the resistance to change in an organization: Dissatisfaction with the present situation, a vision of what is possible in the future, and achievable first steps towards reaching this vision. If any of the three is zero or near zero, the product will also be zero or near zero and the resistance to change will dominate.

We use this model as an easy, quick diagnostic aid to decide if change is possible. OD can bring approaches to the organization that will enable these three components to surface, so we can begin the process of change.

OD IS A PROCESS

Action Research is a process which serves as a model for most OD interventions. French and Bell (5) describe Action Research as a "process of systematically collecting research data about an ongoing system relative to some objective, goal, or need of that system; feeding these data back into the system; taking actions by altering selected variables within the system based both on the data and on hypotheses; and evaluating the results of actions by collecting more data." The steps in Action Research are (6, 7):

1. Entry. This phase consists of marketing, i.e. finding needs for change within an organization. It is also the time to quickly grasp the nature of the organization, identify the appropriate decision maker, and build a trusting relationship.
2. Start-up and contracting. In this step, we identify critical success factors and the real issues, link into the organization's culture and processes, and clarify roles for the consultant(s) and employees. This is also the time to deal with resistance within the organization. A formal or informal contract will define the change process.
3. Assessment and diagnosis. Here we collect data in order to find the opportunities and problems in the organization (refer to DxVxF>R above.) For suggestions about what to look for, see the previous article in this series, on needs assessment (8). This is also the time for the consultant to make a diagnosis, in order to recommend appropriate interventions.
4. Feedback. This two-way process serves to tell those what we found out, based on an analysis of the data. Everyone who contributed information should have an opportunity to learn about the findings of the assessment process (provided there is no apparent breach of anyone's confidentiality.) This provides an opportunity for the organization's people to become involved in the change process, to learn about how different parts of the organization affect each other, and to participate in selecting appropriate change interventions.
5. Action planning. In this step we will distill recommendations from the assessment and feedback, consider alternative actions and focus our intervention(s) on activities that have the most leverage to effect positive change in the organization. An implementation plan will be developed that is based on the assessment data, is logically organized, results- oriented, measurable and rewarded. We must plan for a participative decision-making process for the intervention.
6. Intervention. Now, and only now, do we actually carry out the change process. It is important to follow the action plan, yet remain flexible enough to modify the process as the organization changes and as new information emerges.
7. Evaluation. Successful OD must have made meaningful changes in the performance and efficiency of the people and their organization. We need to have an evaluation procedure to verify this success, identify needs for new or continuing OD activities, and improve the OD process itself to help make future interventions more successful.
8. Adoption. After steps have been made to change the organization and plans have been formulated, we follow-up by implementing processes to insure that this remains an ongoing activity within the organization, that commitments for action have been obtained, and that they will be carried out.
9. Separation. We must recognize when it is more productive for the client and consultant to undertake other activities, and when continued consultation is counterproductive. We also should plan for future contacts, to monitor the success of this change and possibly to plan for future change activities.

It would be nice if real OD followed these steps sequentially. This rarely happens. Instead, the consultants must be flexible and be ready to change their strategy when necessary. Often they will have to move back and repeat previous steps in light of new information, new influences, or because of the changes that have already been made.

But for successful OD to take place, all of these steps must be followed. It works best if they are taken in the order described. And, since learning is really an iterative, not a sequential process, we must be prepared to re-enter this process when and where appropriate. 

If you would like to know more about OD, we highly recommend the books by Cummings and Worley (9), and by Rothwell, Sullivan and McLean (10)

• These are some of interventions that OD practitioners choose from in partnering with organizational leaders to create "planned change."

Applying criteria to goals

Here the leadership establishes objective criteria for the outputs of the organization's goal-setting processes. Then they hold people accountable not only for stating goals against those criteria but also for producing the desired results.

Establishing inter-unit task forces

These groups can cross both functional parts of the organization (the "silos") as well as employee levels. They are ideally accountable to one person and are appropriately rewarded for completing their assigned task effectively. Then they disband.

Experimentation with alternative arrangements

Today organizations are subject to "management by best-seller." The OD practitioner attempts to get leaders to look for changes that may take 3-5 years to work through. The meta-goal in these interventions is to create what is being called a "learning organization," one that performs experiments on organizational structure and processes, analyzes the results, and builds on them.


Identifying "key communicators"

The OD professional here carefully determines who seems to be "in the know" within the organization. These people often do not know that they are, in fact, key communicators. This collection of individuals are then fed honest information during critical times, one-on-one and confidentially.


Identifying "fireable offenses"

This intervention deepens the understanding of and commitment to the stated values of the organization. The OD professional facilitates the work of the organization's leaders to answer the critical question, "If we're serious about these values, then what might an employee do that would be so affrontive to them that he/she would be fired?"


In-visioning

This is actually a set of interventions that leaders plan with OD's help in order to "acculturate" everyone in the organization into an agreed-upon vision, mission, purpose, and values. The interventions might include training, goal setting, organizational survey-feedback, communications planning, etc.

Team Building

This intervention can take many forms. The most common is interviews and other prework, followed by a one- to three-day offsite session. During the meeting the group diagnoses its function as a unit and plans improvements in its operating procedures See J. E. Jones & W. L. Bearley, TEAMBOOK, published by HRDQ, for a catalog of team-building interventions.

Intergroup Problem Solving

This intervention usually involves working with the two groups separately before bringing them together. They establish common goals and negotiate changes in how the groups interface. [See J. E. Jones & W. L. Bearley, Intergroup Diagnostic Survey, published by HRDQ, for a catalog of intergroup interventions.

Management/leadership training

Many OD professionals come from a training background. They understand that organizations cannot succeed long term without well-trained leaders. The OD contribution there can be to ensure that the development curriculum emphasizes practical, current situations that need attention within the organization and to monitor the degree to which training delivery is sufficiently participative as to promise adequate transfer of learnings to the job.


Setting up measurement systems

The total-quality movement emphasizes that all work is a part of a process and that measurement is essential for process improvement. The OD professional is equipped with tools and techniques to assist leaders and others to create measurement methods and systems to monitor key success indicators.

Studies of structural causes

"Root-cause analysis" is a time-honored quality-improvement tool, and OD practitioners often use it to assist organizational clients to learn how to get down to the basis causes of problems.

Survey-feedback

This technology is probably the most powerful way that OD professionals involve very large numbers of people in diagnosing situations that need attention within the organization and to plan and implement improvements. The general method requires developing reliable, valid questionnaires, collecting data from all personnel, analyzing it for trends, and feeding the results back to everyone for action planning.

"Walk-the-talk" assessment

Most organizations have at least some leaders who "say one thing and do another." This intervention, which can be highly threatening, concentrates on measuring the extent to which the people within the organization are behaving with integrity.


This article covers the most common OD interventions. Every practitioner augments this list with both specially designed interventions that meet the precise needs of clients and with other, more complex interventions such as large-group sessions, and other popular programs. It is important, however, that all OD professionals be completely grounded in these basic interventions.