UNIT III

ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION
Organisational development can be described as a long range effort to improve organisation’s
problem solving and renewal processes, particularly through more effective and collaborative
management of organisational culture
OD differs from traditional consulting because client involvement is encouraged throughout
the entire process. The ways in which people communicate and work together are addressed
concurrently with technical or procedural issues that need resolution.
Organisational development (OD) can play a vital part in harnessing the collective talent of
an organisation, bringing about change and improving performance. It involves taking
planned steps to create an environment that will enable the staff to understand and deliver the
organisation’s objectives.
These steps include developing appropriate skills, behaviours and attitudes, culture and a
style of leadership that will enable the organisation to achieve optimum performance.
A clear sense of direction, strong leadership and a focus on people management issues
including the management of performance and the promotion of learning, development,
creativity and innovation are essential.
For organisational development to deliver significant performance improvement, there is a
need to develop staff with the right skills to help champion OD throughout the organisation
and encourage wide participation and ownership of the continuous improvement process
among staff and other stakeholders.

DEFINITIONS OFORGANISATIONAL DEVELOMENT

Organisational development is a system-wide application of behavioural science knowledge
to the planned development and reinforcement of organisational strategies, structures, and
processes for improving an organisation’s effectiveness.”(Cummings and Worley)

TYPES OF EVALUATION
Formative evaluation: It improves the situations which is being evaluated
and helps by examining the delivery of the program and the quality of its
implementation and also by assessing the organisational context. The purpose
of the formative evaluation is to make sure that the programme is well
developed. This uses methods like stakeholders consultation, need assessment,
collaborative group process etc. It facilitates group discussion with stakeholders
interviewing stakeholders about the program implementation and reporting
about the development and determines who needs the program, how much
it is needed and what might work to meet the need.

2) Implementation evaluation: This monitors the fidelity of the program. It

sees how effectively the program is being delivered. Review of past research
literature and experience-It reviews what is already known about the type of
program or intervention being used and using this to improve the outcomes
model for the program. Monitoring and evaluation of data collected-new data
collected their protocols need to be put in a place for further evaluation
otherwise it will have its impact on the outcome.

3) Summative evaluation: In contrast to the former ones, this examines the

effects or outcome of some situation. It describes what happens subsequent
to delivery of the program, assessing the caused outcome and determining the
overall impact of the causal factor. Beyond it the only immediate target
outcomes and estimating the relative costs associated with the situation. This
may be further categorized in to the following:

a) Outcome evaluation: Which investigate the program caused demonstrate

effects on specifically targeted outcomes.

Impact evaluation: This is broader in sense and assess the overall

effects, intended or unintended of the program as a whole.
c) Cost effectiveness and cost benefit: It focus on the questions of
efficiency by standardizing outcomes in terms of their costs and values.
d) Secondary analysis: Secondary analysis reexamines the existing data
to address new questions and use new methods which are previously
used.
e) Meta analysis: It integrates the outcome estimates from multiple studies
and arrive at an overall judgment on an evaluation question.
Even though evaluation is a potent and necessary tool considered for measuring the
development phenomena in the organisations. Impact of all evaluation can only be perceived
with the organisational output. There must be a continuous loop that links organisation to
performance gap identification to the final evaluation of the programme.

Basic Values And Assumptions

Respect People:

 People are the heart, limbs and brain of the organization. They are responsible for
creating opportunities for growth. They are the one who can act together to achieve
organizational goals. Hence they must be treated with respect and dignity.

Confidence and Support:

 Trust among people is very important for the growth of the organization. A trust can
only be created among people when they have confidence in each other and also
 support each other. Thus the people in the organization are to be believed and
supported in order to have an effective organization.
 The healthy environment prevails when people are trusted and taken into confidence
and necessary support is extended to them as and when needed.

Confrontation:

 In case of any confrontation or conflict should be dealt with openness without

suppressing it. Suppression leads to dampening of morale.
 To avoid conflict or to get easy, earlier and amicable solution Identify the problem
and its causes, discuss it openly with concerned people and find out a feasible
solution. It boosts the morale of the employees and also creates a good environment.

Employee Participation:

 People react to how they are treated. The participation of employees who will get
affected by the Organisational Development should be sought in decision-making.
Hence any change can be implemented easily.

Seeking Cooperation:

 Managers should seek cooperation from each of the employees working under him in
his department. This shows the democracy in the organization. The employees feel
that their opinion also counts and hence they take part in organizational activities with
vigour.
 It creates an atmosphere of cooperation and leads to organizational effectiveness. It
also increases the willingness to accept the changes due to the organisation
development process.

Expression:

 The organization gains from the differences in quality, ideas, opinions, outlook, and
experiences of its people. Human beings should be allowed to express their feelings
and sentiments. This will result in building up high morale and the people will be
motivated towards hard work ultimately resulting in increased efficiency

Assumptions of Organization Development

1. Individuals assumptions
2. Groups assumptions
3. Organizations assumptions

Individuals assumptions

Some assumptions which are related to different individuals are listed below:

 People want to grow and nature

 Employees have much to offer (e.g.: energy and creativity) that is not how
being used at work.
  Most employees desire the opportunity to contribute they desire
Groups assumptions

Every group has many assumptions. In this part, three assumptions have been underlined.

 Groups and teams are critical to organizational success.

 Groups have been powerful influences on individual behaviour.
 The complex roles to be played in groups require skill development.

Organization assumptions

A few assumptions are prevailing regarding the organization also. These are as follows:

 Excessive controls, policies, and rules and determined.

 Conflict can be functional if properly channelled.
 Individual and organizational goals can be compatible.

foundations of OD- Process

Organisational development as-an ongoing interactive and continues
process: The ongoing process nature of organisational development implies
that it is not to be regarded as a one-shot solution to organisational problems,
but more as a growing toward greater effectiveness through a series of
intervention activities over a time period. Managing and directing the change
of an organisation’s culture and process does not happen overnight, rather (a
more realistic time estimate) it may take several years.
Understanding about organisational development is greatly facilitated by viewing it as an
ongoing interactive process. A process is an identifiable flow of interrelated events moving
over time toward some goal or end. The interrelated event consists of interventions in the
client system as also responses to these interventions. It also includes the dynamic, moving
and changing things, in which people can learn the new skills or revised the old ones.
Organisational development is a continuous process in the sense that, in organisational
development how things are done is as much important as what is done. In order to solve
problems and to create future problem solving capabilities we need organisational
development or the self-renewing and culture managing capabilities among the organisational
personnel.
2) Organisational development as a form of applied behavioural science:
An organisational development program applies the scientific and practice
principles from several behavioural sciences, social psychology, social
anthropology, sociology, psychiatry, economic and political science. It can be
define as the application of behaviour science knowledge, practices and skills
on ongoing systems in collaboration with system members. Organisational
development is both a result of applied behavioural science as well as a form
of behavioural science.
3) Organisational development as normative re-educative change: It is a
process for improvement organisational effectiveness; it implies that things will
be done in a different style which requires usually changing its processes and
culture. These types of organisational changes are desired by the people who
will be affected, which open up alternatives for action rather than closing off
alternatives for the same. Organisational development has three types of
strategies for the organisation change i.e. empirical- rational strategy; normative
strategy; and power-coercive strategy. Normative strategy is more popular in
organisation settings and it can be cover other two types of strategies. This
strategy is based on the assumption that norms form the basis for behaviour
and change comes through a re-education process in which outmoded norms
are supplanted by new ones. Changes in normative orientations involve changes
in attitudes, values, skills and significant relationships, not just changes in
knowledge, information or intellectual rationales for action and practice. For
example if we want to introduce the Wikipedia system in our organisation first
of all we have to introduce and train to our employees and also to re-educate
them about changing their existing norms and beliefs about computers that
their application will not result in retrenchment of personnel or loss of jobs
in the country.
4) Organisational development includes the incorporating a systems
approach to organisations: The term ‘system’ may refer either an entire
organisation or a sub-system such as an academic department or the group
of teachers. The focus is always on improving both the ability of a system to
cope and the relationships of the system with subsystems and with the
environment. It is always noted that the systems approach is one for the
foundations of an organisational development; a significant step was taken
toward the invention of organisational development. Systems approach
emphasises organisation phenomena and dynamics in their interaction. This
is approach is useful to understanding of organisation.

5) Organisational development is based on an action research (data based)

model of planned changed: The action based or data based research
model is a significant facet in organisational development. Generally the nature
of data based change activities in organisation setting are different from others
data based or action based programmes. They can be different in the following
way:
In the organisational development functioning, the value of data is more important,
organisation personnel learn how to collect and save the data and they should have known the
utilisation of data for problem solving in organisations.
In organisational development programmes data about the organisation’s human and social
processes would be used more than the data about processes like

data in technical production, financial and marketing areas of the organisation system.
In organisational development settings data collected is meant to be used by the personnel
who collected the data, where as data is traditionally collected for the information of top
management only. The purpose of the data collection is to make the improvement in
organisation and make a plan for the future growth. This data based information also gives
the spring board for the building of action plans.
.
The strong data is a scientific way to collect the information. The decisions are made largely
on the basis of empirical facts rather than on the basis of power, position, tradition,
persuasion and precedent.
Data is an outcome of the needs and problems of the system members. This data itself will
ultimately supply answers to the central needs of the organisation members
.
6) Organisational development goes as an experience based learning mode
that emphasises goal setting and objectives:
The process of organisational development is based on experience and it emphasises that
people learn about organisational dynamics by living with their experiences and skills.
In this system the personnel learn to make decisions by making decisions and
then evaluating the same so that they may learn how to make adequate
decisions in future.
They can also learn to manage conflicts after experiencing
the ill effects of conflicts and contra productive behaviours. Organisational
development interventions tend to focus on real behaviour of individuals and
groups, for solving real world problems and also tend to derive generalisations
about organisations dynamics inductively from experience.
.

7) Organisational development concentrates on intact work teams as the

primary instruments for organisation’s improvement: These different
aspects of organisational development serve as foundations, characteristics, distinguishing
features or theoretical and practice underpinnings upon which the process has been built and
this foundation has played a significant contribution in shaping the practice of organisational
development.
Now a days the organisational development is shifting its own area of attention from one
person to intact work teams which is a move towards viewing organisations from a systems
approach that had brought organisational development into limelight. The above different
aspects of organisational development serve as the foundation upon which the process is
built, and the foundation has played a significant role in shaping the practice of organisational
development.

OD Strategy: Five Phases

TD professionals should integrate OD skills with the growing number of

L&D, performance improvement, and talent management solutions focused upon
increasing organizational effectiveness. The process used by OD practitioners to
design and implement organizational development strategies is structured in five
phases:
1. Entry represents the initial contact between consultant and client in which
they present, explore, and identify the problem, opportunities, or situation.
The output of this phase is an engagement contract or project plan that
establishes mutual expectations and preliminary agreements about project
scope (such as time, money, and resources).
2. Diagnosis (assessment) represents the fact-finding phase. It is a
collaborative data gathering process between organizational stakeholders
and the consultant in which relevant information about the presenting
problem is gathered, analysed, and reviewed.
3. Feedback represents the return of analysed information to the client or client
system; exploration of the information for understanding, clarity, and
accuracy; review of preliminary agreements about scope and resource
requirements; and the beginning of ownership of data by the client. The
output of this phase is typically an action plan that outlines the change
solutions to be developed, along with defined success indicators based on
the information and data analysis.
4. Solution represents the design, development, and implementation of the
solution or set of solutions meant to correct the problems, close gaps,
improve or enhance organizational performance and effectiveness, or seize
opportunities. Outputs may include a communication plan, a role-and-
responsibility matrix, a training plan, a training curriculum, an
implementation plan, a risk management plan, an evaluation plan, or a
change management plan.<.li>
5. Evaluation represents the continuous process of collecting formative and
summative evaluation data to determine whether the initiative is meeting the
intended goals and achieving defined success indicators. Outputs generally
include an evaluation report with recommendations for continuous
improvement.
Organizational diagnosis-Process-stages- Techniques
Communication pattern, styles and flows: This mainly focuses on the
most important aspect in an organisation that is the communication process.
This will mainly highlight issues like who talks to whom how long about what,
who initiates. Is communication directed upward or downward or both are
they filtered why in what way?

The methods used for data collection may be observations, questionnaire, interviews and
discussions with groups

2) Goal setting: Goal setting is yet another important function in an organisation.

Setting task objectives and determining criteria to measure accomplishments
of objectives is the main focus with regard to diagnosis here. The questions
that arise in this context are Do they set goals how is done? Who participates
in goal setting? Do they posses the necessary skills.
Questionnaires, interviews and observation can be used for data collection with regard to
collecting information about goal setting.
3) Decision making, problem solving and action planning: It is important
to diagnose the decision making, problem solving and action planning in an
organisation as these functions will directly lead to achievement of goals in an
organisation. Also evaluating alternatives and choosing a plan of action are
integral function for most organisation members. Questions asked in this regard
are who makes decisions? Are they effective? Are all available sources utilised?
With regard to methods of data collection, observation of problem solving
meetings at various organisational levels can be used.
4) Conflict resolution and management: In this regard Conflict interpersonal,
intrapersonal and intergroup frequently exists in organisations are taken in to
consideration. Questions that arise are where does conflict exist? Who are
the involved parties? How is it being managed?
Interviews, third party observations and observation meetings are some of the methods that
can be used in this context.
5) Managing interface relations: Interfaces represent the situations wherein
two or more groups face common overlapping problems. The questions
highlighted here are what is the nature of the relations between two groups?
Are goals clear is responsibility clear?
6) Superior subordinate relations: This mainly focuses on the formal
hierarchical relations in organisations dictate that some people lead and other
follow. This relationship is again important for goal achievement and smooth
functioning of an organisation. The questions that arise here are what are the
extant leadership styles? What problems arise between superiors and
subordinates?
Questionnaires can be used to collect data here.
7) Technological and engineering systems: All organisations rely on multiple
technologies for production and operations for information processing and
thus diagnosing technological and engineering systems is of utmost importance.
Some important questions here are, are the technologies adequate for
satisfactory performance?
Interviews and group discussions focusing on technology are among the best ways to
determine the adequacy.
8) Strategic management and long range planning: Monitoring the
environment, adding and deleting products, predicting future events and making
decisions are some of the functions that fall under this process. Who is
responsible for looking range decisions? Do they have adequate tools and support? are some
of the questions highlighted in this context.
Interviews of key policy makers’ group discussion and examination of historical records may
be used to collect relevant data.
9) Organisational learning: This diagnosis is mainly concerned with the learning
climate in an organisation. The questions that arise are what are our strengths
problem areas? What observation ideas suggestions are available from all
organisational members?
Interviews, questionnaires, group methods of diagnosis examination of assumptions and
culture can be used to collect information in this regard.