Organization Development and

Change
 Forces for Change

Change is defined as the coping process of moving from the

present state to the desired stated that individuals, groups and
organizations undertake in response to dynamic internal and
external factors. The forces are:
• People

• Technology

• Information processing and communication

• Competition
 Managing Planned Change
• Unplanned Change: These are the changes that occur in
organizations suddenly without any significant effort or
involvement on the part of the employees or management

• Planned Change: It occurs when organizations initiate change

activities deliberately and consciously in order to accomplish
certain organizational goals. Its basic goals are:

 To enhance the ability of organizations to adapt themselves to

the changes in the external environment

 To change the behavior of employees

 Types of Planned Change

• First order change (Incremental): New state of things have the

same basic nature as the old state of things, except for some
moderate adjustments to the existing structure of the
organization

• Second order change(Fundamental or Quantum): New state of

things have a completely different nature from the old state of
things
 Resistance to Change

• Explicit or immediate resistance: It occurs after the

implementation of a certain change initiative
Ex- New organization policy

• Implicit or deferred resistance: It is subtle and management

doesn’t have an inkling of the resistance of its actions by
employees
Ex- Rampant absenteeism, increase in errors, decline in quality
and quantity of work, etc
 Individual Sources of Resistance
• Habit: The habits developed by an individual are difficult to
change
• Economic factors: People tend to resist change that threatens
their safety and security
• Security: Individuals resist change if it is likely to decrease
their income or sources of earnings
• Fear of the unknown: People fear the unknown and
uncertainty associated with it and hence resist change
• Selective information processing: Individuals process
information selectively to make it compatible with their
perceptions
• Social Factors: People resist change when they anticipate that
the change might affect their status in the society adversely
 Organizational Resistance to change
• Structural Inertia

• Limited Focus of Change

• Group Inertia

• Threat to expertise

• Threat to established power relationships

• Threat to established resource allocation

 Tactics to overcome resistance
• Educating employees

• Employee involvement

• Facilitation

• Negotiation

• Manipulation

• Co-optation: Leaders of employee groups/union are given important

roles in the change implementation program to prevent them from
resisting change

• Coercion
 Approaches to manage Organizational Change

• Kurt Lewin’s Three step model

• Action Research
 Lewin’s Three Step Model

Organizations should use three steps to introduce permanent

change namely
• Unfreeze: Employees are educated about the external and
internal factors that make change imperative

• Movement to change: Actual change process begins with

doing away with old practices and adopting new methods

• Refreeze: Change is reinforced so that the organization does

not revert to old state of things to assimilate into the
organizational processes
Lewin’s three step model
 Action Research
It is a change process based on the systematic collection of
data and then selection of a change action based on what the
analyzed data indicate. The steps are:
• Diagnosis: An attempt is made to diagnose the problems of an
organization
• Analysis: The change agent analyzes the information collected
in to sort out the problems being faced by various employees
• Feedback: The change agent shares his observations and
conclusions from diagnosis and analysis of information by
seeking employees’ active participation in developing action
plans
• Evaluation: The change agent evaluates the effectiveness of
the actions taken by measuring the outcomes of those actions
in terms of the initial data collected
 Organization Development
• It is a process of planned change- change of an organization’s
culture from one that avoids an examination of social
processes especially decision-making, planning and
communication to one which institutionalizes and legitimizes
this examination

• The objective is to improve the performance of individuals

and groups in organizations

• It takes a holistic or system-wide approach to change

• It targets organizational processes rather than content

• It focuses on relationships, human, social as well as structural

 Techniques of OD
• Sensitivity Training(T-group): It sensitizes people to perceptions and
behavior related aspects of themselves and others

• Survey Feedback: Data is collected systematically from a large sample

of employees at all levels of the organization/unit in the form of
attitude surveys or organizational climate surveys

• Process Consultation Intervention: It seeks to resolve interpersonal

problems/conflicts and increase the participation of employees in
problem solving process

• Team Interventions: They are the techniques that are used to improve
performance of work teams

• Inter-group Team-building Interventions: This group focuses on

improving intergroup relations between work teams
 Sensitivity (T-group) Training

• It sensitizes people to perceptions and behavior related aspects of

themselves and others

• It consists of ten to twelve members and a professional

trainer/behavioral scientist called facilitator meeting over a
period of two weeks

• Each participant expresses his/her ideas, opinions and beliefs

• Facilitator takes notes of participant’s expression and reactions

and provides them feedback at the end on their behavior

• It helps the employees to improve their listening skills, learn to

talk openly and accept individual differences
 Survey feedback
• Data is collected systematically from a large sample of employees at all levels of
the organization/unit in the form of attitude surveys or organizational climate
surveys

• The surveys reveal critical information about the organization and the problems
faced by it

• The collected data is fed back into the system in the feedback workshops

• All participants are then asked to analyze and interpret the data and present their
views on it

• The HODs and immediate subordinates interpret the data, exchange their views
try to identify and implement the change areas

• This is followed by introduction of the data to the next level of employees for
further discussion

• Survey feedback transfers the ownership of data from change agent to participants
 Process Consultation Interventions

• It seeks to resolve dysfunctional interpersonal conflict and increase the

participation of employees in problem solving process

• The external consultant helps individual employees or work groups

understand process events, human and social processes and consequences
of these processes

• A process consultant should help the client organization

 Set an agenda for meetings,
 Present feedback on observations to its members
 Offer coaching and counseling to organizational members

• Greater emphasis is laid on understanding organizational processes like

 Flow of work
 Flow of communication
 Roles and responsibilities of employees
 Group problem solving and decision making
 Co-operation and competition among groups
 Team Interventions
• These are the techniques used to improve the performance of work-
teams by covering substantive areas in the working of organizational
teams namely
 Problem diagnosis
 Task accomplishment
 Maintaining team relationship
 Improving team and organization processes

• The team building interventions used in organizations are:

 The formal group diagnostic methods

 The formal group team-building meeting
 Gestalt approach to team-building meeting
 Role analysis technique
 Role negotiation technique
 Force-field analysis
Force Field analysis
 Force Field Analysis
It is based on an assumption that there are two forces, namely
driving forces( forces for change) and restraining
forces( forces resisting change) that play a role in attaining a
desired state of equilibrium in an organization. The steps are:
• Identify and define the current problem situation
• Describe the desired condition accurately
• Identify the driving and restraining forces
• Identify the strong and weak forces within the driving and
restraining forces
• Choose an appropriate strategy to change
• Implement the action plans for the same
• Plan the new actions to maintain equilibrium
 Intergroup Team-building Interventions
• OD practitioner meets with the leaders of the two groups to find out
whether they are genuinely interested in improving mutual relations
• The consultant asks the two groups to meet in separate rooms and prepare
two lists each
• List I is about attitudes and perceptions towards other group and List II is
anticipation of what the other group would write in the first list
• The two groups are permitted only to exchange information written in the
List I and List II
• Task I: The group members discuss the information on the list prepared by
the other group
• Task II: The members of each group prepare a list of the priority issues that
are left unresolved between the two groups
• The groups form a single list of unresolved problems and issues and work
jointly
• A follow-up meeting attended by all members of groups is usually
conducted to discuss the progress
 Steps in OD- Blake and Mouton
• Understanding the theories related to OB and understanding the
actual behavior of the team to improve team processes especially in
the context of the Managerial grid theory

• Repeating the above activities for all organizational units that are
interdependent

• Involving the top management in identification of a strategic

corporate model that can optimize the profitability of the organization

• Developing steps for bringing about changes in the organization in an

effort to transform it into ideal model

• Comparing the condition of the organization within the parameters of

organizational stability, formulation of goals and objectives and their
accomplishment