Organization Development and Change

Chapter 12

Individual, Interpersonal, and

Group Process Approaches

Thomas G. Cummings
Christopher G. Worley
 Learning Objectives
for Chapter Twelve
• To understand the human process
interventions aimed at individuals,
interpersonal relations, and group dynamics

• To understand the application and

effectiveness of various process
interventions in producing change

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 Introduction
Interpersonal and Group Process Approaches discusses about change programs
relating to interpersonal relations and group dynamics.
They represent attempts to improve people’s working relationships with one
another.
The interventions are aimed at helping members of groups assess their
interactions and devise more effective ways of working.
These change programs represent a basic skill requirement for an OD
practitioner.
Interpersonal and group process approaches including process consultation,
third-party interventions, and team building, are among the most enduring
OD interventions.
 Process Interventions
• A set of activities on the part of the
consultant that helps individuals and group
members understand, diagnose, and
improve their behaviors.

• Interventions are aimed at helping

individuals develop skills, and members of
groups assess their interactions and devise
more effective ways of working.
 Individual, Interpersonal and
Group Process Approaches
• Coaching
• Training and Development
• Process Consultation
• Third-Party Interventions
• Team Building
 Coaching
• Goals
– Assist in execution of a transition
– Address a performance problem
– Develop new behavioral skills with leadership
development
• Application Stages
– Establish the principles of the relationship
– Conduct an assessment
– Coach and client debrief the results
– Develop and Implement an action plan
– Assess the results

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 Training and Development
• Goals
– Changing the skills and knowledge of organization
members to improve effectiveness and build
capabilities
• Application Stages
– Perform needs assessment
– Develop objectives and design training
– Deliver training
– Evaluate training

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 Process Consultation

 Process consultation (PC) is a general framework for carrying out helping relationships.
 Schein defines process consultation as
“the creation of a relationship that permits the client to perceive, understand, and act on
the process events that occur in his internal and external environment in order to improve
the situation as defined by the client.”
 The process consultant does not offer expert help in the form of solutions to problems, as
in the doctor–patient model. Rather, the process consultant works to help managers,
employees, and groups assess and improve human processes, such as communication,
interpersonal relations, decision making, and task performance.
 Schein argues that effective consultants and managers should be good helpers, aiding
others in getting things done and in achieving the goals they have set.
 Process Consultation
• Definitions
– The creation of a relationship that permits the client to perceive,
understand, and act on the process events…”
– An approach that helps people and groups help themselves
• Group Process Issues Addressed by Process Consultation
– Communications
– The functional roles of group members
– Group problem solving and decision making
– Group norms
– Leadership and authority

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 Ten Principles to Guide the Process Consultant’s Actions

Schein proposes ten principles to guide the process consultant’s actions.

1. Always try to be helpful. Process consultants must be mindful of their intentions, and each
interaction must be oriented toward being helpful.
2. Always stay in touch with the current reality. Each interaction should produce diagnostic
information about the current situation. It includes data about the client’s opinions, beliefs, and
emotions; the system’s current functioning; and the practitioner’s reactions, thoughts, and feelings.
3. Access your ignorance. An important source of information about current reality is the
practitioner’s understanding of what is known, what is assumed, and what is not known. Process
consultants must use themselves as instruments of change.
4. Everything you do is an intervention. Any interaction in a consultative relation-ship generates
information as well as consequences. Simply conducting preliminary interviews with group
members, for example, can raise members’ awareness of a situation and help them see it in a new
light.
 Ten Principles to Guide the Process Consultant’s Actions
5. The client owns the problem and the solution. This is a key principle in all OD
practice. Practitioners help clients solve their own problems and learn to manage future
change.
6. Go with the flow. When process consultants access their own ignorance, they often
realize that there is much about the client system and its culture that they do not know.
Thus, practitioners must work to understand the client’s motivations and perceptions.
7. Timing is crucial. Observations, comments, questions, and other interventions
intended to be helpful may work in some circumstances and fail in others. Process
consultants must be vigilant to occasions when the client is open (or not open) to
suggestions.
8. Be constructively opportunistic with confrontive interventions. Although process
consultants must be willing to go with the flow, they also must be willing to take
appropriate risks. From time to time and in their best judgment, practitioners must
learn to take advantage of “teachable moments.” A well-crafted process observation or
piece of feedback can provide a group or individual with great insight into their
behavior
 Ten Principles to Guide the Process Consultant’s Actions

9. Everything is information; errors will always occur and are the prime source for
learning. Process consultants never can know fully the client’s reality and invariably will
make mistakes. The consequences of these mistakes, the unexpected and surprising
reactions, are important data that must be used in the ongoing development of the
relationship.
10. When in doubt, share the problem. The default intervention in a helping
relationship is to model openness by sharing the dilemma of what to do next.
 Group Process
 Process consultation deals primarily with the interpersonal and group processes that describe how
organization members interact with each other.
 Social processes directly and indirectly affect how work is accomplished. When group process promotes
effective interactions, groups are likely to perform tasks successfully.
Group process includes:
1. Communications. Communication can be overt—who talks to whom, about what, for how long, and how
often. It can include body language, including facial expressions, fidgeting, posture, and hand gestures.
2. The functional roles of group members. The process consultant must be keenly aware of the different
roles individual members take on in a group.
3. Group problem solving and decision making. To be effective, a group must be able to identify problems,
examine alternatives, and make decisions.
4. Group norms. Especially if a group of people work together over a period of time, it develops group norms
or standards of behavior about what is good or bad, allowed or forbidden, right or wrong.
5. The use of leadership and authority. A process consultant needs to understand processes involved in
leadership and how different leadership styles can help or hinder a group’s functioning.
 Basic Process Interventions
• Individual Interventions
– Aimed at helping people better communicate
with others
– Johari Window
• Group Interventions
– Aimed at the process, content or structure of the
group
 Basic Process Interventions
 For each of the interpersonal and group processes a variety of interventions may be used. In broad terms, these
are aimed at making individuals and groups more effective.

a. Individual Interventions These interventions are designed primarily to help people be more effective in their
communication with others. For example, the process consultant can provide feedback to one or more individuals
about their overt behaviors during meetings.

 At the covert or hidden level of communication, feedback can be more personal and is aimed at
increasing the individual’s awareness of how their behavior affects others.

A useful model for this process has been developed by Luft in what is called the Johari Window.
A diagram of the Johari Window, shows that some personal issues are perceived by both the
individual and others. This is the “open” window. In the “hidden” window, people are aware of their
behavior, motives, and issues, but they conceal them from others. People with certain feelings about
themselves or others in the work group may not share with others unless they feel safe and
protected; by not revealing reactions they feel might be hurtful or impolite, they lessen the degree
of communication.
 Johari Window
Unknown to Others Known to Others

Hidden Open Known to

Spot Window Self

Blind Unknown
Unknown
Spot to Self
Window
 Improving Communications
Using the Johari Window
Unknown to Others Known to Others

Reduce Open Known to Self

Hidden Area Window
through
Disclosure to
Others
Reduce Blind Spot
Unknown
through Feedback from
to Self
Others
 a. Individual Interventions
 The “blind” window comprises personal issues that are unknown to the individual but that are communicated
clearly to others.
 Individual interventions encourage people to be more open with others and to disclose their views, opinions,
concerns, and emotions, thus reducing the size of the hidden window.
 Before process consultants give individual feedback, they first must observe relevant events, ask questions to
understand the issues fully, and make certain that the feedback is given to the client in a usable manner. The
following are guidelines for effective feedback:

• The giver and receiver must have consensus on the receiver’s goals.
• The giver should emphasize description and appreciation.
• The giver should be concrete and specific.
• Both giver and receiver must have constructive motives.
• The giver should not withhold negative feedback if it is relevant.
• The giver should own his or her observations, feelings, and judgments.
• Feedback should be timed to when the giver and receiver are ready.
 b. Group Interventions
b. Group Interventions These interventions are aimed at the process, content, or structure of the group. Process
interventions sensitize the group to its own internal processes and generate interest in analyzing them.

• Interventions include comments, questions, or observations about relationships between and among group
members; problem solving and decision making; and the identity and purpose of the group.
• Content interventions help the group determine what it works on. They include comments, questions, or
observations about group membership; agenda setting, review, and testing procedures; interpersonal issues;
and conceptual inputs on task-related topics.
• Finally, structural interventions help the group examine the stable and recurring methods it uses to
accomplish tasks and deal with external issues. They include comments, questions, or observations about
inputs, resources, and customers; methods for determining goals, developing strategies, accomplishing work,
assigning responsibility, monitoring progress, and addressing problems; and relationships to authority, formal
rules, and levels of intimacy.
 Results of Process Consultation
 Although process consultation is an important part of organization development. A number of difficulties arise in
trying to measure performance improvements that are a result of process consultation.
 One problem is that most process consultation is conducted with groups performing mental tasks (for example,
decision making); the outcomes of such tasks are difficult to evaluate.
 A second difficulty with measuring PC’s effects occurs because in many cases process consultation is combined
with other interventions in an ongoing OD program.
 A third problem with assessing the performance effects of process consultation is that much of the relevant
research has used people’s perceptions rather than hard performance measures as the index of success.
 Third Party Interventions
• Activities that focus on interpersonal
conflicts within the organization
• Interventions help involved parties
interact with each other directly,
facilitating diagnosis of the conflict and
its resolution

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 An Episodic Model of Conflict
Interpersonal conflict often occurs in iterative, cyclical stages known as "episodes." An episodic
model is shown in Figure 39. At times, issues underlying a conflict are latent and do not present any
manifest problems for the parties. Then something triggers the conflict and brings it into the open.
For example, a violent disagreement or frank confrontation can unleash conflictual behavior.
Because of the negative consequences of that behavior, the unresolved disagreement usually
becomes latent again. And again, something triggers the conflict, making it overt, and so the cycle
continues with the next conflict episode.

Figure 39: A cyclical Model of Interpersonal Conflict

 A Cyclical Model of Conflict

Behavior Triggering Behavior

Triggering
Event
Event

Issues
Issues Consequences Consequences

Episode 1 Episode 2
 An Episodic Model of Conflict
Conflict has both costs and benefits to the antagonists and to those in contact with them. Unresolved conflict can
proliferate and expand. An interpersonal conflict may be concealed under a cause or issue that serves to make
the conflict appear more legitimate. Frequently, the overt conflict is only a symptom of a deeper problem.
The episodic model identifies four strategies for conflict resolution.
The first three attempt to control the conflict, and only the last approach tries to change the basic issues
underlying it.
1. The first strategy is to prevent the ignition of conflict by arriving at a clear understanding of the triggering
factors and thereafter avoiding or blunting them when the symptoms occur. For example, if conflict between the
research and production managers is always triggered by new-product introductions, then senior executives can
warn them that conflict will not be tolerated during the introduction of the latest new product.
2. The second control strategy is to set limits on the form of the conflict. Conflict can be constrained by informal
gatherings before a formal meeting or by exploration of other options. It also can be limited by setting rules and
procedures specifying the conditions under which the parties can interact. For example, a rule can be instituted
that union officials can attempt to resolve grievances with management only at weekly grievance meetings.
 An Episodic Model of Conflict
The third control strategy is to help the parties cope differently with the consequences of the conflict. The third-
party consultant may work with the people involved to devise coping techniques, such as reducing their
dependence on the relationship, ventilating their feelings to friends, and developing additional sources of
emotional support. These methods can reduce the costs of the conflict without resolving the underlying issues.
The fourth method is an attempt to eliminate or to resolve the basic issues causing the conflict. As Walton points
out, “There is little to be said about this objective because it is the most obvious and straightforward, although it
is often the most difficult to achieve.
 Team Building
 Team building refers to a broad range of planned activities that help groups improve the way they
accomplish tasks, help members enhance their interpersonal and problem-solving skills, and increase
team performance.
 Organizations comprise many different types of groups including permanent work groups, temporary project
teams, and virtual teams.
 Team building is an effective approach to improving teamwork and task accomplishment in such environments. It
can help problem-solving groups make maximum use of members’ resources and contributions. It can help
members develop a high level of motivation to implement group decisions.
 Team building can help the groups design high-quality change programs and ensure that the programs are
accepted and implemented by organization members.
 Team building also can help groups overcome specific problems, such as apathy and general lack of member
interest; loss of productivity; increasing complaints within the group; confusion about assignments; low
participation in meetings; lack of innovation and initiation; increasing complaints from those outside the group
about the quality, timeliness, and effectiveness of services and products; and hostility or conflicts among
members.
A Classification of Team-Building Activity
 Team Building Activities
• Activities Related to One or More
Individuals
• Activities Oriented to the Group’s
Operations and Behaviors
• Activities Affecting the Group’s
Relationship with the Rest of the
Organization

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 Types of Teams
• Groups reporting to the same manager
• Groups involving people with common goals
• Temporary groups formed to accomplish a
specific, one-time task
• Groups consisting of people whose work
roles are interdependent
• Groups with no formal links but whose
collective purpose requires coordination
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 Team-Building Activities
• Determine the Intervention Target
– One or more individuals
– A group’s operation and behavior
– A group’s relationships with the rest of the
organization

• Determine the Intervention Orientation

– Diagnostic
– Developmental

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 Team Building Activities
• Group Operation and Behavior
– An inward look by the team at its own performance,
behavior and culture for the purpose of improving
effectiveness
• Group Relationships with the Organization
– Understand the group’s role within the organization
including interaction, support, and collaboration
• Manager’s Role

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 The Manager’s Role in Team Building
 Ultimately, the manager is responsible for team functioning, although this responsibility
obviously must be shared by the group itself.
 Therefore, it is management’s task to develop a work group that can regularly analyze and
diagnose its own effectiveness and work process.
 With the team’s involvement, the manager must diagnose the group’s effectiveness and take
appropriate actions if it shows signs of operating difficulty or stress.
 Many managers, however, have not been trained to perform the data gathering, diagnosis,
planning, and action necessary to maintain and improve their teams continually.
 Thus, the issue of who should lead a team-building session is a function of managerial capability.
The initial use of an OD consultant usually is advisable if a manager is aware of problems, feels
that he or she may be part of the problem, and believes that some positive action is needed to
improve the operation of the team, but is not sure how to go about it.
 Dyer has provided a checklist for assessing the need for a consultant (Table 12.3). Some of the
questions ask the manager to examine Interpersonal and Group Process Approaches and
establish the degree to which he or she feels comfortable in trying out new and different things,
the degree of knowledge about team building, whether the boss might be a major source of
difficulty, and the openness of group members.
The Manager’s Role in Team Building
 The Manager’s Role in Team Building
 Basically, the role of the OD consultant is to work closely with the manager (and members of the team) to a
point at which the manager is capable of engaging in team development activities as a regular and ongoing part
of overall managerial responsibilities.
 Assuming that the manager wants and needs a consultant, the two should work together in developing the
initial program, keeping in mind that (1) the manager ultimately is responsible for all team-building activities,
even though the consultant’s resources are available; and (2) the goal of the consultant’s presence is to help the
manager learn to continue team development processes with minimum consultant help or without the ongoing
help of the consultant.
 Thus, in the first stages, the consultant might be much more active in data gathering, diagnosis, and action
planning, particularly if a one- to three-day off-site workshop is considered. In later stages, the consultant takes
a much less active role, with the man-ager becoming more active and serving as both manager and team
developer.
Strategies for Conflict Resolution
• Prevent the conflict through mandate or
separation of the parties
• Set limits on the timing and extent of the
conflict
• Help the parties to cope differently with the
conflict
• Attempt to eliminate or resolve the basic
issues in the conflict
 Summary
In this chapter, we presented human process interventions aimed at interpersonal relations and
group dynamics. Among the earliest interventions in OD, these change programs help people gain
interpersonal competence, work through interpersonal conflicts, and develop effective groups.
Process consultation is used not only as a way of helping groups become effective but also as a
means whereby groups learn to diagnose and solve their own problems and continue to develop
their competence and maturity. Important areas of activity include communications, roles of group
members, difficulties with problem-solving and decision-making norms, and leadership and
authority. The basic difference between process consultation and third-party intervention is that
the latter focuses on inter-personal dysfunctions in social relationships between two or more
individuals within the same organization and is targeted toward resolving direct conflict between
those individuals. Team building is directed toward improving group effectiveness and the ways in
which members of teams work together. Teams may be permanent or temporary or traditional or
virtual, but their members have either common organizational aims or work activities. The general
process of team building, like process consultation, tries to equip a team to handle its own ongoing
problem solving.