"Understanding Organization Development: Academic & Professional Practice for Change", Study notes of Organizational Development

Download "Understanding Organization Development: Academic & Professional Practice for Change" and more Study notes Organizational Development in PDF only on Docsity! 1 What Is Organization Development? Think for a moment about the organizations to which you belong. You probably have many to name, such as the company where you work, a school, perhaps a volunteer organization, or a reading group. You are undoubtedly influenced by many other organizations in your life, such as a health care organiza- tion like a doctor’s office or hospital, a church group, a child’s school, a bank, or the local city council or state government.Using an expansive definition of organization, you could name your own family or a group of friends as an organization that you belong to as well. With just a few moments’ reflection, you are likely to be able to name dozens of organizations that you belong to or that influence you. Now consider an organization that you currently do not belong to, but one that you were dissatisfied with at some point in the past.What was it about that organi- zation that made the experience dissatisfying? Perhaps you left a job because you did not have the opportunity to contribute that you would have liked. Maybe it was a dissatisfying team atmosphere, or you were not appreciated or recognized for the time and energy that you dedicated to the job. It could have been a change to your responsibilities, the team, or the organization’s processes. Some people report that they did not feel a larger sense of purpose at work, they did not have control or autonomy over their work, or they did not find an acceptable path to growth and career development. Perhaps you’ve witnessed or been part of an organization that has failed for some reason. Perhaps it went out of business or it disbanded because it could no longer reach its goals. You’ve likely had some excellent experiences in organizations, too. You may have had a job that was especially fulfilling or where you learned a great deal and coworkers became good friends. Maybe your local volunteer organization helped a number of people through organized fundraisers or other social services activities. CHAPTER 1 Perhaps you joined or started a local community group to successfully campaign against the decision of your local city council or school board. All of this is to demonstrate what you already know intuitively, that we spend a great deal of our lives working in, connected to, and affected by organizations. Some of these organizations function quite well, whereas others struggle. Some are quite rewarding environments in which to work or participate, but in others, orga- nizational members are frustrated, neglected, and disengaged. The purpose of this book is to introduce you to the field of organization devel- opment, an area of academic study and professional practice focused on making organizations better—that is, more effective and productive and at the same time more rewarding, satisfying, and engaging places in which to work and participate. By learning about the field of organization development and the process by which it is conducted, you will be a more effective change agent inside the organizations to which you belong. Organization Development Defined Organization development (OD) is an interdisciplinary field with contributions from business, industrial/organizational psychology, human resources manage- ment, communication, sociology, and many other disciplines. Not surprisingly, for a field with such diverse intellectual roots, there are many definitions of organiza- tion development. Definitions can be illuminating as they point us in a direction and provide a shared context for mutual discussion, but they can also be con- straining as certain concepts are inevitably left out with boundaries drawn to exclude some activities. What counts as OD thus depends on the practitioner and the definition, and these definitions have changed over time. In a study of 27 defi- nitions of organization development published since 1969, Egan (2002) found that there were as many as 60 different variables listed in those definitions. Nonetheless, there are some points on which definitions converge. One of the most frequently cited definitions of OD comes from Richard Beckhard (1969), an early leader in the field of OD: Organization development is an effort (1) planned, (2) organizationwide, and (3) managed from the top, to (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in the organization’s “processes,” using behavioral-science knowledge. (p. 9) Beckhard’s definition has many points that have survived the test of time, including his emphasis on organizational effectiveness, the use of behavioral science knowledge, and the inclusion of planned interventions in the organization’s functions. Some critique this definition, however, for its emphasis on planned change (many organizational changes, and thus OD efforts, are in response to envi- ronmental threats that are not so neatly planned) and its emphasis on the need to drive organizational change through top management. Many contemporary OD 2 ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT data gathering occurred in focus groups and individual interviews. The tremendous response rate of more than 90% gave the steering team a positive feeling about the engagement of the population, but the results of the survey indicated that a great deal of improvement was necessary. Many employees felt underappreciated, dis- trusted, and not included in key decisions or changes. Relationships withmanagement were also a concern as employees indicated few opportunities for communication with management and that jobs had become routine and dull. The steering team invited volunteers (employees and their management) to work on several of the central problems. One team worked on the problem of com- munication and proposed many changes that were later implemented, including a redesign of the office layout to improve circulation and contact among employees. As the teams continued discussions, they began to question standard practices and inefficiencies and to suggest improvements, eventually devising a list of almost 30 actions that they could take. Managers listened to employee suggestions, impressed by their insights. As one manager put it, “I have learned that a little encouragement goes a long way and people are capable of much more than given credit for in their normal everyday routine” (O’Brien, 2002, p. 450). The joint management-employee working teams had begun to increase collabora- tion and interaction among the two groups, with each reaching new insights about the other. As a result of the increased participation, “There appeared to be an enhanced acceptance of the change process, coupled with demands for better communications, increased involvement in decisionmaking, changed relationships with supervisors and improved access to training and development opportunities” (p. 451). Example 2: Senior Management Coaching at Vodaphone (Eaton & Brown, 2002) Vodaphone is a multibillion-dollar global communications technology com- pany headquartered in the United Kingdom and was an early leader in the mobile telephone market. Faced with increasing competition, the company realized that in order to remain innovative and a leader in a challenging market, the culture of the organization would need to adapt accordingly. Specifically, senior management realized that its current “command and control” culture of blame and political games would hinder collaboration and mutual accountability needed to succeed in a competitive environment. Instead, the company wanted to encourage a culture of empowered teams who made their own decisions and shared learning and devel- opment, speed, and accountability. Several culture initiatives were implemented, including the development of shared values, the introduction of IT systems that shared and exchanged informa- tion across major divisions that had hindered cross-functional learning, and the establishment of teams and a team-building program. To support the initiatives and encourage a new, collaborative management style, Vodaphone implemented a leadership coaching program. Through the program, top managers attended a program to learn skills in conducting performance reviews, helping employees set goals, and coaching teams. Following the program, managers had one-on-one coaching sessions with a professional coach who worked Chapter 1 What Is Organization Development? 5 with participants to help them set coaching goals and reflect on how successfully they were able to implement the skills learned in the program. As a result of the program, managers began to delegate more as teams started to solve problems themselves. Teams began to feel more confident in their deci- sions as managers trusted them. The authors attribute several subsequent com- pany successes to the program, noting that it was critical that the coaching program was integrated with the other culture change initiatives that it supported. “Cultural change takes time,” Eaton and Brown (2002, p. 287) note, and “tradi- tional attitudes to management do not die away overnight.” However, they point out that a gradual evolution took place and the new cultural values are now the standard. Example 3: Team Development in a Cancer Center (Black & Westwood, 2004) Health care workers who have the challenge of caring for critically ill patients experience stress, emotional exhaustion, and burnout at very high rates compared with workers in other fields. Without social support from friends or other cowork- ers, many workers seek to leave the field or to reduce hours to cope with the emo- tional exhaustion of a demanding occupation. Consequently, many researchers have found that health care workers in particular need clear roles, professional autonomy, and social support to reduce burnout and turnover. In one Canadian cancer center, a senior administrator sought to address some of these needs by creating a leadership team that could manage its own work in a multidisciplinary team environment. Team members would have professional autonomy and would provide social support to one another. Leaders volunteered or were chosen from each of the center’s main disciplines, such as oncology, surgery, nursing, and more. Organization development consultants were invited to lead workshops in which the team could develop cohesive trusting relationships and agree on working conditions that would reduce the potential for conflict among disciplines. In a series of three 2-day workshops over 3 months, the team participated in a number of important activities. They did role-play and dramatic exercises in which they took on one another’s roles in order to be able to see how others see them. They completed surveys of their personal working styles to understand their own communication and behavior patterns. The team learned problem-solving tech- niques, they clarified roles, and they established group goals. Three months after the final workshop was conducted, the facilitators con- ducted interviews to assess the progress of the group. All of the participants reported a better sense of belonging, a feeling of trust and safety with the team, and a better understanding of themselves and others with whom they worked. One participant said about a coworker, “I felt that [the workshops] connected me far differently to [coworker] than I would have ever had an opportunity to do other- wise, you know in a normal work setting” (Black & Westwood, 2004, p. 584). The consultants noted that participants wanted to continue group development on an ongoing basis. 6 ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT Example 4: A Future Search Conference in a Northern California Community (Blue Sky Productions, 1996) Santa Cruz County is located in Northern California, about an hour south of San Francisco. In the 1960s, the county had approximately 25,000 residents in an agricul- tural region and in a small retirement community. In the late 1960s, the University of California, Santa Cruz opened its doors, and in the following years the county began to experience a demographic shift as people began to move to the area and real estate prices skyrocketed. By 1990, the population had reached 250,000 residents, and increasingly expensive real estate prices meant that many residents could no longer afford to live there. Affordable housing was especially a problem for the agricultural community. A local leadership group had convened several conferences but could never agree on an approach to the housing problem. In the mid-1990s, a consortium of leaders representing different community groups decided to explore the problem further by holding a future search confer- ence. They invited 72 diverse citizens to a 3-day conference not only to explore the problem of affordable housing but also to address other issues that they had in common. The citizen groups represented a cross-section of the community, from young to old, executives to farmworkers, and social services agencies. Attendees were chosen to try to mirror the community as a “vertical slice” of the population. They called the conference “Coming Together as a Community Around Housing: A Search for Our Future in Santa Cruz County.” At the conference, attendees explored their shared past as individuals and residents of the county. They discussed the history of the county and their own place in it. Next, they described the current state of the county and the issues that were currently being addressed by the stakeholder groups in attendance. The process was a collaborative one, as one attendee said, “What one person would raise as an issue, another person would add to, and another person would add to.” There were also some surprises as new information was shared. One county social services employee realized that “there were a couple of things that I contributed that I thought everyone in the county knew about, and [I] listen[ed] to people respond to my input, [and say] ‘oh, really?’” Finally, the attendees explored what they wanted to work on in their stakeholder groups. They described a future county environment 10 years out and presented scenarios that took a creative form as imaginary TV shows and board of supervisors meetings. Group members committed to action plans, including short- and long-term goals. Eighteen months later, attendees had reached a number of important goals that had been discussed at the conference. Not only had they been able to increase fund- ing for a farmworkers housing loan program and created a rental assistance fund, but they were on their way to building a $5.5 million low-income housing project. In addition, participants addressed a number of nonhousing issues as well. They embarked on diversity training in their stakeholder groups, created a citizen action corps, invited other community members to participate on additional task force groups, and created a plan to revitalize a local downtown area. “Did the future search conference work?” one participant wondered. “No question about it. It pro- vided a living model of democracy.” Chapter 1 What Is Organization Development? 7 such as needs assessment, course development, the use of technology, or on-the-job training, are not central to the job of the OD practitioner. In addition, most training programs are developed for a large audience, often independent of how the program would be applied in any given organization. While some OD interventions do incorporate training programs and skill building, OD is more centrally concerned with the context that would make a training program successful, such as management support, job role clarification, process design, and more. As Burke (2008) writes, “Individual development cannot be sep- arated from OD, but to be OD, individual development must be in the service of or leverage for system-wide change, an integral aspect of OD’s definition” (p. 23). Short Term OD is intended to address long-term change. Even in cases in which the inter- vention is carried out over a short period (such as the several-day workshops conducted at the cancer center described earlier), the change is intended to be a long-term or permanent one. OD efforts are intended to develop systemic changes that are long lasting. In the contemporary environment in which changes are constantly being made, this can be particularly challenging. The Application of a Toolkit Many OD practitioners speak of the OD “toolkit.” It is true that OD does occa- sionally involve the application of an instrumented training or standard models, but it is also more than that. To confuse OD with a toolkit is to deny that it also has values that complement its science. It is more than a rigid procedure for moving an organization, team, or individual from point A to point B. It involves being attuned to the social and personal dynamics of the client organization that usually require flexi- bility in problem solving, not a standardized set of procedures or tools. In Chapter 3, we will discuss the values that underlie OD to better understand the fundamental con- cepts that explain how and why OD practitioners make the choices they do. Who This Book Is For This book is for students, practitioners, and managers who seek to learn more about the process of organizational change following organization development values and practices. We will use the term organization development, as most academic audi- ences prefer, over the term organizational development, which seems to dominate spoken and written practitioner communication. We will also refer to the organiza- tion development practitioner, consultant, and change agent in this book as a single general audience, because these terms emphasize that OD is practiced by a large community that can include more than just internal and external OD consultants. OD includes (and the book is written for) anyone who must lead organizational change as a part of his or her role. With the magnitude and frequency of organiza- tional change occurring today, this encompasses a wide variety of roles and is an 10 ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT increasingly diverse and growing community. The OD practitioner can include the internal or external organization development consultant, but also managers and executives, human resources and training professionals, quality managers, project managers and information technology specialists, educators, health care adminis- trators, directors of nonprofit organizations, and many more.We will also more fre- quently discuss organizational members than employees, which is a more inclusive term that includes volunteers in nonprofit groups and others who are connected to organizations but who may not have an employment relationship with them. The term also is intended to include not just leaders, executives, and managers but also employees at all levels. Overview of the Book This book provides an overview of the content of organization development, including theories and models used by change agents and OD practitioners. It also explores the process by which OD is practiced. The objective of the book is to acquaint you with the field of OD and the process of organization development consulting. The goal is to develop your analytic, consulting, and practitioner skills so that you can apply the concepts of OD to real situations. We will simulate these consulting situations through six detailed case studies, which follow many of the skill development chapters, in which you will be able to immediately practice what you have learned in the chapter. Chapters 2 through 5 will explore the foundations of the field, including its history, values, and an overview of the key concepts and research in organiza- tional change. In these chapters you will learn how OD began as a field, how it has evolved over the past decades, and how most practitioners think of the field today. In Chapter 3, we will discuss the underlying values and ethical beliefs that influ- ence choices that practitioners must make in working with clients. Chapter 4 pro- vides a foundation in research into organizational change from a systems perspective, a common way of thinking about organizations. We will also discuss a social construction perspective on organizational change. In this chapter you will be exposed to models of organizational systems and organizational change that have influenced the development of many OD interventions. In Chapter 5, we will define the role of the OD consultant, differentiating the OD consultant from other kinds of consultants, and describing the specific advantages and dis- advantages to the OD consultant when the consultant is internal or external to the organization. Beginning with Chapter 6, the book follows an action research and consulting model (entry, contracting, data gathering, data analysis/diagnosis, feedback, inter- ventions, and evaluation). We will discuss the major actions that practitioners take in each of these stages and describe the potential pitfalls to the internal and exter- nal consultant. Chapter 6 describes the early stages of the consulting engagement, including entry and contracting. You will learn how a consultant contracts with a client and explores what problems the client is experiencing, how those problems are being managed, and how problems can be (re)defined for a client. In Chapter 7 Chapter 1 What Is Organization Development? 11 we will cover how practitioners gather data, as well as assess the advantages and dis- advantages of various methods for gathering data about the organization. Chapter 8 describes what OD practitioners do with the data they have gathered by exploring the dynamics of the feedback and joint diagnosis processes. This stage of the con- sulting process is especially important as it constitutes the point at which the client and consultant define what interventions will best address the problems that have been described. Chapter 9 begins by describing the most visible aspect of an OD engagement— the intervention.We will discuss the components of interventions and describe the decisions that practitioners must make in grappling with how to structure them for maximum effectiveness. Chapters 10 through 12 address the traditional OD prac- tices with which most practitioners ought to be familiar, including interventions such as organization design, strategic planning, quality interventions, team build- ing, survey feedback, individual instruments, and coaching and mentoring. These chapters also incorporate newer practices being used with increasing frequency, such as appreciative inquiry, future search, and Six Sigma. These interventions are organized according to the target of the intervention, whether it be the whole orga- nization, multiple groups, single groups, or individuals. In Chapter 13 we will conclude our discussion of the OD process by exploring how organization devel- opment practitioners separate themselves from client engagements and evaluate the results of their efforts. In Chapter 14 we will discuss the applicability and relevance of OD to contemporary organizations, given trends in demographics, working con- ditions, and organizational environments. Many chapters begin with an opening vignette and thought questions to set the stage for the topics covered in those chapters. Some of these vignettes present published case studies of successful and unsuccessful OD efforts. As you read the vignettes and the chapter, consider what factors made the case more or less suc- cessful and what lessons the practitioner may have learned from the experience.You may wish to find the published case and read it for additional details not presented in the vignette. Reading published cases can help you develop a deeper appreciation for the complexities of OD work and learn from the successes and struggles that others have experienced. Following trends in the corporate world, ethical issues in OD are gaining the attention of academics, clients, and practitioners. While we will discuss values and ethics in Chapter 3, rather than leave ethical dilemmas to that chapter alone, we will also discuss ethical issues in organization development at relevant points through- out the book, when appropriate for the stage in the OD process being described. Analyzing Case Studies The case studies included in this book are intended to help you learn the role and thought process of an OD consultant or change agent through realistic examples. By reading and analyzing case studies, you will actively participate in applying the theory and concepts of OD to complex, real-life situations that consultants find 12 ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT 5. When you are prepared to write a response or an analysis, ask yourself whether you have addressed the central questions asked by the case and whether you have clearly stated the issues to the client. Once your response is written, could you send that, in its present form, to the client described in the case? In that regard, is the analysis professionally written and well organized to communicate unambiguously to the client?Will the client understand how and why you reached these conclusions? 6. As you write your analysis, ask yourself how you know any particular fact or interpretation to be true and whether you have sufficiently justified your interpreta- tion with actual data. Instead of boldly stating that “managers are not trained for their roles,” you could write, “Only 2 of 10 managers had attended a management training course in the past 5 years, leading me to conclude that management training has not been given a high priority.” The latter uses data and makes the interpretation explicit; the former is likely to invite criticism or defensiveness from a client. This does not mean that directness is not appropriate, only that it must follow from the evidence. We will describe the considerations of the feedback process in depth in this book. 7. When you have finished your own thinking and writing about the case, and after you have had the opportunity to discuss the case and options for action with classmates, take the time to write down your reflections from the experience (Ellet, 2007). What did you learn? What principles might apply for the next time you are confronted with these choices? Summary Today’s organizations are experiencing an incredible amount of change. Organization development is a field of academic study and professional practice that uses social and behavioral science knowledge to develop interventions that help organizations and individuals change successfully. It is a field practiced in almost all kinds of organizations that you can imagine, from education to health care, from government to small and large businesses. Changes that OD practition- ers address are diverse as well, addressing organizational structures and strategies, team effectiveness, and much more. OD is not management consulting or training and development, and it is neither short term nor the mere application of a stan- dard procedure or toolkit. OD practitioners can include many kinds of people for whom organizational change is a priority, such as managers and executives, project managers, and organizational members in a variety of roles. For Further Reading Chapter 1 What Is Organization Development? 15 Beckhard, R. (1969). Organization development: Strategies and models. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Burke, W. W. (2008). A contemporary view of organization development. In T. G. Cummings (Ed.),Handbook of organization development (pp. 13–38). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Egan, T. M. (2002). Organization development: An examination of definitions and depen- dent variables. Organization Development Journal, 20(2), 59–71. Marshak, R. J. (2006). Organization development as a profession and a field. In B. B. Jones & R. Brazzel (Eds.), The NTL handbook of organization development and change: Principles, practices, and perspectives (pp. 13–27). San Francisco: Pfeiffer. 16 ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT