THE FOUNDATIONS AND FUTURE OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT

Presented by Sandhya Johnson

Discussion Topics

Section I – Foundations of Organization DevelopmentOrigins of OD

The system aspects of OD

Timeline and contributions of key OD Thinkers

Section II – Future Directions of Organization DevelopmentContrasting Diagnostic and Dialogic Organization Development

A “new” OD – Implications for the OD field

Concluding Thoughts

IntroductionDefining Organization Development

Characteristics and Values of OD

Defining Organization Development

Warrick, D. D. (2005) Organization development from the view of the Experts, in Rothwell, W J and Sullivan, Roland (pages 164-186).

Theorist Definition WHAT HOW WHY WHO

Beckhard (1969) An effort (1) planned, (2) organization-wide, (3) managed from the top, to increase organizational effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in the organization’s processes using behavioral science knowledge

Planned effort, organization-wide interventions

Using behavioral science knowledge

To increase organizational effectiveness and health

Managed from the top

Cole (1973) Organization development is the knowledge and skill necessary to implement a program of planned change using behavioral science concepts for the purpose of building greater organizational effectiveness

Program of planned change

Using behavioral science concepts

To build greater organizational effectiveness

Burke (1982) Organization development is a long-range effort to improve an organization’s problem solving and renewal processes, particularly through a more effective and collaborative management of an organization’s culture, with special emphasis on the culture of formal work teams, and with the assistance of a change agent, or catalyst, and the use of the theory and technology of behavioral science, including action research

Long-range effort

Assistance of a change agent, or catalyst, and the use of the theory and technology of behavioral science, including action research

To improve an organization’s problem solving and renewal processes, through a more effective and collaborative management of an organization’s culture, with special emphasis on the culture of formal work teams

French & Bell (1999) Organization development is a long-term effort, led and supported by top management, to improve an organization’s visioning, empowerment, learning, and problem-solving processes, through an ongoing, collaborative management of organization culture-with special emphasis on the culture of intact work teams and other team configurations – using the consultant-facilitator role and the theory and technology of applied behavioral science, including action research

Long-range effort

using the consultant-facilitator role and the theory and technology of applied behavioral science, including action research

to improve an organization’s visioning, empowerment, learning, and problem-solving processes

Led and supported by top management

Bradford, Burke, Seashore, & Worley (2004)

Organization development is a system-wide and values-based collaborative process of applying behavioral science knowledge to the adaptive development, improvement, and reinforcement of such organizational features as the strategies, structures, processes, people, and cultures that lead to organizational effectiveness

system-wide and values-based process

applying behavioral science knowledge

adaptive development, improvement, and reinforcement of such organizational features as the strategies, structures, processes, people, and cultures that lead to organizational effectiveness

collaborative

Characteristics and Values of Organization Development

Warrick, D. D. (2005) Organization development from the view of the Experts, in Rothwell, W J and Sullivan, Roland (pages 164-186).

1. Recognizes what you change and how you change as equally important and emphasizes health, effectiveness, and adaptability of an organization.

2. OD can be used with all sizes of organizations and at all levels of an organization

3. Recognizes the dynamic process of change and that change takes time and quick fix solutions rarely last.

4. Approaches change from systems or big picture perspective and considers interrelatedness of various systems and components.

5. OD is an interdisciplinary approach and draws heavily from behavioral science knowledge.

6. OD is data driven.7. OD uses action research process and involves key stake

holders.8. OD is typically facilitated by professionally trained change

agents who believe in helping others to discover solutions to their own issues than dictating what should be done.

9. OD is a value driven approach that seeks to instill values and build cultures that bring out the best in people.

10. OD is collaborative top down and bottom up process.11. OD is an education based strategy.12. OD is committed to transference of knowledge and skills13. OD emphasizes the importance of reliable feedback in

monitoring and managing the change process.

Warrick (2005) from his research on OD identified the following 13 characteristics and 15 values of OD

1. Development2. Professionalism3. Helping people and organizations4. Respect to all individuals5. Inclusion, collaboration and participation6. Open , honest and candid communications7. Authenticity8. Inquiry9. Community10. Diversity11. Personal and organization awareness, growth and learning12. Experimentation13. Creating a realistic hope14. Integrity15. Confidentiality

Characteristics of OD Values of OD

The Foundations of Organization Development

SECTION I

Origins of OD Timeline

OD started with small groups and action research as a means for creating organizational change. This was followed by an emphasis on changing the individual and leadership. Finally there was recognition that change had to be done with taking the whole system into account both internally and externally. This is how the field presents itself today.

Rothwell, W. J. and Sullivan,Rolland (2005), Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Consultants, Second edition, San Francisco, Pfeiffer, John Wiley and Sons.

Linking the System Characteristics of Healthy Organizations to Organization Development

effortsConceptualizing Organizations as Systems

Characteristics of Healthy Organizations 

Characteristics of OD efforts Operational Goals of OD Conditions that call for OD efforts

Open System(composed of several parts, which are in interaction with one another)

Organization and its parts interact with each other and with a larger environment.

Organization maintains integrity and uniqueness in an interdependent environment

There is a planned program involving the whole system

Goals are related to the organization’s mission

To develop a self-renewing viable system

Incomplete understanding of the multiple causes of a problem

Need to change cultural norms

Boundaries(permeable boundaries from which energy, matter, or information are exchanged)

Form follows function (the problem, or task, or project determines how the human resources are organized)

OD efforts work primarily with groups

To organize itself differently depending on the task

 

Coping with a problem after a merger or acquisition

Need to change structure and roles

Improve inter-group collaboration

Feedback Mechanisms(Various parts or components adjust to other parts or components)

Communication is undistorted. People share facts including feelings

Individuals and groups learn from their own experiences

Usually relies on some form of experienced-based learning activities

Activities are action oriented

To build in continuous feedback regarding the way a system or subsystem is operating

To reach a point where decisions are made based on the source of information rather than role

Need to change managerial strategy

Need to make the organizational climate more consistent with individual needs and the needs of the environment

Entropy(running down of the system if sources of energy are not maintained – i.e. human effort and motivation)

Individuals manage their work against goals and plans for achievement of these goals

Constant efforts exist at all levels to resolve conflict situations

Focuses on changing attitudes and/or behavior

To create conditions is brought out and managed

Change in motivation of the workforce

Need for better planning

Homeostasis (maintains internal balances when faced with internal / external threats)

An internal climate of support and freedom from threat

It is a long-term effort The top of the organization

is committed to the program

To move toward high collaboration and low competition between interdependent units

Adaptation to new environment

Timeline of Key OD Thinkers

Group Process Consultation

Eric Trist

Laboratory Training

 

SurveyFeedback

The Tavistock Method

Kurt Lewin

Wilfred Bion

Socio-Technical Systems

 

1940 - 1959 1960 - 1979

Rensis Likert

 

1980 -1999

Appreciative Inquiry

David Cooperrider

Future Search

Marvin Weisbord

Open Space

Harrison Owen

2000 - Current

Edgar Schein

 

FIRST WAVE (Pioneers)

SECOND WAVE

Winner 2011: Outstanding Global work Award (OD Network)

Contributions of Key OD ThinkersFIRST WAVE

(Pioneers)SECOND WAVE

1. Kurt Lewin (Laboratory Training): First laboratory-training sessions The concept of T-groups (“here-and-now” sessions) Small group trainings initially called “sensitivity

training sessions,” designed to sensitize participants to the forces of group dynamics (like decision making and conflict resolution)

2. Wilfred Bion (Tavistock Method): Presented the notion that when the leader fails to

take responsibility for the group’s output, participants will predictably react to the authority figure with one of three behavioral options – fight, flight, or pairing.

When the leader takes responsibility, the participants are more likely to respond with a fourth option that Bion called work.

3. Eric Trist (Socio-Technical Systems): An organization is simultaneously a social (i.e.

people who interact) and a technical system (those systems that produce something tangible).

4. Rensis Likert (Survey Research and Feedback): Demonstrated how information can be collected from

members of an organization and used as the basis for participative problem solving and action planning

Advocated pursuit of a norm for organizational functioning (System 4) that has since prompted others to pursue similar norms for organizations.

1. David Cooperrider (Appreciative Inquiry): A method that looks at the positive aspects of “what is

working” in the organization through storytelling and extrapolates from these stories the “more” that is needed to sustain the positive into the future. Combines data collection with large-group meetings where the stories gathered are used as building blocks to design new initiatives for the future.

2. Edgar Schein (Process Consultation): Indicates that consultants should ask the following questions

about communication in the team: (1) who communicates? How often? For how long? (2) Who communicates to whom? (3) Who talks to whom? Who interrupts whom?

3. Marvin Weisbord (Future Search): Planning meeting that helps people transform their capability

for action very quickly. People tell stories about their past, present and desired future. Through dialogue they discover their common ground. Only then do they make concrete action plans.

4. Harrison Owen (Open Space Technology): Comes from research dealing with self-organization,

complex adaptive systems, etc. Participant chairs arranged in a circle; a "bulletin board" of

issues and opportunities posted by participants; a "marketplace" with many breakout spaces that participants move freely between, learning and contributing as they "shop" for information and ideas; a "breathing" or "pulsation" pattern of flow, between plenary and small-group breakout sessions.

Future Directions of Organization Development

SECTION II

Contrasting Diagnostic and Dialogic

Organization DevelopmentDIAGNOSTIC OD DIALOGIC OD

Influenced by Classical science, positivism, and modernist philosophy

Interpretive approaches, social constructionism, critical and postmodern philosophy

Dominant organizational construct Organizations are like living systems

Organizations are meaning-making systems

Ontology and epistemology Reality is an objective factThere is a single realityTruth is transcendent and discoverableReality can be discovered using rational and analytic processes

Reality is socially constructedThere are multiple realitiesTruth is immanent and emerges from the situationReality is negotiated and may involve power and political processes

Constructs of Change Usually teleologicalCollecting and applying valid data using objective and problem-solving methods leads to changeChange can be created, planned, and managedChange is episodic, linear, and goal oriented

Often dialogical or dialecticalCreating containers and processes to produce generative ideas leads to changeChange can be encouraged but is mainly self-organizingChange may be continuous and/or cyclical

Focus of Change Emphasis on changing behavior and what people do

Emphasis on changing mindsets and what people think

Bushe, G. and Marshak, R.J. (2009). “Revisioning organization development: Diagnostic and dialogic premises and patterns of practices.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. Volume 45 (3)

Kegan’s Orders of Consciousness

Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

STAGE SUBJECT (Structure of Knowing)

OBJECT (Content of Knowing)

UNDERLYING STRUCTURE

1 Perceptions

SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS

Impulses

Movement

Sensation

Single point

2 Concrete

POINT OF VIEW

Enduring Dispositions

Perceptions

SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS

Impulses

Durable category

3Traditional

Abstractions

MUTUALITY/INTERPERSONALISM Relationship

Self-consciousness

Concrete

POINT OF VIEW

Enduring Dispositions

Cross categorical / Trans-categorical

4Modernism

Abstract Systems / Ideology

INSTITUTION Relationship-Regulating Forms

Self-authorship

Abstractions

MUTUALITY/INTERPERSONALISM Relationship

Self-consciousness

System / Complex

5Post-Modernism

Dialectical

INTER-INSTITUTIONAL

Self-transformation

Abstract Systems / Ideology

INSTITUTION Relationship-Regulating Forms

Self-authorship

Trans-System / Trans-complex

The Five Orders of OrganizationsEvolution of Organizations

OrganizationLevel

TeamLevel

IndividualLevel

LeadershipLevel

Underlying Assumptions

First order Organizations

Organization is secondary

Individualistic Obedience Autocratic / Command-and-control(Do as I say)

Price is the competitive advantage

Second order Organizations

Mechanistic, scientific management view of organizations

Work groups Loyalty Bureaucratic(Follow the rules)

Product is the competitive advantage

Third Order Organizations

Organization is a system

Intergroup relations Involvement Task Leader(Here is what to do and how to do it)

People are the competitive advantage

Fourth Order Organizations

Organization is a system of systems

Intercompany relationships

Engagement Facilitator(You are empowered)

Processes, Structures, and cutting edge technology are key to the success of an organization

Fifth Order Organizations

Organization is a dynamic web of complex systems

Geographically dispersed team / Virtual teams

Agility Builder of learning organization (Here is our purpose and direction – I will guide and coach)

Predictive Capabilities i.e. Customer / market intimacy and innovation are the main drivers of organizational success

Mapping OD approach and Methodologies to Order of Organizations

Orders of Organizations

Type of Organization

Type of OD Approach OD Methodology Level of Change

First order Organizations

N/A N/A N/A Change is not viewed as desirable

Second order Organizations

Mechanistic, scientific management view of organizations

Foundational OD: Values collaborative decision making, giving people in groups the opportunity to freely make informed choices

T-groups, task-oriented team development and other single cycle action research projects that focus on a group of individuals

Incremental (moderate adjustments to an individual or group)

Third Order Organizations

Organization as an open or living system

Diagnostic OD: Data is gathered to compare a given team or organization against a prescriptive model or desired future state.

Survey feedback, Socio-technical systems analysis, Process Consultation, and other diagnostic models that assume there are optimal kinds of organization-environment fit

Transactional / Evolutionary (Re-engineering and reinventing current organization-wide activities)

Fourth Order Organizations

Organization is a system of systems

Dialogic OD: Data is gathered and used for the purposes of presenting multiple possibilities and perspectives than bringing objective “facts” to bear on the situation or producing an objective diagnosis against an ideal model to change behaviors. Instead the greater emphasis is on reaching new social agreements or adopting new mindsets and, therefore, new realities to guide future actions.

Search Conferences (M. Emery & Purser, 1996), Future Search (Weisbord, 1993), World Café (Brown & Issacs, 2005), Open Space (Owen, 2008), Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider, 1995),

Transitional (significant change establishing a new organizational direction)

Fifth Order Organizations

Organization is a dynamic web of complex systems

Expanded Dialogic OD: Objective data is combined with unique insights into unexpressed needs to drive innovation and create new organizational models. Unanticipated opportunities are seized nimbly.

Emerging – still to be developed

Transformational (dynamic and quantum change establishing a new organizational direction, possibly including creating or recreating completely new business models)

Worley, C.G. & Feyerherm A.E. (2003) Reflections on the future of organizational development. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Volume 39, 97–115.

THEME DEFINITION… THE FIELD NEEDS… PERCENTAGE OF INTERVIEWEES

Less reliance on fads and techniques To rely a lot less on techniques and jumping on the latest fad 48

Collaboration within the field To do more bridging among different stakeholders within the social sciences and a lot more working together

43

Relevant approaches to change Approaches to change that add value and are relevant to the organization and its members

43

Personal and group development A lot more emphasis on individual and group-related interventions OR a lot less emphasis on these

43

Large systems focus A larger system focus 38

Understanding of organization development’s value orientations

A lot more values work OR needs to drop the whole values issue 33

More business knowledge To incorporate more business knowledge in its thinking 29

Taking a stance To take a stand on issues in organizations and with client systems and be less wishy-washy

24

More understanding of self as instrument

Individuals with a lot more understanding of who they are and their motivation for doing this work

19

Generating new ideas To develop new ideas and new ways of looking at organizations 14

Action learning To create methods and processes that promote learning 14

Working with power To learn to work with or against power in a system 9

Global competency To address cross-cultural and global issues 9

Reflections on the Future of Organization Development

Worley, C.G. & Feyerherm A.E. (2003) Reflections on the future of organizational development. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Volume 39, 97–115.

THEME Definition Percentage of interviewees

Large system fluency Understand and work with large systems, including large organizations and large groups of people

43

Consulting is saying the tough stuff Have the mind-set and ability to handle rejection and deliver tough messages to client

33

Ability to design Have the ability to understand how to design and redesign systems 28

Power and influence Be comfortable with power and using influence 24

Business Orientation Have more skills and knowledge about business and a line management orientation

24

Broad understanding Have a broader understanding of the world 24

Systems thinking Understand the way systems work and behave 24

Evaluate and research Have better research and evaluation skills 19

The necessity of practice / experience

Have more experience and fieldwork before they practice 19

Self-knowledge and exploration Have a solid understanding of their “self” and focus on their personal growth 19

Ability to deeply understand an organization

Have better diagnostic skills that get behind the issues into important, deep, and subtle aspects of the organization

14

Developing new models of change and organization

Have better models and new ideas about how organizations work and change 14

Considering multiple viewpoints Consider contrasting, conflicting, and cross-cultural perspectives 14

Ability to bring people together Be better at pulling people together for a common purpose 14

Core knowledge about the field Have a good knowledge about the field of organization development 14

In the Future, OD Practitioners Must…..

Concluding Thoughts

Concluding Thoughts

Organizational Development is practitioner driven

The discipline of physics has not abandoned classical Newtonian principles of the physical world in favor of the modern principles of quantum physics. Instead, physicists recognize the utility of both sets of principles for different levels of analysis. Likewise, the discipline of Organizational Development recognizes the importance of having a diverse set of tools and methodologies to address a wide range of organizational needs.

OD consultants need to recognize the order of the organization and employ methodologies and tools to more fully round out understanding of the phenomenon at hand.

Questions? Comments?