In essence, the companies were conceived to generate money flow, greater capital and profit to the shareholders. At times it is about making it more humane, but every effort to get there is ultimately compared to the value of profit and loss.
This is how they appeared, people who set precedents within the management of companies, such as: Taylor, Mayo, Peters, Drucker, Gardner, Goleman, among others. Each of these personalities made significant contributions to the post-modern organization's actions, and somewhere in that evolution appeared Organizational Development and behavior-based administration.
Management authors, such as: Tom Peters and Peter Drucker, visualized an unimaginable field for administration for many individuals of their time. However, so correct that today we are living the consequences of non-preparation.
So out of date is the company system that due to more administrative studies, most still apply management according to the Taylorist approach. Some cases are innovative, such as: Google, EBay, Yahoo, Facebook, Linked-in, Wal-Mart, among others. Companies whose strategies are committed to constant innovation and killing, in a quick time each of their own products; make your own product obsolete before the competition does.
Innovation and organizational development must go hand in hand, as Tom Peters (2006) pointed out, when in his book Re-imagine he pointed out that the new times necessarily request new companies; new ways of thinking, seeing, managing and leading companies.
But what is innovation? And how can Latin American countries make use of these ideas? Can US administrative trends apply to Central and South America? Finally, how do we reconcile innovation with Organizational Development?
Innovation is a concept that resembles the tip of an iceberg, deep down there is more information. Estrin (2009), explains that there are other elements of innovation that we must know, such as: sustainable innovation, orthogonal innovation, fundamental and structural values, the process of innovation, innovation systems and ecosystems, among others.
The same happens with other topics, such as: the leadership issue, there are a large number of related elements, which must be taken into account when forming a company or selecting the personnel who will be managing it through the current uncertainty.
For Tom Peters, innovation is: creativity + imagination. And on the other hand, he pointed out: "I strongly recommend constant innovation as the only way to survive in a highly competitive and, above all, globalized market."
It makes concepts such as innovation and re-imagination bastions of its new paradigm, of the new way of managing. A management that faces uncertainty, chaos, the re-evolution of everything known, and at the center of everything, the human being as the engine of all that re-invention.
Mexico, Panama and other Latin American countries are mentioned in the OECD (July 2009), as countries that do not innovate and therefore encounter alarming reasons for poverty, unemployment, and other social problems. Other nations like the United States and some in Europe are competitive, if we measure their competitiveness by registered patents. To patent a product, it had to be conceived as something totally new and, once developed, it must fill some aspect of human need, that is, it must be useful.
Obviously, the reasons why countries do not innovate are many, from organizational culture, doctoral degrees, creativity, financial support and the state in general.
Free trade agreements expose within their articles the exchange of products that the other does not have, in the case of Mexico and China, for example, there are quantities of products that could be innovative and generate other jobs, but have not been exploited. The reason for this situation, there are many, and the truth is that it has not been done, it is enough to make a study of the treaty and there we will see opportunities without being taken.
But the idea in this writing is not to see the things that do not allow to do x and action, but to emphasize the need to train people within organizations and society, with an entrepreneurial spirit; innovative staff, who are not afraid of failure and uncertainty.
The United States, the European countries and the Asian giants are the kings of innovation. Latin America also innovates, but not on a scale that can compete with those mentioned above. The fact of adapting the administration paradigms to the Latin American contexts is an advance in innovation. However, it is not enough, it takes a general effort from the political biopsychosocial totality, to achieve orthogonal and sustainable innovation.
This means, the firm conviction of governments to form a culture of innovation, for which the necessary policies and conditions are created, in addition to the fact that companies carry out applied research and development. The gap between knowledge taught at universities and business realities needs to be further narrowed.
In 1956, Robert Blake, Herbert Shepard and Jane Mouton; they coined the term Organizational Development. According to bibliographic sources, it was a methodology for organizational development, planned, educational type and aimed at industrial groups.
"Organizational Development is an educational strategy adopted to achieve a planned change in the organization, which focuses on values, attitudes, relationships and organizational climate, taking people as a starting point and is oriented towards goals, structure or techniques of the organization. " (Audirac, De León and others, 2003).
It is a philosophy, art, management or technology approach, or all together.
Without a doubt, Organizational Development has been for years an effective tool to prepare people according to the production and strategic plans of the organization. In this way, it became one of the pillars of the management part, not being a simple course and taking an active part in the profit achievements of the organizations.
On the one hand, industrialization and automation came to displace men and women in a certain sense, but it is also true that there is no company without human beings. Organizations realized this and soon began to develop talent, bearing in mind that the true capital is information and knowledge; the intangible, unique and non-transferable.
Drucker earned a reputation as a futurist in the business world, as he was a person who saw the trends and needs of the business world and the economy before anyone else. Although he preferred to call himself a social ecologist, focusing more on the people in the companies than on the business itself.
Organizational and human development aligned to the strategic plans of companies become competitive strengths.
However, the reality of today is not the same as that of 1956, when the DO Today was born we live in a hypercompetitive global world, where brands, image and product-services have a shorter life span, where all the competitors that exist in the market are equally powerful. Where being a large company far from being an advantage can be a cause of disappearance, as happened to dinosaurs.
Let us develop talents and human capital, if we have time, for the sustained innovation of processes, products and services. The legal aspects and the budget are more durable, but if the re-invention of the other parts of the organization does not exist, surely another will come and liquidate them, will inevitably withdraw them from the business.
Today it is forbidden not to try; be afraid of failure. Today it is forbidden not to reinvent the company in its shorter and shorter terms. Tom Peters, with his administration of destruction, poses a similar paradigm, because a better element can emerge from destruction, such as the phoenix that, after dying, can resurface renewed and improved.
In conclusion, the company in this neoliberal world has opted for the non-transferable value of knowledge and intellectual human capital.
But such knowledge and capital can only be maintained through sustained innovation in the areas, structures and functions of companies.
Today we cannot speak of changes, nor of competitive advantages, we speak of destruction as a business paradigm. Many advantages can appear from this situation, including others that have not been imagined.
The United States, the European countries and the Asian giants are the kings of innovation. Latin America also innovates, but not on a scale that can compete with those mentioned above. The fact of adapting the administration paradigms to the Latin American contexts is an advance in innovation. However, it is not enough, it takes a general effort from the political biopsychosocial totality, to achieve orthogonal and sustainable innovation.
Just as Organizational Development is not a course or panacea to get out of trouble, innovation is not a random phenomenon, but an ongoing process and supported by all members of the organization, senior management, the board of directors, the shareholders and by government or country policies. An ecosystem with processes that once shared by all will be a shield against other people's intentions to snatch the position in the market.
Sources consulted
Estrin, J., (2009). Sustainable innovation: How to ignite the spark of creativity in a global economy. Mexico: Ed.: Mc Graw-Hill Companies, pp 254.
Peters, T, (2006) Re-imagine: business excellence in a disturbing era. Madrid: Pearson Educación, SA, PP. 352.
Peters, T, (2005). New organizations in times of chaos. Barcelona: Ed.: Deusto. PP 320
Audirac C., C., Estavillo, V., Domínguez, A., López, M. and Puerta, L. (2003). ABC of organizational development. Mexico: Ed.: Trillas, Pp. 110
. Retrieved on September 24, 2009
comunicate.wordpress.com/2007/05/20/tom-peters-el-liderazgo-y-la-innovacion/ Retrieved on September 24, 2009
http: // www. oecd.org/dataoecd/9/4/43557478.pdf Retrieved on September 24, 2009.
