History of
Organizational
Development
Organizational Development
A collection of planned interventions, built on
humanistic-democratic values, that seeks to improve
organizational effectiveness and employee well-being.
OD
ODValues:
Values:
1.1. Respect
Respectfor
forpeople
people
2.2. Trust
Trustand
andsupport
support
3.3. Power
Powerequalization
equalization
4.4. Confrontation
Confrontation
5.5. Participation
Participation
History of OD
Relatively new field of study – 50’s & 60’s
No unifying theory – just models of practice
Emerged from study of group dynamics & planned change.
Late 40’s
T-groups – training groups, behavioral skills and individual
insight into problem solving
Kurt Lewin at MIT – RCGD, Teachers College/Columbia
Four Trunk Stems of OD
Survey
Action Socio-
Laboratory research
Research technical
Training and
Approaches
Feedback
How does OD Work?
Lewin’s 3 Phase OD Model
UNFREEZING
Resistance to change lessened,
need for change created
(Equilibrium disturbed)
MOVING
From old behaviour
to the new
(Changes)
REFREEZING
Change made
permanent
Laboratory Training
NTL – Nat’l Training Laboratory
T-Group
L-Group
RCGD
Other universities set up training labs
Invention of flip chart
Next 10 years were tough – frustration at inability to transfer
NTL to real world – began to train teams.
Major Contributors
Kurt Lewin (T-Group)
Kenneth Benne, Leland Bradford and Ronald Lippitt.(L-Group)
Chris Argyris
1957, Yale, First to conduct team building sessions with
CEO’s.
Douglas McGregor
1957, MIT – Started program in org studies
Union Carbide – transfer t-groups to complex organizations
Theory X and Y
The Human side of Enterprise.
Robert Blake
WWII served in Psych unit of Army Airforce
Looked at systems rather than individuals in system on one-
on-one basis
Link of systems process to OD
Managerial Grid – win/lose dynamics
Warren Bennis
Only T-grouper to actually try to reshape an
organization from the top.
Led to his study of leadership
The Term OD
Emerged from Baton Rouge T-groups called
Development Groups
“At that time we wanted to put a label on the program at
General Mills. We didn’t want to call it management
development because it was total organization-wide, nor
was it human relations training. We didn’t want to call it
organization improvement because that is a static term, so
we labeled the program “organization Development”
meaning system-wide change efforts.” – Richard
Beckhard
Survey research/feedback and OD
Rensis Likert and Lewin RCGD
Detroit Edison studies of feeding back
data
Attitude surveys
Interlocking chain of conferences
Action Research process
Key executive perception
Action (new
of problems
behaviours)
Data gathering
Consultation with behavioural (reassessment of
scientist consultant state of system)
Action planning
Data gathering and (determine objectives
diagnosis by and how to get there)
Feedback
consultant
Discussion and work on
data feedback and data
Further data gathering Discussion and work
by client group
on feedback and
Feedback to key client emerging data
or client group Feedback to
client group
Action planning
Joint action planning
(objectives of OD Data gathering
programme and means Action
of attaining goals, eg
team building Etc
Sociotechnical & Socioclinical OD
Travistock England
Initial focus was group work with families
Moved to organizations and communities
Experiments with soldiers in group work
Formed theories of group behavior
Eric Trist
Coal mines – leaderless groups 1947
Industrial democracy, open systems
Organizations are open sociotechnical systems
Organize around process – not tasks
Flatten the hierarchy
Use teams to manage everything
Let customers drive performance
Reward team performance
Open to interact with its environment
Five Components
Consider the context of the past in organizations –
first generation OD
Consider the future
Turbulent times – speed of change
Globalization
Mergers/acquisitions
Private business in autocratic societies
2nd Generation OD
Interest in Organizational Transformation
Multi level, qualitative, radical, discontinuous change
involving a paradigmatic shift, Levy & Merry.
Organizational Culture
Schein
Norms – values – artifacts – assumptions
Learning organization
Argyris, Schon, Senge
Condition under which individuals, team and
organizations learn
Learning Organization
Agyris – Defensive routines
1. Bypass embarrassment and threat when possible
2. Act as though you are not bypassing them
3. Don’t discuss steps 1 and 2 while they are happening
4. Don’t discuss the undiscussability of the
undiscussable.
Senge – Systems thinking
Learning disabilities in organizations
Different ways to think about complex problems.
The origin of the vision is much less important than
how it is shared
TQM
Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum
….a particular set of values about the individual and the
individuals role in the organization. Total quality efforts in
the companies encourage true employee involvement,
demand teamwork, seek to push decision making power
to lower levels in the company, and reduce barriers
between people. . . These values are at the core of OD as
well. - Ciampa
Thank you…
Wake up Time
