Organization Development and Change

Chapter One:
Introduction to
Organization Development

Thomas G. Cummings
Christopher G. Worley
 Learning Objectives
for Chapter One
 To provide a definition of Organization
Development (OD)
 To distinguish OD and planned change from
other forms of organization change
 To describe the historical development of OD
 To provide an outline of the book

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Burke’s Definition of OD

OD is a planned process of change in

an organization’s culture through the
utilization of behavioral science
technology, research, and theory.

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French’s Definition of OD

OD refers to a long-range effort to

improve an organization’s problem-
solving capabilities and its ability to cope
with changes in its external environment
with the help of external or internal
behavioral-scientist consultants.

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Beckhard’s Definition of OD
OD is an effort (1) planned, (2)
organization-wide, 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.

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 Beer’s Definition of OD
OD is a system-wide process of data collection,
diagnosis, action planning, intervention, and
evaluation aimed at: (1) enhancing congruence
between organizational structure, process, strategy,
people, and culture; (2) developing new and creative
organizational solutions; and (3) developing the
organization’s self-renewing capacity. It occurs
through collaboration of organizational members
working with a change agent using behavioral science
theory, research, and technology.

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Organization Development is...

a systemwide application and transfer of

behavioral science knowledge to the
planned development, improvement, and
reinforcement of the strategies,
structures, and processes that lead to
organization effectiveness.

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These definitions help to distinguish OD
from two related subjects, change
management and organization change.

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OD (1st)
 First OD applies to changes in the strategy,
structure, and/or processes of an entire system,
such as an organization, a single plant of a
multiplant firm, a department or work group, or
individual role or job.

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OD (1st)
 In these approaches, attention is narrowed to
improvement of particular products or
processes, or to development of production or
service delivery functions

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OD (2nd)
 Second, OD is based on the application and
transfer of behavioral science knowledge and
practice, including microconcepts, such as
leadership, group dynamics, and work design,
and macroapproaches, such as strategy,
organization design, and culture change.

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OD (2nd)
 These subjects distinguish OD from such
applications as management consulting,
technological innovation, or operations
management that emphasize the economic,
financial, and technical aspects of organizations.
These approaches tend to neglect the personal
and social characteristics of a system.

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OD (3rd)
 Third, OD is concerned with managing planned
change, but not in the formal sense typically
associated with management consulting or
project management, which tends to comprise
programmatic and expert-driven approaches to
change. Rather, OD is more an adaptive
process for planning and implementing change
than a blueprint for how things should be done.

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OD (3rd)
 It involves planning to diagnose and solve
organizational problems, but such plans are
flexible and often revised as new information is
gathered as the change process progresses.

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OD (4th)
 Fourth, OD involves the design, implementation,
and subsequent reinforcement of change. It
moves beyond the initial efforts to implement a
change program to a longer-term concern for
making sure the new activities sustain within the
organization.

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OD (4th)
 This attention to reinforcement is similar to
training and development approaches that
address maintenance of new skills or behaviors,
but it differs from other change perspectives that
do not address how a change can be sustained
over time

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OD (5th)
 Finally, OD is oriented to improving
organizational effectiveness. Effectiveness is
best measured along three dimensions.
1. OD affirms that an effective organization is able to
solve its own problems and to continually improve
itself. OD helps organization members gain the skills
and knowledge necessary to conduct these activities
by involving them in the change process.

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OD (5th)
2. An effective organization has high financial and
technical performance, including sales growth,
acceptable profits, quality products and services,
and high productivity. OD helps organizations
achieve these ends by leveraging social science
practices to lower costs, improve products and
services, and increase productivity.

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OD (5th)
3. Finally, an effective organization has an engaged,
satisfied, and learning workforce as well as satisfied
and loyal customers or other external stakeholders.
The organization’s performance responds to the
needs of external groups, such as stockholders,
customers, suppliers, and government agencies,
which provide the organization with resources and
legitimacy. Moreover, it is able to attract and
motivate effective employees, who then perform at
higher levels.

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OD and Change Management
 OD and change management both address the effective
implementation of planned change.
 They are both concerned with the sequence of activities, the
processes, and the leadership that produce organization
improvements.
 They differ, however, in their underlying value orientation.
 OD’s behavioral science foundation supports values of human
potential, participation, and development in addition to
performance and competitive advantage.
 Change management focuses more narrowly on values of cost,
quality, and schedule.

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OD and Change Management
 As a result, OD’s distinguishing feature is its
concern with the transfer of knowledge and skill
so that the organization is more able to manage
change in the future.
 Change management does not necessarily
require the transfer of these skills. In short, all
OD involves change management, but change
management may not involve OD.

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OD and Organizational Change
 Organizational change is a broader concept than OD.
 Organization development can be applied to managing organizational
change. However, it is primarily concerned with managing change in
such a way that knowledge and skills are transferred to build the
organization’s capability to achieve goals and solve problems. It is
intended to change the organization in a particular direction, toward
improved problem solving, responsiveness, and effectiveness.
 Organizational change, in contrast, is more broadly focused and can
apply to any kind of change, including technical and managerial
innovations, organization decline, or the evolution of a system over
time. These changes may or may not be directed at making the
organization more developed in the sense implied by OD.

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The growth and relevance of
OD
 Three major trends are shaping change in
organizations: globalization, information technology,
and managerial innovation.
 First,globalization is changing the markets and
environments in which organizations operate. The world is
rapidly becoming smaller and more tightly interconnected
economically, socially, and ecologically. Significant
movements of goods and services, technology, HR, and
capital across international borders have intensified the
economic interdependence among nations and
organizations.

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The growth and relevance of
OD
 Second, information technology is redefining the
traditional business model by changing how work is
performed, how knowledge is used, and how the cost
of doing business is calculated. The way an
organization collects, stores, manipulates, uses, and
transmits information can lower costs and increase
the value and quality of products and services.
Information technology is at the heart of emerging e-
commerce strategies and organizations. For example:
Amazon.com, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter

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The growth and relevance of
OD
 Third, managerial innovation has responded to the
globalization and information technology trends and
has accelerated their impact on organizations. New
organizational forms, such as networks, strategic
alliances, and virtual corporations, provide
organizations with new ways of thinking about how to
manufacture goods and deliver services.

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The growth and relevance of
OD
 The strategic alliance has emerged as one of the
indispensable tools in strategy implementation. No
single organization, not even IBM, Toyota, or General
Electric, can control the environmental and market
uncertainty it faces.
 In addition, change innovations, such as downsizing
or reengineering, have radically reduced the size of
organizations and increased their flexibility.

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A short history of OD

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Five Stems of OD Practice
Laboratory Training

Current Practice
Action Research/Survey Feedback

Normative Approaches

Quality of Work Life

Strategic Change

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Today

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Laboratory Training 1946 by Kurt
Lewin

 This stem of OD pioneered laboratory training, or the T-

group—a small, unstructured group in which participants
learn from their own interactions and evolving group
processes about such issues as interpersonal relations,
personal growth, leadership, and group dynamics.
 The practical aspects of T-group techniques for
organizations gradually became known as team building—
a process for helping work groups become more effective
in accomplishing tasks and satisfying member needs.
Team building is one of the most common OD
interventions today.

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Action Research and Survey- 1940
John s by
C
Kurt ollier,
Feedback Background and Lewin
Willi
W hy am
te
 They discovered that research needed to be closely
linked to action if organization members were to use it to
manage change.
 A collaborative effort was initiated between organization
members and social scientists to collect research data
about an organization’s functioning, to analyze it for
causes of problems, and to devise and implement
solutions.

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Action Research and Survey- 1940
John s by
C
Kurt ollier,
Feedback Background and Lewin
Willi
W hy am
te
 After implementation, further data were collected to
assess the results, and the cycle of data collection and
action often continued.
 The results of action research were twofold: Members of
organizations were able to use research on themselves
to guide action and change, and social scientists were
able to study that process to derive new knowledge that
could be used elsewhere

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Normative Background
 The “one best way” to manage organizations.
 This normative belief was exemplified in Likert’s
Participative Management Program and Blake and
Mouton’s Grid Organization Development approaches to
organization improvement.

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LIKERT’S PARTICIPATIVE
MANAGEMENT

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The Blake-Mouton Managerial
Grid

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Grid Seminar
 Blake and Mouton’s Grid Organization Development has
two key objectives:
 to improve planning by developing a strategy for organizational
excellence based on clear logic,
 and to help managers gain the necessary knowledge and skills
to supervise effectively
 It consists of six phases designed to analyze an entire
business and to overcome the planning and
communications barriers to corporate excellence.

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Grid Seminar
 Phase 1 is the Grid Seminar, a one-week program where
participants analyze their personal style and learn
methods of problem solving.
 Phase 2 consists of team development
 Phase 3 involves intergroup development.
 Phase 4, an ideal model of organizational excellence is
developed and
 Phase 5, the model is implemented.
 The final phase consists of an evaluation of the
organization.

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Productivity and Quality-of- E ri
cT
rist
a
col his nd
Work-Life Background lea
gue
s
 Referred to as “sociotechnical systems,” these QWL
programs generally involved joint participation by unions
and management in the design of work and resulted in
work designs giving employees high levels of discretion,
task variety, and feedback about results.
 Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of these
QWL programs was the discovery of self-managing work
groups as a form of work design. These groups were
composed of multiskilled workers who were given the
necessary autonomy and information to design and
manage their own task performances

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Productivity and Quality-of-
Work-Life Background
 QWL was first defined in terms of people’s reaction to
work, particularly individual outcomes related to job
satisfaction and mental health. Using this definition,
QWL focused primarily on the personal consequences of
the work experience and how to improve work to satisfy
personal needs.
 QWL activity continues primarily under the banner of
“employee involvement” (EI) as well as total quality
management and Six Sigma programs, rather than of
QWL.

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Productivity and Quality-of-
Work-Life Background
 For many OD practitioners, the term EI signifies, more
than the name QWL, the growing emphasis on how
employees can contribute more to running the
organization so it can be more flexible, productive, and
competitive.
 Recently, the term “employee empowerment” has been
used interchangeably with the term EI

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Strategic Change Background
 Strategic change involves improving the alignment among
an organization’s design, strategy, and environment.
Strategic change interventions seek to improve both the
organization’s relationship to its environment and the fit
among its technical, structural, informational, human
resource, and cultural components.
 The need for strategic change is usually triggered by some
major disruption to the organization, such as the lifting of
regulatory requirements, a technological breakthrough, or a
new chief executive officer coming in from outside the
organization.

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Strategic Change Background
 One of the first applications of strategic change was
Richard Beckhard’s use of open systems planning. He
focused on an organization’s environment and strategy.
 Based on the organization’s core mission, the
differences between what the environment demanded
and how the organization responded could be reduced
and performance improved.
 Since then, change agents have proposed a variety of
large-scale or strategic-change models.

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Part I: Overview of the Book
The Nature of Planned Change The OD Practitioner
(Chapter 2) (Chapter 3)

Part II: The Process of Organization Development

Entering & Diagnosing Diagnosing Collecting
Contracting Organizations Groups & Jobs Diagnostic
(Chapter 4) (Chapter 5) (Chapter 6) Information
(Chapter 7)
Feeding Back Designing OD Leading and Evaluating &
Diagnostic Data Interventions Managing Institutionalizing
(Chapter 8) (Chapter 9) Change Change
(Chapter 10) (Chapter 11)

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Part III: Part IV: Part V: Part VI:
Human Techno- Human Strategic
Process structural Resources Interventions
Interventions Interventions Management
Interventions Transformational
Interpersonal Restructuring Performance Change
& Group Organizations Management (Chapter 20)
Process (Chapter 14) (Chapter 17)
Approaches Continuous
(Chapter 12) Developing Change
Employee
Talent (Chapter 21)
Involvement
Organization (Chapter 18)
(Chapter 15) Transorganization-
Process Managing Work- al Change
Approaches Work Design force Diversity & (Chapter 22)
(Chapter 13) (Chapter 16) Wellness
(Chapter 19)

Part VII: Special Topics in Organization Development

Organization Development OD in Nonindustrial Future Directions
in Global Settings Settings in OD
(Chapter 23) (Chapter 24) (Chapter 25)
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