Introduction
Organizational development (OD) is a method of business development through cooperation with human resources, which emerged from industrial and organizational psychology, sociology, and human relations studies. The object of development is the organization itself, which strives to have an increase in efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness of its activities. The management of the organization is responsible for the planning and execution of this system-wide process. The goal of OD is the elaboration and achievement of positive changes in the company through the methods of business psychology, which affects the growth of the company’s profitability, the performance of management systems, and the individual progress of employees.
When planning OD, management should have a conceptual model of this process. Reorganization and development include a set of successive stages, each of which creates conditions for transitioning to the next. An unreasonable passage from one step to another can jeopardize the success of the program. The most frequent causes of unsuccessful OD are excessive haste and unwillingness to take explicit or hidden resistance of employees into consideration.
Planned Interventions
Interventions refer to the planned and structured activities of groups and teams participating in the OD program. These actions, which can be applied individually or collectively, aim at enhancing the work of organizational structures, processes, and relationships, and help to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Any action that results in an improvement of the organizational performance can be considered an intervention, but specific characteristics make it possible to divide them into several separate groups. Generally, an OD practitioner has three primary tasks to accomplish. Individuals or teams should get help obtaining required information to understand their problems better, get access to opportunities to effectively search for potential solutions, and receive necessary conditions for internal commitment to self-monitoring and choices.
Interventions can be grouped according to the goals they are pursuing. The most common type, diagnostic activities, is the one that attempts to identify the current state and problems of the organization. Diagnostic activities are a starting point of most OD programs since they give a clear picture of what should be improved. Team building activities attempt to enhance the satisfaction of individual members who work in groups so that the whole group could work more efficiently. Sensitivity training focuses on individuals’ soft skills to develop interpersonal relationships and encourage tolerance and empathy. There are also interventions to enhance intergroup relationships and coordination between different teams.
A vital point to take into account is that interventions are not isolated from normal corporate processes, and thus are influenced by many factors external and internal to the company. Factors influencing interventions are the same as those influencing day-to-day operations. An interesting perspective on interventions is that they can be viewed as routine procedures but aimed towards the improvement of internal processes and relationships.
Politics, external constraints, work atmosphere and culture, present challenges and goals can shape interventions to some extent. When planning an OD program, careful design of interventions is essential, because they may serve as a disruption to ongoing processes. This disturbance might result in employee resistance and unwillingness to bring changes to the corporate environment, which in turn may lead to company stagnation.
There are several common reasons why interventions may fail during the OD process. The most obvious is that the intervention is trying to solve a wrong problem, or the management chose a wrong intervention for the given issue. Other causes of failure include ambiguous objectives, lack of time devoted, unskilled change agent, and unsystematic applications. Interventions which regularly disrupt individuals from meeting their direct commitments is a sign that the OD program is misdesigned. Failed attempts will make it more difficult for changes to take place in subsequent tries. Employees might get discouraged and lose motivation, and increased aggressiveness toward proposed changes might impact the team performance.
Interventions at Different Levels
In terms of the range of application, interventions can be individual or collective. Individual interventions encourage personal growth and self-improvement, but they alone are not enough to achieve the development goals of the organization. Many processes and subsystems make up an organization, some of which may contradict and discourage individuals from change. Team-level or company-wide developments, along with a complete overall intervention plan, must supplement personal growth and improvement.
Individual assessments using special instruments provide feedback on a person’s leadership style, work preferences, learning style, an aptitude, among others. This information can be used to measure change on an individual level to see if the organization chose the right strategy, and to equip the employees with the required knowledge for self-development. The most common instruments used as part of an OD program are The Myers Briggs Type Indicator, FIRO-B, and Thomas Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument. There are many advantages of using mentioned instruments, such as encouragement of self-discovery, but potentially problematic outcomes, such as labeling and stereotyping, should not be ignored.
Team interventions attempt to build successful working groups with precise goals, qualified members, collaborative atmosphere, and principled leadership. They usually start with a startup meeting and then take the form of various team-building activities. Through such interventions, organizations try to build strong interpersonal relationships within units and between units and enhance mutual understanding within the corporate environment. How well teams and team members interact with each other directly impacts the prosperity of the company.
Role of Coaching Activities
Coaching can be considered a type of individual intervention because it is where an employee has a one-on-one meeting with a coach to work on personal growth. There are four types of coaching that are practiced in organizations: leadership development, performance coaching, career coaching, and executive coaching. These four types correspond to four areas an employee might want to excel in: leadership and team-play, effectiveness and efficiency, career growth and work-life balance, and decision making and stress management. Enhancement in each one of these areas will contribute to an individual’s overall satisfaction with his or her position within the company, which will, in turn, result in an organization’s performance increase.
Conclusion
OD is the organized means of improving an organization to be more productive in achieving its aspired intents. It incorporates the activities of applying the study of behavioral science to organizational development. It covers many processes, theories, and actions, aimed toward improving organizational performance. OD uses an active approach, which means that all units of an organization must be motivated participants for OD program to succeed.
The desired outcome of such a program is an ongoing change that encourages the improvement of processes, self-growth and development, healthy interpersonal communication, and team success. Many methods exist to accomplish the goals of OD, both with advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to careful design and planning to choose what strategy to use.