A STUDY

ON

“ORGANIZATIONAL

DEVELOPMENT

INTERVENTION”

BY

SIDDHARTH DHAMIJA

Enrollment number- 261091119

YEAR: 2009-2011

Submitted to:Prof. ASHA DEB

INInstitute of Management & Development,

New Delhi

INDEXInstitute of Management and Development Page 1

CONTENTS: Page no.

Organization Development……………………………………… 3

Characteristics of Organizational Development………………. 4

Organization Development Intervention………………………. 5

Selecting an OD Intervention…………………………………… 6

Classification of OD Intervention………………………………. 8

Conclusion……………………………………………………….. 16

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ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT:

Organization Development (OD) is a planned, organization-wide effort to increase an

organization's effectiveness and viability. Warren Bennie 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 behavioral science knowledge as well as organizational reflection,

system improvement, planning, and self-analysis.

OD is a prescription for process of planned change in an organization in which the key

prescriptive elements relate to:

The nature of the effort or program.

The nature of the change activities.

The target of the change activities.

The desired outcomes of the change activities.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF

ORGANIZATIONAL EVELOPMENT:

OD is planned strategy to bring about organizational change.

OD always involves a collaborative approach to change.

OD program include an emphasis on ways to improve and enhance

performance.

OD relies on a set of Humanistic values about people and organizations.

OD represents a systems approach.

OD is based upon scientific approaches to increase organizational

effectiveness.

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OD INTERVENTION

Organization Development Intervention

The term ‘interventions’ is currently being used in several different ways. On

the one hand, this seems to be due to the confusion and lack of definitions; on

the other hand, it is due to the fact that it quite accurately refers to several

orders of meaning in terms of level of abstraction. Is the OD intervention

something that someone does to an organization, or is it something that is

going on, that is, an activity? It is both.

"Interventions" are principal learning processes in the "action" stage of

organization development. Interventions are structured activities used

individually or in combination by the members of a client system to improve

their social or task performance. They may be introduced by a change agent as

part of an improvement program, or they may be used by the client following

a program to check on the state of the organization's health, or to effect

necessary changes in its own behavior. "Structured activities" mean such

diverse procedures as experiential exercises, questionnaires, attitude surveys,

interviews, relevant group discussions, and even lunchtime meetings between

the change agent and a member of the client organization. Every action that

influences an organization's improvement program in a change agent-client

system relationship can be said to be an intervention.

SELECTING AN

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OD INTERVENTION

In selecting a specific OD Technique, the consultant and the client consider a

number of factors, including the nature of the problem, the objectives of the

change efforts, the culture norms of the client system, and the expected degree

of resistance. Selecting a technique involves comparing and testing possible

intervention techniques against some criteria. There are 3 broad factors in

selecting an appropriate intervention:

1. The potential results of the technique:

• Will it solve the basic problem?

• Does it have any additional positive outcome?

• Are any potentially negative consequences likely to occur?

2. The potential implementation of the technique:

• Can the proposed technique really work in a practical

application?

• What are the actual monetary and human costs of this technique

and the impact of cost upon the human system?

• How does estimated cost of the technique compare with the

expected results i.e., cost vs. benefits?

3. The potential acceptance of the technique:

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• Is the technique acceptable to the client system?

• Is the technique adequately developed and tested?

• Has the technique been adequately explained and communicated to

members of the client system?

These important factors should be considered prior to making a final decision

on the selection of a technique. The selection of any given technique is usually

a trade-off between advantages and disadvantages because there is no precise

way to answer these entire question in advance. After comparing the

advantages and disadvantages, a specific technique is selected for the action

phase of the OD programs.

CLASSIFICATION OF Institute of Management and Development Page 7

OD INTERVENTION

The inventory of OD interventions is quite extensive. We will explore several

classification schemes here to help you understand how interventions "clump"

together in terms of

(1) The objectives of the interventions and

(2) The targets of the interventions.

Becoming familiar with how interventions relate to one another is useful for

planning the overall OD strategy. As we see it, the following are the major

"families" of OD interventions.

1. DIAGNOSTIC ACTIVITIES :

Fact-finding activities designed to ascertain the state of the system,

the status of a problem, the "way things are”. Available methods

range from projective devices such as "build a collage that represents

your place in this organization" to the more traditional data collection

methods of interviews, questionnaires, surveys, meetings,

and examining organizational records.

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2. TEAM-BUILDING ACTIVITIES :

Activities designed to enhance the effective operation of system

teams. These activities focus skills and resources needed to

accomplish tasks, the quality of relationship among the team

members or between members and the leader, and how well the team

gets its job done. In addition, one must consider different kinds of

teams, such as formal work teams, temporary tasks force teams,

newly constituted teams, and cross- functional teams.

3. INTERGROUP ACTIVITIES:

Activities designed to improve the effectiveness of interdependent

groups- groups that must work together to produce a common output.

They focus on joint activities and the output of the group as

considered as a single system rather than as two subsystems. When

two groups are involved, the activities are designated intergroup or

interface activities; when more than two groups are involved, the

activities are called organizational mirroring.

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4. SURVEY FEEDBACK ACTIVITIES:

Activities that rely on questionnaire surveys to generate information

that is then used to identify problems and opportunities. Groups

analyze the data regarding; their performance and design action plans

to correct problems.

5. EDUCATION AND TRAINING ACTIVITIES:

Activities designed to improve individuals' skills, abilities, and

knowledge. Several activities are available and several approaches

possible. For example, the individual can be educated in isolation

from his or her own work group (say, in a T-group consisting of

strangers), or one can be educated in relation to the work group(say,

when a work team learns how better to manage

interpersonal conflict). The activities may be directed toward

technical skills required for performing tasks or may be directed

toward improving interpersonal competence. The activities may be

directed toward leadership issues, responsibilities and functions of

group members, decision- making, problem solving, goal setting and

planning, and so forth.

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6. TECHNO STRUCTURAL OR STRUCTURAL ACTIVITIES :

Activities designed to improve the effectiveness of organizational

structures and job designs. The activities may take the form of (a)

experimenting with new organization structures and evaluating their

effectiveness in terms of specific goals or (b) devising new ways to

bring technical resources to bear on problems. these activities and

label them "structural interventions" defined as "the broad class of

interventions or change efforts aimed at improving organization

effectiveness through changes in the task, structural, and

technological subsystems." Included in these activities are job

enrichment, management by objectives, socio technical systems,

collateral organizations, and physical settings interventions.

7. PROCESS CONSULTATION ACTIVITIES:

Activities that "help the client to perceive, understand, and act upon

process events which occur in the client's environment". These

activities perhaps more accurately describe an approach, a consulting

mode in which the client gains insight into the human processes in

organizations and learn skills in diagnosing and managing them.

Primary emphasis is on processes such as communications, leader and

member roles in groups, problem solving and decision making, group

norms and group growth, leadership and authority, and intergroup

cooperation and competition. '

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8. GRID ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES :

Activities developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, which

constitute a six-phase change model involving the total organization.

Internal resources are developed to conduct most of the programs,

which may take from three to five years to complete. The model starts

with upgrading individual managers' skills and leadership abilities,

moves to team improvement activities, Then to intergroup relations

activities. Later phases include corporate planning for improvement,

developing implementation tactics, and Finally, an evaluation phase

assessing change in the organization culture and looking toward

future directions.

9. THIRD-PARTY PEACEMAKING ACTIVITIES:

Activities conducted by a skilled consultant (the third party, designed

to help two members of an organization manage their interpersonal

conflict. These activities are based on confrontation tactics and an

understanding of the processes involved in conflict and conflict

resolution.

10. COACHING AND COUNSELING ACTIVITIES:

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Activities that entail the consultant or other organization members

working with individuals to help.

(a) define learning goals,

(b) learn how others see their behavior, and

(c) learn new behaviors to help them better achieve their goals. A

central feature of this activity is non evaluative feedback others

give to an individual.

A second feature is the second exploration of alternative

behaviors.

11. LIFE- AND CAREER-PLANNING ACTIVITIES:

Activities that enable individuals to focus on their life and career

objectives and how to go about achieving them. Structured activities

include producing life and career inventories, discussing goals and

objectives, and assessing capabilities, needed additional training, and

areas of strength and deficiency.

12. PLANNING AND GOAL-SETTING ACTIVITIES:

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Activities that include theory and experience in planning and goal setting,

problem-solving models, planning paradigms, ideal organization versus real

organization "discrepancy" models, and the like.

The goal is to improve these skills at the levels of the individual, group, and

total organization.

13. STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES:

Activities that help key policy makers to reflect systematically on the

organization's basic mission and goals and environmental demands, threats,

and opportunities, and to engage in long-range action planning of both a

reactive and proactive nature.

These activities direct attention in two important directions: outside the

organization to a consideration of the environment, and away from the

present to the future.

14. ORGANIZATIONALTRANSFORMATION ACTIVITIES:

Activities that involve large-scale system changes;

Activities designed to fundamentally change the nature of the organization.

Almost everything about the organization is changed-structure,

management philosophy,

reward systems,

the design of work,

Mission, values, and cultures.

Total quality programs are transformational: so are programs to create high-

performance organizations or high performance work systems.

Each of these families of interventions includes many activities. They involve

both conceptual material and actual experience with the phenomenon being

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studied. Some families are directed toward specific targets, problems, or

processes.

For example, Team-building activities are specific to work teams,

While life-planning activities are directed to individuals, although these latter

activities take place in-group settings.

Some interventions are problem specific: examples are the third-party

peacemaking activities and the goal-setting activities.

Some activities are process specific: an example is intergroup activities that

explore the processes involved in managing interfaces.

Another way to classify OD interventions is by the primary target of the

intervention,

For example, individuals, dyads and triads, teams and groups, intergroup

relations, and the total organization.

CONCLUSION:

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OD interventions are initiated at the top and require employee participation and commitment, therefore, visionary leaders that work as change agents, developing a vision, and providing continuous and sustained support is paramount. Kanter, Stein & Jick (1992) consider that OD interventions require a strong leader role. “An organization should not undertake something as challenging as large-scale change without a leader to guide, drive and inspire it. These change advocates, play a critical role in creating a company vision, motivating company employees to embrace that vision, and crafting an organizational structure that consistently rewards those who strive toward the realization of the vision”.

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