Organisation development

Organisation Development
Organisation Development: Meaning, Characteristics and Objectives
Meaning:
Different people have defined OD differently. According to Koonz et. al, “OD is a systematic
integrated and planned approach to improve the effectiveness of the enterprise. It is designed
to solve problems that adversely affect the operational efficiency at all levels”.
Burke’ has defined OD as “a planned process of change in an organisation’s culture through
the utilization of behavioural science technology, research and theory”.
In the opinion of French and Bell “OD is a systematic approach to organisational
improvement, that applies behavioural science theory and research in order to increase
individual and organisational well-being and effectiveness”.
Now, OD can be defined as a long-term, more encompassing change approach meant to
improve individual as well as organisational well-being in a changed situation”.
Characteristics of OD:
The salient characteristics of OD implied in its definitions are gleaned
as follows:
First, OD is a systematic approach to the planned change. It is structured style of diagnosing
organisational problems and opportunities and then applying expertise to them.
Second, OD is grounded in solid research and theory. It involves the application of our
knowledge of behavioural science to the challenge that the organisations face.
Third, OD recognizes the reciprocal relationship between individuals and organisations. It ac-
knowledges that for organisations to change, individuals must change.
Fourth, OD is goal oriented. It is a process that seeks to improve both individual and
organisational well- being and effectiveness.
Fifth, OD is designed to solve problems.
Objectives of OD:
The main objectives of OD are to:
1. Improve organisational performance as measured by profitability, market share,
innovativeness, etc.
2. Make organisations better adaptive to its environment which always keeps on changing.
3. Make the members willing face organisational problems and contribute creative solutions
to the organisational problems.

4. Improve internal behaviour patterns such as interpersonal relations, intergroup relations,
level of trust and support among the role players.
5. Understand own self and others, openness and meaningful communication and
involvement in planning for organisational development.
Douglas McGregor, who was working in the Union Carbide, is considered one of the first
behavioural scientists to systematically talking about and advocating for the implementation
of OD for organisational improvement. OD as a subject is relatively new. Notwithstanding, it
is becoming increasingly popular and visible in USA, UK, Japan, Norway, Sweden and even
in India.
In India, OD is in scene since 1968. Since then, many public and private sector organisations
like HAL, HMT, IDPL, LIC, SAIL, TELCO and TISCO have been applying the interventions
of OD to solve the organisational problems.
Organizational Development: Process, Important Goals and Steps
Organizational development is a strategy or an effort, which is planned and managed from
the top, to bring about planned organizational changes for increasing organizational
effectiveness through planned interventions based on social philosophy.
The following statement amply clarifies the need for OD in an organization.
Ever changing market and compulsion for new product development to remain competitive
are instrumental for organizational change in this globalized era, any organization,
unprepared for such change, is likely to face extinction. Thus continuous change is an
organizational imperative, and only OD can facilitate such change.
Important Goals of Organizational Development:
OD emphasizes the need for changing from the closed system to the open system by
inculcating various changes in the organization. Such changes inter alia, also include
introduction of concepts of social philosophy in the organization, which makes the
organization socially more responsible and transparent.
To supplement the authority and hierarchical role with knowledge and skills, and
replacing the traditional authority assigned role, which creates a more congenial work
environment, we need to take the following steps:
a. To build mutual trust and confidence in the organization for man managing and reducing
conflict
b. To change structure and roles inconsistent with accomplishment of goals
c. To encourage sense of ownership and pride in the organization
d. To decentralize decision making close to the source of activity
e. To emphasize on feedback, self-control, and self-direction

f. To develop the spirit of cooperation, mutual trust, and confidence
g. To develop a reward system based on the achievement of goals and development of people
It is apparent from the above discussion that the goal of OD is basically to change the
attitudes of the people in the organization so as to enable them to identify the change areas
and implement the desired organizational changes on their own.
Steps in Organizational Development:
Robert Blake and Jane S. Mouton (1963) suggested a six-phase approach to OD as given
below:
1. Each member of the organization investigating his own managerial style
2. Examination of boss-subordinate relationship
3. Analysis of work team action
4. Exploration of coordination issues of inter-related terms
5. Identifying and defining major organizational problem area
6. Planning for executing agreed-upon solutions that will result in changes in the organization
However, OD effort progresses through a series of well-defined stages, which can be
enumerated as follows:
Identifying and diagnosing the problem:
Required changes in relation to various units in the organization should be identified and
diagnosed, duly examining the feedback from employees. Effective identification and
diagnosis of the problem should be preceded by an employee survey.
Developing strategy:
While developing appropriate strategy, it is necessary to study people, sub-systems, and
organization as a total system. Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization in the
long run, matching the resources and the changing environment.
Implementing the programme:
OD programme should be implemented in a phased manner, that is, it should be tried at the
outset only in a small part of the organization and only on getting positive results should it
gradually be implemented in the total organization. Since total organizational change
precedes attitudinal changes, changes in values, and beliefs of the people, the initial thrust
should be given to training of employees, improvement of their skills, developing self-
awareness, improving inter-personal relationships, reducing conflict, etc.

Reviewing the progress of the programme:
A qualified person who is not involved in designing and developing the OD programme
should preferably do the review of the OD programme to give an unbiased opinion.
OD Interventions
How to bring about OD? The answer is through OD interventions. Interventions are the set of
structural activities in which selected organizational units, be individual or their groups,
engaged with a task or a sequence of tasks.
Goals are related directly or indirectly to organisational improvement. For this an umpteen
number of alternative OD intervention methods exist. One way of classifying these methods,
for the convenience of readers, is by the target of change. In practice, the target of change
may be the individuals, their groups within the organisation, or organisation itself OD
interventions aimed at these three targets are discussed in seriatim.
1. Individual-Focused Interventions:
OD interventions that are targeted toward individuals include skill training, job redesign, role
negotiation and carrier planning.
Sensitivity Training:
Also called T-group training or-laboratory training, sensitivity training is designed to help
individuals understand how their behaviour affects others. Members are brought together in a
free and open environment in which participants discuss themselves.
The discussion is loosely directed by a professional behavioural scientist called facilitator.
The facilitator intervenes only to help move the group forward. The objective of sensitivity
training is to increase sensitivity toward others. The outcome of such training should,
therefore, help employees understand others better, become aware of their own feelings and
perceptions, and improve communication.
Skill Training:
Skill training refers to increasing the job knowledge, skills and abilities that are necessary to
do a job effectively. Skill training is imparted’ either in formal classroom setting or on the job
The need for imparting skill training is aroused due to the rapid changes that organisations
face.
The job knowledge, therefore, needs to be continuously updated to keep pace with rapid
change. The objective of training is to enable a worker to be more effective on the job. For
example, while new workers can be trained to achieve levels of output attained by
experienced older workers, existing workers can be retained to improve their output at par.
Job Redesign:

As an OD intervention, job redesign alters jobs to improve the fit between individual skills
and the demands of the job. Examples of job redesign interventions include job enlargement,
job enrichment, and job simplification and job rotation. These job redesign methods are used
as OD techniques for realigning task demands and individual capabilities, or for redesigning
jobs to fit new techniques or organisation structures better.
Role Negotiation:
Sometimes, group members have differing expectations of one another within the working
relationship.. Role negotiation is a simple technique whereby individuals meet and clarify
their psychological contract. In doing this, the expectations of each party are clarified and
negotiated. The outcome of role negotiation is improved understanding between the
members.
Career Planning:
Career Planning refers to matching an individual’s career aspirations with the opportunities
available in the organisation. In other words, it involves activities offered by the organisation
to individuals to identify strength, weaknesses, specific goals that they would like to occupy.
Career planning activities benefit both individuals and organisations. Counselling sessions
are held to help employees identify their skills and deficiencies in their skills.
The organisation then can plan its training and development programmes based on this
information to improve individual’s skills required for assuming higher responsibilities. Such
a process may help the organisation identify and also nurture the talented employees for
potential promotion.
Management Development Training:
Management development encompasses a host of techniques designed to enhance a
manager’s skills on the job. Training for management development generally focuses on four
types of learning: verbal information, intellectual skills, attitudes and development.
One way to achieve development is through the use of action learning, i.e., an integration of
classroom learning with on-the-job experiences. Action learning enables managers to know
about themselves through the challenges of their comrades. Simulation, business games, role
playing, and case studies are other techniques that provide active learning for the participants.
2. Organisation and Group-Focused Interventions:
OD intervention methods aimed at changing the organisation itself or changing the work-
groups within the organisations include survey feedback, management by objectives, quality
of work life, team building, and process consultation.
These are discussed briefly hereunder:
Survey Feedback:

Widely used intervention method whereby employee attitudes are -solicited using a
questionnaire is known as Survey Feedback. The questions included in the questionnaire
intend to diagnose the problems within the organisation and to identify areas or opportunities
for change. The data so generated is perceptual and attitudinal in nature.
The data is tabulated and distributed to employees. These data then become the springboard
for identifying problems and clarifying issues that may be creating difficulties for people.
Generally “feedback” of results is given only to the group which generated the data. Thus,
once the problems are diagnosed, necessary corrective measures are taken to resolve the
organisational problems. After sometimes, a second survey is conducted to measure
improvement in the situation.
Management by Objectives (MBO):
Management by objectives (MBO) involves joint goal setting between employees and
managers. The MBO process includes the setting of initial objectives, periodic progress
reviews, and problem solving to remove any obstacles to goal achievement. All these steps
are joint efforts between managers and employees.
Viewed as an OD intervention, MBO meets three needs. First, it clarifies what an
organisation expects of its employees. Second, it provides knowledge of results, an essential
ingredient in effective job performance. Third, MBO provides an opportunity for coaching
and counselling by the manager. The outcomes of MBO as an OD intervention are
improvement in the levels of performance, meaningful communication and increased
participation in decision making. The success of MBO in affecting organisational results
hinges on the linking of individual goals of the organisation.
Quality of Work Life (QWL):
Like other behavioural terms, there have been divergent views as to what really QWL is.
According to one view QWL consists of a whole parcel of terms and notions all of which
really belong to an umbrella of QWL. QWL as an umbrella concept encompasses literally
dozens of specific interventions that have a common goal of humanizing the workplace.
Davis and Newstorm have perceived a wide range of QWL activities as open communication,
equitable reward systems, a concern for employee-job security and participation in job
design.
The International Labour Office (ILO) has listed the following interventions of QWL:
1. Hours of Work and arrangements of working time.
2. Working organisation and job content.
3. Impact of new technologies on working conditions.
4. Working conditions of women, young workers, older workers and other special categories.
5. Work-related welfare services and facilities.

6. Shopfloor participation in the improvement of working conditions.
Any comprehensive list of QWL programmes would encompass job redesign, participative
management, and involving unions, education, training and legislative measures”. The
overriding purpose of these interventions is to change the climate at work so that a better
quality of work life is created.
3. Team Building:
You know organisation are made up of people working together to achieve a common end.
People require working in groups. Hence, there is a need in OD for team building. Team
building as an OD intervention is designed to improve the effectiveness of a work group. It
usually begins with defining the goals and priorities of the group.
Following four areas in team building are critical to the success of the interventions:
1. Team building should develop effective communication between the members.
2. Team building should encourage members’ interaction and also mutual interdependence.
3. Team building should emphasize team goals.
4. Team building should stress flexibility. It should exemplify effective and ineffective team-
work.
Team building, though a relatively new intervention, is a very popular OD intervention. A
research study indicated that human resource managers considered team building the most
successful OD intervention”. Further, team building also helps improve group process.
Process Consultation:
In reality, no organisation operates perfectly. When managers sense that there is room for
improving their unit’s performance, but do not know how to improve it, the process
consultation comes to their rescue. Pioneered by Edgar Schein”, process consultation is an
OD method that helps managers and employees improve processes that are used in
organisations.
The distinguishing feature of process consultation approach is that an outside consultant is
used to assist usually a manager to perceive, understand and act on process events with which
he or she must deal. The process consultant does not solve the organisation’s problem.
Rather, he or she acts as a guide or coach who advises on the process to help the clients or
managers solve their own problems.
The role of the consultant is to help employees help themselves. The processes most often
targeted are communication, conflict resolution, decision making, group interaction, and
leadership. The steps involved in process consultation are entering the organisation, defining
the relationship, choosing an approach, gathering data and diagnosing problems, intervening,
and gradually leaving the organization.

Having described various OD methods, we come to recognize that the organisation
development methods or interventions are just means to an end. Interventions themselves do
not drive change, business needs do. The OD methods are merely vehicles for moving the
organisations and its employees in a more effective direction.
Action Research Model of OD
What is action research? It is a research with a purpose to facilitate the present to reach the
future.
French and Bell have defined action research as follows:
“Action research is the 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 action by altering selected variables within the system based both on the
data and on hypothesis, and evaluating the results of actions by collecting more data”.
Thus, action research refers to searching of actions with an objective to help the organisation
achieve its goals. Action research involves continuous series of activities to be undertaken in
the organisation to find a solution for the problem. Viewed from this perspective, action
research is viewed as a process of OD. Various activities involved in action research process
of OD are presented in Figure 12.3.
It is clear from Figure 12.3 that action research model of OD has certain cyclical and
continuous steps. It starts with the perception of the problem in the organisation. This sets
stage for intervention by some behavioural consultant to diagnose the problem.
The consultant may be an internal or external one, but needs to be unbiased, realistic and
objective in diagnosing the problem. Data collection is the first step in problem diagnosis.
The required data may be collected either by interview method or questionnaire method or a
combination of both. Once the data is collected, the consultant discusses these data with
executives to diagnose the problem.
Having identified and diagnosed the problem, the next activity in the action research is to
prepare the organisation for appropriate intervention techniques. Feedback based on data
discussion is then made available to larger number of executives to solicit their comments on
it. Then, a planned action is devised but is kept confined to a specific system only. Once the

devised and suggested intervention action is implemented, it becomes necessary to evaluate
its effectiveness.
In case, the intervention turns out to be ineffective, again data is collected discussed and
revised action or intervention is searched out, carried out and evaluated. This process goes on
and on till the organisational goal is achieved effectively.
Popular Models of OD
Among the models of OD developed by the behavioural scientists, the following three models
are very popularly discussed in organizational behavior.
They are:
1. Kurt Lewin’s Unfreezing, Changing and Refreezing Model,
2. Greiner’s Equential Models, and
3. Leavitt’s System Model
These are discussed in seriatim.
Lewin’s Model:
Lewin’s model is based on premises that before actually introducing a change organisation
needs to be prepared for change, motivated to change and established and integrated the
change into behaviours of organisation Accordingly, Lewin has nomenclature these steps as
unfreezing, changing and refreezing. A brief description of these follows.
Unfreezing:
No change occurs in a vacuum of no prior perspective. To the extent the new perspective
differs from the old one, the old one then implies doubting of its own existence. This
necessitates unlearning of old things in order to learn new things. The same is called
unfreezing. Unfreezing involves encouraging individuals to discard old behaviours by
shaking up the equilibrium that maintains status quo. Thus, unfreezing implies creating the
need for change, motivating people for change and minimising resistance to change.
Changing:
Having unlearned his past experience, the individual is ready for new behaviour and a change
in perspective. Efforts are made to substitute new attitudes, values and behaviours for old
ones. This implies transition from old behaviour to experimentation with new behaviour.
Refreezing:
In this final step, new attitudes, values, and behaviours are established as the new status quo.
For this, the new ways of operating are cemented in and reinforced. This implies stabilizing

and integrating the change by reinforcing the new behaviours and integrating them into
formal and interpersonal relationships and in one’s personality.
Larry Griener’s Model:
According to Griener, change occurs in terms of certain sequential stages. The external
stimulus pressurises the management of organisation to initiate change process. The manage-
ment in response to stimulus is motivated to take actions to introduce change in organisation.
Following the actions, the various change stages occur in a sequential manner such as
diagnosis of the problem, invention of a new solution, experimentation with new solution and
reinforcement from positive results.
Greiner’s these OD sequential stages are shown in figure 12.1.
Leavitt’s Model:
Leavitt’s OD Model is founded on the interactive nature of the various subsystems in a
change process. In an organisational system, there are four interacting sub-systems- tasks,
structure, people and technology. Due to their interacting nature, change in any one of the
sub-systems tends to have consequences for the other sub-systems also.
Change in any one of the sub-systems can be worked out depending upon the situation. How
the various sub-systems, according to Leavitt, interact with each other in a change processes
depicted in the following figure

Organisation development

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