ORGANIZATIONAL

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The Organizational Development (OD)
process is complicated and it takes long
time to complete the process. It takes
minimum of one year and sometimes
continues indefinitely.
The process of Organisational Development
comprises of follows steps and they are:-

1. Initial Diagnosis
2. Data Collection
3. Data Feedback
4. Selection of Interventions
5. Implementation of interventions
6. Action planning and problem solving
7. Team Building
8. Inter-Group Development
9. Evaluation and Follow up
1. Initial Diagnosis: The initial diagnosis refers to finding the
inadequacies within the organisation that can be corrected by
OD activities then it is necessary to find out the professionally
competent persons within organisation to plan and execute OD
activities. The outside consultants can be also employed to help
in diagnosing the problems and diagnosing OD activities. The
consultants adopt various methods and that primarily includes
interviews, questionnaires, direct observation, analysis of
documents and reports for diagnosing the problem. If
executives recognize that there are inadequacies within
organization which can be corrected by OD activities, it is
necessary to find out the professional and competent people
within the organization to plan and execute OD activities. If
competent people are not available within the organization the
services activities are to be taken.

2. Data Collection: The survey method is
employed to collect the data for determining
organizational climate. It also helps in identifying
the behavioural problems that are rising in the
organisation.

3. Data Feedback: The collected data are
analyzed and reviewed by various work groups
that are formed for this purpose. It is done in order
to intervene in the areas of disagreement or
confrontation of ideas or opinions.



4. Selection of Interventions: The interventions
can be described as the planned activities that are
introduced into the system to achieve desired
changes and improvements. The suitable
interventions are to be selected and designed at
this stage.


5. Implementation of Interventions: The
selected intervention should be implemented
progressively as the process is not a one shot,
quick cure for organisational problems.
Consequently, it achieves real and lasting change
in the attitudes and behaviour of employees.
6. Action Planning and Problem Solving: To solve the
specific and identified problems by using the collected data,
groups prepare recommendations and specific action
planning.

7. Team Building: The consultants explain the advantages of
the teams in OD process and encourage the employees
throughout the process to form into groups and teams.

8. Inter-group Development: After the formation of
groups/teams, the consultants encourage the inter-group
meetings, interaction etc.

9. Evaluation and follow up: The organisation should
evaluate the OD programmes and should find out their utility,
and develop the programmes further for correcting the
deviations. The consultants make great significance to the
organisation in this respect. The entire steps in the OD
processes should be followed by the organisation in order to
derive full range of OD benefits.


Conclusion:
The organization finally has to evaluate the
OD programs, find out their utility, and
develop the programs further for correcting
the deviations and/or improved results. The
consultants help the organization in this
respect. All the steps in the OD processes
should be followed by the organization in
order to derive full range of OD benefits.
Kurt Lewin's description
of the process of change
involves three steps:
"Unfreezing": Faced with a
dilemma or
disconfirmation, the
individual or group
becomes aware of a need
to change.
"Changing": The situation is
diagnosed and new
models of behavior are
explored and tested.
"Refreezing": Application of
new behavior is evaluated,
and if reinforcing, adopted.
Unfreeze
A basic tendency of people is to seek a context in which
they have relative safety and feel a sense of control. In
establishing themselves, they attach their sense of
identity to their environment. This creates a comfortable
state from which any alternatives, even those which may
offer significant benefit, will cause discomfort.
Talking about the future thus is seldom enough to move
them from this 'frozen' state and significant effort may be
required to 'unfreeze' them and get them moving. This
usually requires Push methods to get them moving, after
which Pull methods can be used to keep them going.
The term 'change ready' is often used to describe people
who are unfrozen and ready to take the next step. Some
people come ready for change whilst others take a long
time to let go of their comfortable current realities.
Unfreezing is the first of Lewin's change transition stages,
where people are taken from a state of being unready to
change to being ready and willing to make the first step.
Here are some ways to make it happen:
Burning Platform: Expose or create a crisis.
Challenge: Inspire them to achieve remarkable things.
Command: Just tell them to move!
Evidence: Cold, hard data is difficult to ignore.
Destabilizing: Shaking people of their comfort zone.
Education: Learn them to change.
Management by Objectives (MBO): Tell people what to do, but
not how.
Restructuring: Redesign the organization to force behavior
change.
Rites of Passage: Hold a wake to help let go of the past.
Setting Goals: Give them a formal objective.
Visioning: Done well, visions work to create change.
Whole-System Planning: Everyone planning together.

Transition
A key part of Lewin's model is the notion that change, even at
the psychological level, is a journey rather than a simple step.
This journey may not be that simple and the person may need
to go through several stages of misunderstanding before they
get to the other side.
A classic trap in change is for the leaders to spend months on
their own personal journeys and then expect everyone else to
cross the gap in a single bound.
Transitioning thus requires time. Leadership is often important
and when whole organizations change, the one-eyed person
may be king. Some form of coaching, counseling or other
psychological support will often be very helpful also.
Although transition may be hard for the individual, often the
hardest part is to start. Even when a person is unfrozen and
ready for change, that first step can be very scary.
Transition can also be a pleasant trap and, as Robert Louis
Stephenson said, 'It is better to travel hopefully than arrive.'
People become comfortable in temporary situations where they
are not accountable for the hazards of normal work and where
talking about change may be substituted for real action.
Kurt Lewin's three phases give main phases of change. Once you
have unfrozen the people, the next question is how you keep them going.

Boiling the Frog: Incremental changes may well not be noticed.
Challenge: Inspire them to achieve remarkable things.
Coaching: Psychological support for executives.
Command: Tell them what to do.
Education: Teach them, one step at a time.
Facilitation: Use a facilitator to guide team meetings.
First Steps: Make it easy to get going.
Involvement: Give them an important role.
Management by Objectives (MBO): Tell people what to do, but not how.
Open Space: People talking about what concerns them.
Re-education: Train the people you have in new knowledge/skills.
Restructuring: Redesign the organization to force behavior change.
Shift-and-Sync: Change a bit then pause restabilize.
Spill and Fill: Incremental movement to a new organization.
Stepwise Change: Breaking things down into smaller packages.
Whole-System Planning: Everyone planning together.

Refreeze
At the other end of the journey, the final goal is to
'refreeze', putting down roots again and establishing the
new place of stability.
In practice, refreezing may be a slow process as transitions
seldom stop cleanly, but go more in fits and starts with a
long tail of bits and pieces. There are good and bad things
about this.
In modern organizations, this stage is often rather tentative
as the next change may well be around the next corner.
What is often encouraged, then, is more of a state of
'slushiness' where freezing is never really achieved
(theoretically making the next unfreezing easier). The
danger with this that many organizations have found is that
people fall into a state of change shock, where they work at
a low level of efficiency and effectiveness as they await the
next change. 'It's not worth it' is a common phrase when
asked to improve what they do.
Refreezing is the third of Lewin's change transition stages,
where people are taken from a state of being in transition
and moved to a stable and productive state.
Here are some ways to make it happen:
Burning Bridges: Ensure there is no way back.
Evidence Stream: Show them time and again that the
change is real.
Golden Handcuffs: Put rewards in their middle-term future.
Institutionalization: Building change into the formal systems
and structures.
New Challenge: Get them looking to the future.
Rationalization Trap: Get them into action then help them
explain their actions.
Reward Alignment: Align rewards with desired behaviors.
Rites of Passage: Use formal rituals to confirm change.
Socializing: Build it into the social fabric.

John Kotter's 8 step process - an
overviewStepsTransformation Suggestions
1. Increase urgency
Examine market and competitive realities
Identify and discuss crisis, potential crisis, or major
opportunities
Provide evidence from outside the organization that change
is necessary
2. Build the Guiding Team
Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change
effort
Attract key change leaders by showing enthusiasm and
commitment
Encourage the group to work together as a team
3. Get the Vision Right
Create a vision to help direct the change effort
Develop strategies for achieving that vision

4. Communicate for Buy-in
Build alignment and engagement through stories
Use every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision
and strategies
Keep communication simple and heartfelt
Teach new behaviors by the example of the guiding
coalition
5. Empowering Action
Remove obstacles to the change
Change systems and / or structures that work against the
vision
6. Create short term wins
Plan for and achieve visible performance improvements
Recognize and reward those involved in bringing the
improvements to life

7. Do Not Let Up
Plan for and create visible performance
improvements
Recognize and reward personnel involved in the
improvements
Reinforce the behaviours shown that led to the
improvements
8. Make Change Stick
Articulate the connections between the new
behaviors and corporate success

Action Research is a process which serves
as a model for most OD interventions.
French and Bell describe Action Research
as a "process of systematically collecting
research data about an ongoing system
relative to some objective, goal, or need
of that system; feeding these data back
into the system; taking actions by
altering selected variables within the
system based both on the data and on;
and hypothesis evaluating the results of
actions by collecting more data."
The steps in Action Research are :

1. Entry - This phase consists of marketing, i.e. finding
needs for change within an organization. It is also the
time to quickly grasp the nature of the organization,
identify the appropriate decision maker, and build a
trusting relationship.
2. Start-up and contracting - In this step, we identify
critical success factors and the real issues, link into the
organization's culture and processes, and clarify roles for
the consultant(s) and employees. This is also the time to
deal with resistance within the organization. A formal or
informal contract will define the change process.
3. Assessment and diagnosis - Here we collect data in
order to find the opportunities and problems in the
organization. For suggestions about what to look for, see
the previous article in this series, on needs assessment .
This is also the time for the consultant to make a
diagnosis, in order to recommend appropriate
interventions.

4. Feedback - This two-way process serves to tell those what
we found out, based on an analysis of the data. Everyone
who contributed information should have an opportunity to
learn about the findings of the assessment process. This
provides an opportunity for the organization's people to
become involved in the change process, to learn about how
different parts of the organization affect each other, and to
participate in selecting appropriate change interventions.
5. Action planning - In this step we will distill
recommendations from the assessment and feedback,
consider alternative actions and focus our interventions on
activities that have the most leverage to effect positive
change in the organization. An implementation plan will be
developed that is based on the assessment data, is logically
organized, results- oriented, measurable and rewarded. We
must plan for a participative decision-making process for the
intervention.
6. Intervention - Now, and only now, do we actually carry out
the change process. It is important to follow the action plan,
yet remain flexible enough to modify the process as the
organization changes and as new information emerges.
7. Evaluation - Successful OD must have made
meaningful changes in the performance and efficiency of
the people and their organization. We need to have an
evaluation procedure to verify this success, identify
needs for new or continuing OD activities, and improve
the OD process itself to help make future interventions
more successful.
8. Adoption - After steps have been made to change the
organization and plans have been formulated, we follow-
up by implementing processes to insure that this remains
an ongoing activity within the organization, that
commitments for action have been obtained, and that
they will be carried out.
9. Separation - We must recognize when it is more
productive for the client and consultant to undertake
other activities, and when continued consultation is
counterproductive. We also should plan for future
contacts, to monitor the success of this change and
possibly to plan for future change activities.

Case Study
Enhanced team effectiveness to facilitate growth in a leading family-owned
healthcare management consulting firm
Jeremy S. Lurey, Ph.D., Plus Delta Consulting, LLC,
Los Angeles, California
Goals
Further develop senior leadership
Implement new management structures, HR policies, and
business practices to better support local and remote staff
Critical Actions
Designed and implemented customized leadership
development program; Facilitated series of workshops on
leadership skills
Provided one-on-one coaching and additional support to
president and other management team members
Designed and facilitated customized "Consulting Skills
101"program to share strategies and techniques for managing
client projects and improving team communications
Prepared competency-based performance assessment tools for
evaluating both management and professional staff

Results
Implemented new policies and procedures to
standardize business operations and better align
them with best practices for remote work
Created new strategies and established specific
communication protocols for management to
support and further develop local as well as
remote staff
Enabled firm to come together as a more
cohesive unit; positioned them to take future
actions to ensure ongoing growth and success

Case Study
Helped the new CEO turn around a software company to position it for business
success.
Maya Townsend, Founder, Partnering Resources, Cambridge, MA
Goals
Pinpoint the core purpose, values, and strategies for the company. The new
CEO knew that turning the company around would take more than just
restructuring: I wanted to look introspectively to determine fundamentally
who we are, what is important to us, and where do we want to go.
Critical Actions
Work began with a plan to get the executive team to think creatively about
the company and its future.
The executive team identified the core purpose, values and strategy for the
company.
Realizing that the entire company needed to accept their work in order to
implement it successfully, the leadership team engaged managers in
defining actions needed to achieve the strategy.
The leadership team presented their work to all employees in an energized,
creative town hall meeting.
The leadership team cascaded the strategies through the entire organization
so all employees saw how their goals contributed to the core purpose of the
company.



Results
Said the CEO, This initiative has been an unqualified
success. We have a clearly defined strategy and the
management of the company is more energized than Ive
ever seen them. We have built the foundation to be a
truly great company.