What is Organization Development?

An organization is a system consisting of four interacting subsystems: structure,

technology, people and task. Structure refers to the formal interactions within the
organization as evidenced in the organizational chart or organ gram. Task refers to
the set of activities to be performed. In other words, the behavioral specification
associated with a job. Technology relates to the level of sophistication determining
the work-flow and performance of jobs in an organization. Higher technology, most
often, means higher job knowledge and skills of employees. Organizations may be
classified as to their level of
technology: high, medium, low or obsolete. People variable refers to the human
input in the organization i.e., individuals (in terms of their physical and mental skills,
personality etc.) working in the organization.
Organization as a system can be changed and developed to achieve its goals in the
best possible way. The goals of an organization, generally are: survival, stability,
profitability, growth and service to society. From one organization to another, the
goal or goals may differ depending upon at what stage of development the
organization is.
Organization can achieve its goal if it is able to respond to changes within the
external and internal environment. The external environment is in terms of forces in
the social, political, economic and cultural factors. Competition from similar
organizations, changing needs of the public, knowledge
explosion, rapid growth of technology all constitute threat to organizational
effectiveness. Organization has also to take into cognizance its internal environment
which includes existing structure, technology,
needs and expectations of its people and the changing scenario of labor force.
Organization development (OD) is a planned approach to respond effectively to
changes in its external and internal environment. Essentially there are two schools of
thought in OD:
Programmed Procedure School
System Process School
The Programmed Procedure School
It is an older approach. According to it, OD is the effective implementation of the
organizations policies, procedures and programmers. It is concerned with personnel
activities that contribute to the overall growth and development of the organization,
such as: recruitment, training, career development , compensation, welfare and
benefits, labor relations etc. Personnel development is primarily concerned with OD
activities. At present, it is being widely recognized that personnel functions
contribute only partly to OD. They at best serve the organizational control or
maintenance function.
The System Process School
This school considers organization development in the context of both its internal
and external environment. Proponents of this approach view organization as a
system which can be changed and developed to best achieve its goals and
objectives. Insights drawn from recent developments in behavioral sciences have
contributed to the system-process school. An emerging role for OD is system based
and focuses on total organization effectiveness and hence goes beyond the
traditional personnel

programmers. The emphasis is much more on work groups within and across
departments rather than individuals as such. While personnel programmers demand
conformity for prescribed policies and procedures, the system process school
encourages openness, and collaborative ways of solving problems so that the
outcomes are advantageous to both the individual and the organization. It is likely
that the objectives of both the schools and contradictory to certain extent.
meaningful communication and involvement in planning for organizational
development.
CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF OD
Planned Change : It is a planned strategy to bring about organizational Change.
This change effort aims at specific objectives and is based on the diagnosis of
problem areas.
Collaborative: OD typically involves a collaborative approach to change which
includes the involvement and participation of those organization members most
affected by the changes.
Performance: OD programs include an emphasis on ways to improve and enhance
performance and quality (TQM).
Humanistic: OD relies on a set of humanistic values about people and
organizations that aims at gaining more effective organizations by opening up new
opportunities for increased use of human potential systems. OD represents a
systems approach concerned with the interrelationship of various divisions
,departments ,groups and individuals and interdependent subsystems of the total
organization.
Focal Area
Change is planned by managers to achieve goals. Involves collaborative approach
and involvement. Emphasis on ways to improve and enhance performance.
Emphasis upon increased opportunity and use of human potential relationship
among elements and excellence. Scientific approaches supplement
practical experience.
An OD practitioner (either manager or consultant) is a person in an
organization responsible for changing existing patterns to obtain more effective
organizational performance. Organization development practitioners have come to
realize that conventional training techniques are no longer sufficient for effecting
the type of behavioral changes needed to create adaptive organizations. New
techniques have been developed to provide participants with the competence and
motivation to alter
ineffective patterns of behavior.
One interesting question is, can OD be used change nations as well as
organizations?
There are many OD techniques, and any individual practitioner may rely on one or a
combination of approaches. Regardless of the method selected, the objectives are
to work from an overall organization perspective, through _increasing the ability of
the whole to respond to a changing environment. Organizations have objectives
such as making profit, surviving, and growing; but individual members also have
desires to achieve, unsatisfied needs to fulfill, and career goals to accomplish within
the organization. OD then, is a process for change which can benefit both the

organization and the individual. In todays business environment managers must

continuously monitor change and adapt their systems to survive by staying
competitive in a turbulent arena. The roots of OD lie in the famous Hawthorne
experiments carried out at the Western Electric company by Elton Mayon and his
associates. These experiments highlighted the importance of employee attitudes
and expectations, informal work
groups, norms and values and participation in decision making as influencing
performance all these still central concepts in various techniques of OD.
Though there are divergent opinions and attitudes about the nature and
practice of OD, among its practitioners, a general consensus may be noticed among
them as to what the basic characteristics of OD are. In any OD effort the totality of
the organization is to be taken into account. Organization being an integrated
system of subsystems, changes in anyone sub-system tends to have consequences
for the other sub-systems. The approach should be holistic either for identifying the
need for change within or
for planning and implementing a change, Until the intended change is absorbed in
the total system, optimal collaboration, synergism and efficiency cannot be
obtained. The theoretical body of knowledge underlying the concept and practice of
OD is eclectic. Recent developments in the area of behavioral sciences, especially
psychology, sociology, anthropology etc., have influenced the OD thought and
practice.
The intended changes in OD programmers may be carried out at any of the subsystem levels such as:
Organization structure
Task accomplishment
Work climate ( interpersonal and intercrop relations, work values)
Methods of decision making and problem solving
Technology.
The benefits of the planned effort to the organization are measured in terms of
improvements noticed in the performance of the sub-system where the change has
been implemented, related sub-systems that have an interface with the changed
sub-system, and the organization as a whole. Intended changes in the
organizational structure should be initiated on the basis of a study of the existing
structure
especially the formal relationships, span of control and functions performed by each
individual in the context of the others. The planned change may be on the basis of
what an in ideal structure should be like. A better approach would be to take into
cognizance the felt needs of the role incumbents. The employees may be involved
in identifying problems in the existing structure and also in evolving a strategy for
change. Such a participative approach would yield results as the employees are
tuned to the intended change. Another approach to OD is at the micro level i.e., at
the job level, while the above was at the macro level. What is of concern is the
designing of jobs for better performance. Job related aspects such as authority,
responsibility, activities the attitudes, expectations of the role incumbents.
Research studies have shown that job attitudes and job satisfaction influence
performance. Jobs may be redesigned to

provide variety and opportunities for satisfying higher order needs. Jobs
enlargement and job enrichment are the job design methods employed as part of
OD techniques.
OD practitioners also aim at improving the interpersonal climate. The work climate
of openness, trust and collaboration has positive influence on performance, while
the climate of suspicion, distrust and hostility result in low or mediocre
performance. The climate should be supportive, proactive and allow for
opportunities to be creative and original.
Communication is the life of an organization and effective
communication is basic to internal work climate. OD efforts may be directed to
identify the gaps and problems in the formal communication network and improve
the communication process. Communication network may be analyzed in terms of
the following methods.
Residential Analysis: It helps in understanding how a given organization
really functions. The analyst is a live in observer of the communication process.
Participant Analysis: Data is collected about how communication is actually
taking place in the network by interviewing the individuals or through a
questionnaire.
Duty Study: Like a cop of observing the traffic on a high way, the analyst positions
himself in the communication network at any spot and studies the communication
flow.
Cross Section Analysis: A time sampling of the communication process in the
network may be carried out. However, the sampling must be repeated to get
sufficient data.
( Episodic communication channels in organization )
analysis : A trace element ( i.e. ) a piece of communication is left in the
communication network and its flow through the network is traced through time and
space. OD efforts to improve communication may deal with the elements of
communication process such as surface, message, channel, receiver, process
of encoding and network, in addition to communication overload.
Decision making is another important area for OD intervention. What is a decision?
Decision is commitment to action. Decisions are basic to management process and
link up the various activities of the organization. While some of the decisions are
routine and programmed, the other may be unprogrammed and ad hoc. While some
of them are operating decisions that are routine, programmed and executed
automatically, the others are administrative decisions that are either coordinative
and routine, or exceptional and ad hoc while yield custom make solution.
Strategic Decisions are also exceptional and have an influence on the overall
organization or a greater segment of the organization. Necessity for strategic
decision may arise due to forces in the external or internal environment, new
technological input or at the initiative of the chief executive organizational settings.
Its popularity arises out of its being a non-threatening, practical and an enjoyable
way of learning about self and people. T.A. is basically a conceptual model for
analyzing interpersonal behavior. Development of self-knowledge comes through
analysis of own behavior with the help of this model. The intervention requires
explanation of concepts through instructions, individual self-analysis and exercises
for group discussion. An innovative use of T.A. is its application to analysis of

organizational scripts, which make it an OD intervention for use tat the total
organizational level.
The Emergence of OD
Organization development is one of the primary means of creating more adaptive
organizations. Warren Bennis. a leading OD practitioner, has suggested three
factors underlying the emergence of OD.
1. The need jar new organizational forms. Organizations tend to adopt a form
that is more appropriate to a particular time, and the current rate of change
requires more adaptive forms.
2. The focus on cultural change. Because each organization forms a culture-a
system of beliefs and values the only way to change is to alter this organizational
culture.
3. The increase in social awareness. Because. of the changing social climate,
tomorrows employee will no longer accept autocratic styles of management;
therefore, greater social awareness is required in the organization. Todays
managers exist in shifting organizational structures and can be the central force in
initiating change and establishing the means for adoption. Most organizations strive
to be creative, efficient, and highly competitive, maintaining a leading edge in their
respective fields rather than following trends set by others. Effective managers are
vital to the continuing self-renewal and ultimate survival of the organization. The
Consultant manager must recognize when changes are occurring in the external
environment and possess the necessary competence to bring about change when it
is needed. The manager must also be aware of the internal system and recognize
that the major element in planned change is the organizational culture: the feelings,
norms, and behaviors of its members.
Based on the above factors we can easily understand OD evolution.

Following are the different stages of evolution

The Evolution: of Organization Development
(Historical Development)
Organization development has involved over the past 40 years from the
application of behavioral science knowledge and techniques to solving
organizational problems. What has become OD stand in the late 1940s at MIT
and is deeply rooted in the pioneering work of applied social scientists. such
as Kurt Lewin, and also strongly influenced by the work of psychologists such
as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. The term organization Development is
widely attributed to Roben Blake and Jare Mouton (the originators of the
Managerial Grid) aI:ki
Herren Shepard (a leading OD pioneer); however, Richard Beckhard (an OD
consultant) claims tis distinction as well. Regardless of who first coined the
term, it emerged about 1957 and is generally conceded to have evolved from
two basic sources: the application of laboratory methods by National Training
Laboratories (NTL) and the survey research methods ignited by the Survey
Research Center. Both methods were pioneered by Kurt Lewin in about 1945.

Laboratory- Training Methods

In the late I 940s and early 1950s laboratory-training methods were
developed and applied by a group of behavioral scientists at Bethel, Maine.
Douglas McGregor (Theory X and Theory Y with Richard BecKhard, began
applying laboratory-training methods to industry, at General Iills in 1956 and
at Union Carbide in 1957. At union Carbide, McGregor and John Paul Jones (an
internal consultant) formed the first internal OD consulting group About the;
same time. Herbert Shepard and Robert Blake were initiating a series of
applied behavioral Science interventions at Esso, using mainly laboratorytraining technique to improve work team processes. These early railing
sessions provided the basis for what Blake and Mouton later developed as an
instrumented training system they called the Managerial Grid. The success of
these programs led to a dissemination of such efforts to her corporations.
Survey Research Feedback
Out the same time, a group at the Survey Research Center at the University
of Michigan began to apply to Organizations the action research model of Kurt
Lewin. Rensis Likert and Floyd
Mann administered an organization-wide survey to Detroit Edison Co
involving the systematic feedback of data to participating departments. They
used what is termed an interlocking series of conferences,. feeding data
back to the top management group and then down to work_ teams
throughout the organization. Since that time, many organizations have used
the survey feedback approach. General Motors, for example, has reported
success in applying Likerts survey feedback approach to organizational
improvement. In summary, the major sources of current OD practice were the
pioneering work at NT L. (laboratory-training, techniques) and
the Survey Research Center (survey feedback methods). This brief look at the
past is important because OD is a new and still developing field, and you as a
future OD practitioner may build
upon these earlier foundations in pioneering other new approaches.
Early Statements of OD Values and
Assumptions
Values have always been an integral part of the OD package. We examine
three early statements regarding OD values that had a significant . impact on
the field. The Bennis and Beckhard quotations come their books in the
Addison-Wesley Six-Pack. Tannenbaum and presented their ideas in an article
appearing in Industrial Management Review. Writing in 1969, Warren Bennis
proposed that OD practitioner (change agents) share a set of normative
goals based on their h istic/ democratic philosophy.
He listed these normative goals ,-lows:
1. Improvement in interpersonal competence.
2. A shift in values so that human factors and feelings come considered
legitimate

3. Development of increased understanding between and working groups in

order to reduce tensions.
4. Development of more effective team management, that capacity for
functional groups to work more competently.
5. Development of better methods of conflict resolution. Ra: the usual
bureaucratic, methods Which rely mainly on suppression, . mise, and
unprincipled power, more rational and open methods of coniution are sought.
6. Development of organic rather than mechanical systems. _ strong reaction
against the idea of organizations as mechanisms wagers work on, like
pushing buttons.
Bennis clarified some of the salient differences between mechanical systems
and organic systems. For example, mechanical systems rely on authorityobedience relationships while
organic systems rely on mutual confidence and trust. Mechanical systems
insist on strict division of labor and hierarchical supervision while organic
systems foster multigroup membership and responsibility. Mechanical
systems encourage centralized decision making while organic systems
encour-age wide sharing of responsibility and control. Another major player
in the field was Richard Beckhard. In his 1969 book he described several
assumptions about the