ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The Organizational Development (OD) process is complicated and it takes long time to complete the process. It takes minimum of one year and sometimes continues indefinitely.

The process of Organisational Development comprises of follows steps and they are:-

1. Initial Diagnosis2. Data Collection3. Data Feedback4. Selection of Interventions5. Implementation of interventions6. Action planning and problem solving7. Team Building8. Inter-Group Development 9. Evaluation and Follow up

1. Initial Diagnosis: The initial diagnosis refers to finding the inadequacies within the organisation that can be corrected by OD activities then it is necessary to find out the professionally competent persons within organisation to plan and execute OD activities. The outside consultants can be also employed to help in diagnosing the problems and diagnosing OD activities. The consultants adopt various methods and that primarily includes interviews, questionnaires, direct observation, analysis of documents and reports for diagnosing the problem. If executives recognize that there are inadequacies within organization which can be corrected by OD activities, it is necessary to find out the professional and competent people within the organization to plan and execute OD activities. If competent people are not available within the organization the services activities are to be taken.

2. Data Collection: The survey method is employed to collect the data for determining organizational climate. It also helps in identifying the behavioural problems that are rising in the organisation. 

3. Data Feedback: The collected data are analyzed and reviewed by various work groups that are formed for this purpose. It is done in order to intervene in the areas of disagreement or confrontation of ideas or opinions. 

4. Selection of Interventions: The interventions can be described as the planned activities that are introduced into the system to achieve desired changes and improvements. The suitable interventions are to be selected and designed at this stage. 

5. Implementation of Interventions: The selected intervention should be implemented progressively as the process is not a one shot, quick cure for organisational problems. Consequently, it achieves real and lasting change in the attitudes and behaviour of employees.

6. Action Planning and Problem Solving: To solve the specific and identified problems by using the collected data, groups prepare recommendations and specific action planning. 

7. Team Building: The consultants explain the advantages of the teams in OD process and encourage the employees throughout the process to form into groups and teams.

8. Inter-group Development: After the formation of groups/teams, the consultants encourage the inter-group meetings, interaction etc. 

9. Evaluation and follow up: The organisation should evaluate the OD programmes and should find out their utility, and develop the programmes further for correcting the deviations. The consultants make great significance to the organisation in this respect. The entire steps in the OD processes should be followed by the organisation in order to derive full range of OD benefits. 

Conclusion:

The organization finally has to evaluate the OD programs, find out their utility, and develop the programs further for correcting the deviations and/or improved results. The consultants help the organization in this respect. All the steps in the OD processes should be followed by the organization in order to derive full range of OD benefits.

Kurt 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.

Unfreeze A basic tendency of people is to seek a context in which

they have relative safety and feel a sense of control. In establishing themselves, they attach their sense of identity to their environment. This creates a comfortable state from which any alternatives, even those which may offer significant benefit, will cause discomfort.

Talking about the future thus is seldom enough to move them from this 'frozen' state and significant effort may be required to 'unfreeze' them and get them moving. This usually requires Push methods to get them moving, after which Pull methods can be used to keep them going.

The term 'change ready' is often used to describe people who are unfrozen and ready to take the next step. Some people come ready for change whilst others take a long time to let go of their comfortable current realities.

Unfreezing is the first of Lewin's change transition stages, where people are taken from a state of being unready to change to being ready and willing to make the first step.

Here are some ways to make it happen: Burning Platform: Expose or create a crisis. Challenge: Inspire them to achieve remarkable things. Command: Just tell them to move! Evidence: Cold, hard data is difficult to ignore. Destabilizing: Shaking people of their comfort zone. Education: Learn them to change. Management by Objectives (MBO): Tell people what to do, but

not how. Restructuring: Redesign the organization to force behavior

change. Rites of Passage: Hold a wake to help let go of the past. Setting Goals: Give them a formal objective. Visioning: Done well, visions work to create change. Whole-System Planning: Everyone planning together.

Transition A key part of Lewin's model is the notion that change, even at

the psychological level, is a journey rather than a simple step. This journey may not be that simple and the person may need to go through several stages of misunderstanding before they get to the other side.

A classic trap in change is for the leaders to spend months on their own personal journeys and then expect everyone else to cross the gap in a single bound.

Transitioning thus requires time. Leadership is often important and when whole organizations change, the one-eyed person may be king. Some form of coaching, counseling or other psychological support will often be very helpful also.

Although transition may be hard for the individual, often the hardest part is to start. Even when a person is unfrozen and ready for change, that first step can be very scary.

Transition can also be a pleasant trap and, as Robert Louis Stephenson said, 'It is better to travel hopefully than arrive.' People become comfortable in temporary situations where they are not accountable for the hazards of normal work and where talking about change may be substituted for real action.

Kurt Lewin's three phases give main phases of change. Once you have unfrozen the people, the next question is how you keep them going.

Boiling the Frog: Incremental changes may well not be noticed. Challenge: Inspire them to achieve remarkable things. Coaching: Psychological support for executives. Command: Tell them what to do. Education: Teach them, one step at a time. Facilitation: Use a facilitator to guide team meetings. First Steps: Make it easy to get going. Involvement: Give them an important role. Management by Objectives (MBO): Tell people what to do, but not how. Open Space: People talking about what concerns them. Re-education: Train the people you have in new knowledge/skills. Restructuring: Redesign the organization to force behavior change. Shift-and-Sync: Change a bit then pause restabilize. Spill and Fill: Incremental movement to a new organization. Stepwise Change: Breaking things down into smaller packages. Whole-System Planning: Everyone planning together.

Refreeze At the other end of the journey, the final goal is to

'refreeze', putting down roots again and establishing the new place of stability.

In practice, refreezing may be a slow process as transitions seldom stop cleanly, but go more in fits and starts with a long tail of bits and pieces. There are good and bad things about this.

In modern organizations, this stage is often rather tentative as the next change may well be around the next corner. What is often encouraged, then, is more of a state of 'slushiness' where freezing is never really achieved (theoretically making the next unfreezing easier). The danger with this that many organizations have found is that people fall into a state of change shock, where they work at a low level of efficiency and effectiveness as they await the next change. 'It's not worth it' is a common phrase when asked to improve what they do.

Refreezing is the third of Lewin's change transition stages, where people are taken from a state of being in transition and moved to a stable and productive state.

Here are some ways to make it happen: Burning Bridges: Ensure there is no way back. Evidence Stream: Show them time and again that the

change is real. Golden Handcuffs: Put rewards in their middle-term future. Institutionalization: Building change into the formal systems

and structures. New Challenge: Get them looking to the future. Rationalization Trap: Get them into action then help them

explain their actions. Reward Alignment: Align rewards with desired behaviors. Rites of Passage: Use formal rituals to confirm change. Socializing: Build it into the social fabric.

John Kotter's 8 step process - an overviewStepsTransformation Suggestions

1. Increase urgency Examine market and competitive realities Identify and discuss crisis, potential crisis, or major

opportunities Provide evidence from outside the organization that change

is necessary2. Build the Guiding Team Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change

effort Attract key change leaders by showing enthusiasm and

commitment Encourage the group to work together as a team3. Get the Vision Right Create a vision to help direct the change effort Develop strategies for achieving that vision

4. Communicate for Buy-in Build alignment and engagement through stories Use every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision

and strategies Keep communication simple and heartfelt Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding

coalition5. Empowering Action Remove obstacles to the change Change systems and / or structures that work against the

vision6. Create short term wins Plan for and achieve visible performance improvements Recognize and reward those involved in bringing the

improvements to life

 7. Do Not Let Up

Plan for and create visible performance improvements

Recognize and reward personnel involved in the improvements

Reinforce the behaviours shown that led to the improvements

8. Make Change Stick

Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and corporate success

Action Research is a process which serves as a model for most OD interventions. French and Bell 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; and hypothesis evaluating the results of actions by collecting more data."

The steps in Action Research are :

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. For suggestions about what to look for, see the previous article in this series, on needs assessment . 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. 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 interventions 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.

Case Study

Enhanced team effectiveness to facilitate growth in a leading family-owned healthcare management consulting firm

Jeremy S. Lurey, Ph.D., Plus Delta Consulting, LLC,Los Angeles, California

Goals Further develop senior leadership Implement new management structures, HR policies, and

business practices to better support local and remote staff Critical Actions Designed and implemented customized leadership

development program; Facilitated series of workshops on leadership skills

Provided one-on-one coaching and additional support to president and other management team members

Designed and facilitated customized "Consulting Skills 101"program to share strategies and techniques for managing client projects and improving team communications

Prepared competency-based performance assessment tools for evaluating both management and professional staff

 

Results Implemented new policies and procedures to

standardize business operations and better align them with best practices for remote work

Created new strategies and established specific communication protocols for management to support and further develop local as well as remote staff

Enabled firm to come together as a more cohesive unit; positioned them to take future actions to ensure ongoing growth and success

Case Study Helped the new CEO turn around a software company to position it for business

success. Maya Townsend, Founder, Partnering Resources, Cambridge, MA Goals Pinpoint the core purpose, values, and strategies for the company. The new

CEO knew that turning the company around would take more than just restructuring: “I wanted to look introspectively to determine fundamentally who we are, what is important to us, and where do we want to go.”

Critical Actions Work began with a plan to get the executive team to think creatively about

the company and its future. The executive team identified the core purpose, values and strategy for the

company. Realizing that the entire company needed to accept their work in order to

implement it successfully, the leadership team engaged managers in defining actions needed to achieve the strategy.

The leadership team presented their work to all employees in an energized, creative town hall meeting.

The leadership team cascaded the strategies through the entire organization so all employees saw how their goals contributed to the core purpose of the company.

 

Results Said the CEO, “This initiative has been an unqualified

success. We have a clearly defined strategy and the management of the company is more energized than I’ve ever seen them. We have built the foundation to be a truly great company.”