Organizational development(DO) is about people and organizations, and people in organizations and how they work. Organizational development is also about planned change - that is, making individuals, teams, and organizations work better. To do this, it makes use of advances in psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, systems theory, organizational behavior, organization theory, and management practice. Two goals of DO programs are 1) to improve the functioning of individuals, teams, and the overall organization, and 2) to impart the necessary skills and knowledge that will allow members of the organization to improve their functioning on their own. DO programs are long-term, planned and continuous efforts.A leader faces an undesirable situation and tries to change it. The leader contacts a DO professional, and together they explore whether organizational development is relevant to the task at hand. If the answer is yes, they recruit others in the organization to help them design and implement the change program. An important characteristic of the DO is to spread participation and interest: include as many people as possible in the act. Then a general game plan or strategy is developed, which includes a series of activities, each with the intention of achieving a result that moves the organization towards the desired goals. DO improves the situation where individuals, teams, and organizations are not realizing their full potential.
A fundamental difference between organizational development and other organization improvement programs is the role of the DO consultant and his relationship with clients. DO consultants establish a collaborative relationship of equal equality with members of the organization, as together they identify problems and opportunities and take action. Thus, the role of DO consultants is to structure activities to help the organization solve its own problems and learn to do better. DO consultants are co-learners, as well as collaborators, as they help members of the organization find effective ways to work through problems. DO consultants do not provide solutions to problems, but rather serve as facilitators and assistants,not as expert advisers. DO consultants teach clients how to solve their own problems. The goal is to prepare the members of the organization to solve their own problems. This method of consulting encourages competition, growth, learning, and the delegation of authority throughout the company system. All this aims to bring about positive and permanent changes in organizations.All this aims to bring about positive and permanent changes in organizations.All this aims to bring about positive and permanent changes in organizations.
DO is the systematic application of behavioral science knowledge at various levels (group, intergroup and organization-wide) for the effective realization of planned change. Its objectives are a higher quality of working life, productivity, adaptability and efficiency. It pursues the use of behavioral knowledge to modify opinions, attitudes, values, strategies, structures and practices so that the organization can better adapt to competitive actions, technological advances and the accelerated rate of other changes in the environment. OD became necessary mainly because many administrators did not recognize that organizations are systems that are held together by dynamic interpersonal relationships.
The DO's overall goal is to change all parts of the organization to make them more responsive to human factors, more effective, and more capable of organizational learning and self-renewal. The DO is based on an orientation to systems, causal models and a series of basic assumptions.
Systems orientation.Change is so abundant in modern society that organizations need all of their parts to work together to solve the problems (and capitalize on opportunities) that result from change. Some organizations have grown so large that it is difficult for them to maintain coordination between their parties. Organizational development is a comprehensive program regarding the interactions of the various parts of the organization. Taking care to interweave structure, technology and individuals. He is interested in the behavior of employees in different groups, departments and locations. Trying in such a way to answer how effective are all these parts when they are combined to work in common ?; giving importance in such a way not only to the parts themselves,but to the way in which they relate to each other.
Causality.One of the contributions of systems orientation is that managers conceive their organizational processes in terms of a model with three types of variables. These being the Causal Variables, Intervening Variables and Variables of final results. The first are the most significant since they affect both the intervening variables and the final results, being those that management can modify more directly, including: organizational structure, controls, policies, training, and leadership behaviors. Among the intervening variables, affected by the causes, we have: attitudes, perceptions, motivation, behaviors, teamwork, and intergroup relationships.The final results variables represent the objectives pursued by management, being they higher productivity, higher sales, lower costs, customer loyalty and higher profits.
Basic assumptions. The DO starts from a series of assumptions on which it builds and determines its actions. These assumptions revolve around individuals, groups, and organization.
Regarding individuals, people are considered to want to grow and mature, employees have a lot to offer that has not been used at work so far (such as energy and creativity), and most employees want to be given the opportunity to contribute (want, seek, and appreciate being delegated authority).
As for groups, it is assumed that they and teams are decisive for organizational success, that groups exert very powerful influences on individual behavior, and that the complex roles to be played in groups require skill development.
And finally, organizationally, excessive controls, policies and rules are supposed to be harmful. Conflict can be functional if properly channeled, and individual and organizational goals can be made compatible.
DO characteristics. First, we have that DO programs are based on humanistic values, which are positive certainties about the potential and desire for growth of employees. Being the best environment for this growth, one in which collaboration, open communication, interpersonal trust, shared power and constructive confrontation are underlined. All of these factors provide a foundation for DO's efforts and help ensure that the new organization is responsive to human needs.
DO programs use one or more change agents whose role is to stimulate, facilitate and coordinate change. The change agent acts as a catalyst that activates change in the system while remaining somewhat independent of it. Although change agents can be external or internal, they are usually consultants from outside the company. The advantages of using external change agents are that they are more objective and have a very diverse experience.
The DO emphasizes the problem solving process, training staff to identify and solve their most important problems. These should be real problems faced by staff at that time in their work, so that the issues are challenging and their resolution difficult. The most common method of improving problem-solving skills is to have employees identify system problems, collect data about them, take corrective action, assess their progress, and make permanent adjustments. This cyclical process of using research to guide action, thereby generating new data as the basis for new actions, is called action research. By studying their problem solving process through action research, employees learn to learn from their experiences,so that in the future they can solve new problems on their own.
In addition, the participants learn through experiences in training conditions of the type of human problems they face at work, calling this process experiential learning. Participants discuss and analyze their immediate experiences and learn from them. This method tends to produce more behavioral changes than traditional exclusive exposition and discussion, in which individuals simply listen to and talk about abstract theories and concepts. Theory taught through these traditional methods is necessary and desirable, but participants must learn to apply it to a real situation.
The overall goal of organizational development is to create more effective organizations, in which continuous learning, adaptation, and improvement are practiced. The DO meets this goal based on the recognition that problems may occur at the individual, interpersonal, group, intergroup or organizational levels. A general OD strategy is then developed with one or more interventions, structured activities designed to help individuals or groups increase their work efficiency.
DO is commonly described as contingency-oriented, with flexible and pragmatic methods and instruments applied, adapting to the needs of each organization.
DO benefits. Among the main benefits obtained from the application of the DO we have: change in the entire organization, increase in motivation, as well as in quality and productivity. Greater job satisfaction, accompanied by a noticeable improvement in teamwork. Better conflict resolution, a greater commitment to organizational objectives, a greater willingness to change, reduced absenteeism, less turnover, and the creation of individuals and learning groups.
The future of DO, to a considerable degree, is related to other disciplines. Historically DO has been a highly interdisciplinary and eclectic field. It has evolved from theory, research, and practice in social psychology, adult education, community development, general systems theory, group family therapy, anthropology, philosophy, counseling, psychiatry, general administration, social work, administration of human resources, politics and other fields.
OD techniques and approaches have been widely disseminated in society, at least on the American and Canadian stage, in many parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America. This constitutes a highly positive fact because it reflects the high interest shown by the contributions that the DO can make.
People from all kinds of disciplines and occupations have been exposed in large corporations to DO training, thereby leading to an increase in their human and organizational potential. There is a pressing need to combine OD skills with the growing number of vast structural interventions and further conceptualize and research on these integrations. We refer in particular to Total Quality Management (TQM), Quality of Work Life (CVT) and Reengineering (BPR) programs. The emphasis on teams within the TQM and CVT programs makes DO a natural partner in these efforts. This is an aspect not mentioned in the success that many companies have had and still have in the implementation of both TQM and Six Sigma, as well as other techniques.Generally or in most cases only the effect that Total Quality Management or the implementation of Six Sigma has had on Motorola, General Electric, Xerox, among many others is mentioned. What is not mentioned is the joint application of the DO as a way to overcome resistance to change, achieve an overall vision, improve teamwork and intergroup negotiations, make communications more fluid, allow paradigm change, among many other issues that are fundamental when it comes to improving the levels of quality and productivity in a company. Believing that just by implementing Statistical Process Control, teaching management tools, forming Quality Circles, establishing the Six Sigma measurement and improvement system,It is enough to achieve excellence and an optimal level of quality is a serious mistake, unfortunately made by a large number of companies, which only manage to implement measurement systems, goal setting and training courses in continuous improvement, leaving next to the primary factor that human beings are in their behaviors, both psychological, sociological and anthropological.
Taking a clearer awareness of the nature of both individual human beings and groups is essential when it comes to modifying paradigms, managing change, improving performance, implementing continuous improvement as a work discipline, modifying behaviors, motivating and direct staff through new paths of creativity and service. It is precisely the lack of understanding of these factors that has led many companies to fail completely when implementing systems such as TQM or Six Sigma.
Bibliography
Organizational Development - Lewicki - Editorial Limusa - 1994
Organizational Development - Grizar, Montufar - McGraw Hill Editorial - 1992
Organizational Behavior - Gordon, Judith R. - Prentice Hall - 1997
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