History of Organizational Development

Organizational Development

OD Values:1. Respect for people2. Trust and support3. Power equalization4. Confrontation5. Participation

A collection of planned interventions, built on humanistic-democratic values, that seeks to improve organizational effectiveness and employee well-being.

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

LaboratoryTraining

Surveyresearch

and Feedback

ActionResearch

Socio-technical

Approaches

How does OD Work? Lewin’s 3 Phase OD Model

UNFREEZING

Resistance to change lessened, need for change created(Equilibrium disturbed)

MOVING

From old behaviourto 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 ContributorsKurt 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

Rensis Likert and Lewin RCGD Detroit Edison studies of feeding back

data Attitude surveys Interlocking chain of conferences

Survey research/feedback and OD

Key executive perceptionof problems

Consultation with behaviouralscientist consultant

Data gathering anddiagnosis byconsultant

Further data gathering

Feedback to key clientor client group

Joint action planning(objectives of ODprogramme and meansof attaining goals, egteam building

Data gathering

Feedback toclient group

Discussion and work ondata feedback and databy client group

Action planning(determine objectivesand how to get there)

Action (newbehaviours) Data gathering

(reassessment ofstate of system)

Feedback

Discussion and workon feedback andemerging data

Action planning

Action

Etc

Action Research process

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

Sociotechnical & Socioclinical OD

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

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

2nd Generation OD

Learning Organization

Agyris – Defensive routines1. Bypass embarrassment and threat when possible2. Act as though you are not bypassing them3. Don’t discuss steps 1 and 2 while they are happening4. 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