Chapter 1 Top of Form
Organization development (OD) is a process that applies a broad range of behavioral science knowledge and practices to help organizations build their capability to change to achieve greater effectiveness in areas such as increase financial performance, employee satisfaction, and environmental sustainability. OD is oriented to improving the total system the organization and its parts in the context of the larger environment that affects them. I would like to look at the four types of management systems.
Four Types of Management Systems
Exploitative Authoritative System (System 1):
- An autocratic top-down approach to leadership.
- Communication is downward
- There is some lateral interaction or teamwork
- Decision making, and control reside primarily at the top
- Performance is mediocre
Benevolent Authoritative Systems (System 2):
- Are like System 1
- Management is more paternalistic
- There is more interaction, communication, and decision making within defined boundaries through management
Consultative Systems (System 3):
- There is an increase in employee interaction, communication, and decision making
- Management still makes final decisions
- Productivity is good
- Employees are moderately satisfied with the organization
Participative Group Systems (System 4):
- Are opposite of System 1
- Designed around group methods of decision making and supervision
- There is an increase member involvement and participation
- Work groups are highly involved in:
- Setting goals
- Making decisions
- Improving methods
- Appraising results
- Communication happens laterally and vertically
- Decisions are linked throughout the organization by overlapping group membership
- System 4 achieves high levels of:
- Productivity
- Quality
- Member Satisfaction
Chapter Two’s intent is to introduce us to the approach an organization can (should) take to change, more specifically, planned change. We are introduced to three planned change models which include Lewin’s Planned Change Model, Action Research Model, and Positive Model (Cummings & Worley, 2015). The three listed models serve as the primary models of planned change in most organizations utilizing organizational development in strategic manner. Below is a high-level review of what each model practices:
- Lewin’s Planned Change Model – Unfreezing which presents the characteristics the organization is expecting and allowing members to become motivated and change behaviors independently. The Moving phase presents change at the organizational level and in the processes the organization supports. The third step is refreezing which stabilizes the organization at a new state of equilibrium.
- Action Research Model – An eight-step process, utilizing cyclical change and often used the most synonymous with Organizational Development. The larger the organization or community the action research model is supporting the more complex it gets. Sometimes politics can come into play, so an organization must ensure the proper stakeholders are invested and are in agreeance as to the planned change.
- Positive Model – the models approach is to have an organization understand their true current state and understand what they do best at. This model uses appreciative inquiry (AI) infuses positive value of change for organizations (Cummings & Worley, 2015).
With an Organization Development professional’s support, top level executives can begin to plan cultural change, creating a vision and desired future state for an organization. My organization decided to make a change approx. eight (8) years ago as we needed to improve the culture. The change was slow, and painful, but the hospital system consistently scores will with patients and employees (both priorities to us) regarding satisfaction scores. There will always be opportunities to improve but it took some honest discussions with OD professionals and leadership to get started and stay the course.
Chapter Three discusses the role and life of an Organizational Development (OD) Practitioner. The role is also referred to as a Change Manager or Change Agent. An OD practitioner is a generic term for people practicing OD. These individuals may include managers responsible for developing their organizations department, people specializing in OD as a profession, and people specializing in a field currently being integrated with OD (e.g., Human Resources or IT) who have gained some familiarity with and competence in OD (Cummings & Worley, 2015). OD Practitioners will want to understand the organizations culture and make a conscious effort to remain centered, focusing on processes rather than just people. Foundation competencies of OD Practitioners include:
- Organizational behavior
- Individual Psychology
- Group Dynamics
- Manager and Organization Theory
- Research Methods/Statistics
- Comparative Cultural Perspectives
- Functional Knowledge of Business
Each of the foundation competencies is supported by Core Competencies which are drawn out in more detail on page 49 of our text. Regardless of being an Internal or External consultant, the OD Practitioner will serve as a Change Agent for an organization. There are advantages and disadvantages of each side of the consultant role. An external consultant is brought in to provide a different and objective perspective into the organization development process (Cummings & Worley, 2015). Internal consultants may have an easier entry due to ease of access to relationships and clients (employees of the company they work for) but external consultants usually enjoy a “higher status” than internal consultants which allows for those needed hard-to-have discussions to take place.
An OD Practitioner must ensure they avoid ethical dilemmas by not misrepresenting the purpose for change, not misusing data, creating coercion, creating value and goal conflicts, and being technically inept. The career of an OD Practitioner is relatively new compared to many professionals so the work in its entirety is still developing. An OD Practitioner should remember, it’s always right to do the right thing, and wrong to do the wrong thing…even in business.
Chapter 5 Diagnosing is the second major phase in the general model of change. It is the process of understanding how the organization is currently functioning, and it provides the information necessary to design change interventions. The diagnosis phase gives OD practitioners an idea about what information to collect and analyze.
The open-system properties are environmental; inputs, transformations, and outputs; boundaries; feedback; and alignment. The environment is the key to organization design decisions.
Three classes of environments influences are general environment; external forces that affects the organization directly or indirectly. Task environmental has five forces which are supplier power, buyer power, threats of substitutes, threats of entry, and rivalry among competitors.
The design components have four components – technology, structure, management processes, and human resources system. These all must to work together like a watch with all parts aligning together to have the common goal.
There are five major components in group design. 1) Goal clarity is how well the group understands its objective. 2) Task structure is how the group’s work is designed. 3) Group composition concerns the members of the group. 4) Team functioning is the underlying basis of group life. 5) Performance norms how the group should perform its task and what level of performance are acceptable.
Individual diagnosis discusses inputs, design components, and relational fits needed for diagnosing jobs. Inputs affects job design are organizational design, culture, group design, and the personal characteristics of job holders. Design components have five key dimensions: skill variety, task identity, task significant, autonomy, and feedback about results.
In every aspect change is something that people fear and sometimes are unwilling to change. If the changes take into consideration the norms and culture of the organization, then the changes won’t be so dramatic.
Chapter 6 discusses the value of a diagnostic relationship during the OD cycle. The cycle if data collection and feedback include the following steps:
Establishing a diagnostic relationship and Plan the data collection à Collecting data à Analyzing data à Feeding back data à following up and action planning (Cummings & Worley, 2015).
These steps can and should be repeated as many time as necessary. The actual process, or method, of collecting data can be accomplished multiple ways. The methods include:
- Surveys and questionnaires – can be standardized or customized depending the need
- Interviews – can be 1:1, in a group or in a formalized focus group or sensing meeting
- Observations – data can come from the OD practitioner being part of a group or remaining outside if the group while observing the process/processes in question
- Unobtrusive measures – can get secondary data for system, department or individual levels to understand the history of the area in question
Each of these measures have their strengths and weaknesses. Due to the varying strengths and weaknesses no one method can truly measure all important diagnostic variables (Cummings & Worley, 2015). The strength and weakness for each method are discussed in depth on pages 126 – 131 of our text.
The primary techniques to analyze the diagnostic data falls into either the qualitative or quantitative fields. The qualitative field includes both content analysis and force-field analysis.
- Content Analysis – summarizes response into categories (grouping)
- Force-Field Analysis – broken down into subcategories of Forces for Change v. Forces of Maintaining Status Quo (refer to page 134 and 135 for in depth review)
The quantitative field can have various levels of maturity for measurement purposes. A common measurement is to study mean, standard deviation, or frequency distributions. All of the data mining is pointless if the data does not have a proper feedback loop. Chapter 6 outlines the process issues related to data feedback. The process needs to provide data owners a motivation to work with the data. The meeting to provide data feedback needs to be structured to ensure chaos does not break out during the review. The feedback meeting must have the right people in the room, so the OD practitioner must be cognizant of who is in attendance and who should join if needed. Data owners and the group reviewing the data must understand what their capabilities and limitations are regarding the results of the data. Lastly, the OD practitioner will need to help the group process what all the data means and how to move forward. If the data is less than favorable the OD practitioner will need to ensure they have control of the environment, staying focused on the topic at hand (Cummings & Worley, 2015).
Chapter 7 discusses various interventions which represent organizational change. There are four major type of interventions which are human process interventions, technostructural interventions, human resource management interventions, and strategic change interventions (Cummings & Worley, 2015). The one I found to be most valuable was the human process intervention because even as companies start to become more reliant on technology, for the company to exist people still need to work there to run it.
Human process interventions occur at the individual, group or total system levels. These events can be broken down into subgroups that focus on interpersonal relationships and interventions that are more system wide efforts.
The interpersonal human process interventions include:
- Process Consultation – aimed at helping groups learn how to solved interpersonal problems within themselves
- Third Party Intervention – helps groups learn how to solve issues through methods such as problem solving, bargaining and conciliation
- Team Building – goes beyond process consultation because it forces groups to examine their group’s tasks, member roles, and strategies for performing tasks
The system wide process interventions include:
- Organization confrontation meeting – gathers various groups of employees together for identification and problem-solving activities
- Intergroup relations – typically involves an OD practitioner helping two groups understand the causes of their issues and then determining the proper countermeasures to implement
- Large group interventions – a powerful tool to create awareness about organizational problems that are likely affecting a wide range of employees/stakeholders
Additionally, human process interventions, like team building events and/or process consultations, can help leadership become more effective in their roles.
Chapter eight focuses on the following five activities that are needed when planning and implementing an effective change management in an organization.
- Motivating Change involves creating a readiness for change among organization members and overcoming their resistance.
- Creating a Vision, it builds on an organization’s core ideology and describes the envision of the organization’s future. They are used to articulate or communicate the purpose for implementing the change.
- Developing Political support for the changes, assessing your own source of power, identifying and soliciting the support of key stakeholders.
- Managing the Transition, the activity and commitment planning, special or creative change management structures, and learning procedures for the members, which could accelerate the transition.
- Sustaining the momentum, provide the needed resources for the change program, and build support system for change agents. Develop new competencies and skills, reinforce the new behaviors required to implement the changes, and stay the course for the change management completion (Cummings & Worley, 2015, p. 180, 204).
In order to fully implement our envisioned change, Developing Political Support is beneficial and includes:
– Assessing Change Agent Power
– Identifying Key Stakeholders
– Influencing Stakeholders
Following on after buy-in, actions, and support comes with Sustaining Momentum by:
– Providing Resources for Change: without them meaningful change is not likely
– Building a Support System for Change Agents: relieves stress and encourages folks responsible for the change work
– Developing New Competencies & Skills: change drives new skills, abilities, and knowledge
– Reinforcing New Behaviors: identify successes early!
– Staying the Course: can require time and patience
Chapter nine focuses on the last two phases of the organization developing cycle or planned change: evaluating interventions and institutionalizing Interventions.
Evaluation interventions have the two following essential feedbacks.
- Implementation Feedback, concerned with whether the intervention is being implemented as intended.
- Evaluation Feedback, indicating whether the intervention is producing the expected results.
Evaluation of interventions include decisions about measurement and research design.
- Measurement issues concentrate on selecting the variables and designing good measures. Designing the good measures comprises the following: operational meaning, consistency, and validity, which should comprise various procedures; mixtures questionnaires, interviews, and company records.
- Research design focuses on setting up the conditions for making valid assessments of an intervention’s effects. This involves ruling out explanations for the observed results other than the intervention. Unsystematic experimental designs are seldom practicable quasi-experimental designs are used for eliminating alternative explanations.
- Organization development interventions are institutionalized when change program continues and becomes part of the organization’s standard operative.
- Intervention Characteristics: goal specificity, programmability, level of change target, internal support, and sponsorship.
- Institutionalization Processes: socialization, commitment, reward allocation, diffusion, and sensing and calibration.
- Indicators of Institutionalization: knowledge, performance, preferences, normative consensus, and value consensus (Cummings & Worley, 2015).
Chapter 10
Chapter 10 has four major points of focus. The focuses include diagnostic issues in interpersonal and group process interventions, process consultation, third-party interventions, and team building.
Diagnostic issues in interpersonal and group interventions must have a design group. The design group consists of goal clarity, task structure, composition, group functioning, and performance norms (Cummings & Worley, 2015). A group can perform tasks successfully when the group process includes the following:
- Excellent communication (verbal and body language considered)
- Function roles of group members (OD practitioner needs to identify roles within groups)
- Group problem solving and decision making (identify issue, root cause analysis, decide on changes that will take place)
- Group norms (this can/will vary by group; the OD practitioner can drive the power of groups)
- Use of leadership and authority (OD practitioner will use roles and authority when needed to create desired change)
According to (Cummings & Worley, 2015) process consultation (PC) is a general framework for carrying out helping relationship. PC is a mixture of philosophy and techniques meant to improve relationships and processes. Rather than offering a solution, the Process Consultant will help groups (leaders and frontline workers) to improve communication, decision making and tasks functions that should lead to optimal results. The author of the book Humble Inquiry, Edgar Schein, proposes there are ten principles that should help guide a consultant’s actions. Those principles can be found on pages 267 and 268 and are listed as:
- Always try to be helpful
- Always stay in touch with the current reality
- Access your ignorance (my favorite because it requires self-reflection)
- Everything you do is an intervention
- The client owns the problem and the solution
- Go with the flow
- Timing is crucial
- Be constructively opportunistic with confrontive interventions
- Everything is information; errors will occur and they’re a prime source for learning
- When in doubt, share the problem(s)
Third-party interventions address conflict between two or more people within the same group or organization (Cummings & Worley, 2015). By viewing conflict as incompatible activities you allow the opportunity for resolution to occur, which allows for conflict to potentially be seen in a positive light. The variation regarding third-party conflict may be based on how substantive the issue may be that is in question. Depending on the issue, various professionals may be required to help negotiations, creating a final agreement. Third-party consultants have various tasks to help facilitate conflict resolution which will include gathering data, selecting meeting locations that ensure neutrality, selecting attendees carefully, along with other key functions listed on page 277 of our text.
The four-major point is team building which encompasses a broad range of planned activities meant to help groups improve the way they accomplish tasks and increase team performance (Cummings & Worley, 2015). Team will realize improved results and heightened team functionality through team building exercises. The OD practitioner can stress that a team is built of individuals that are joined together for a common purpose or cause and they should come together to respectfully push each other forward and hold each other accountable in a professional manner.
RE: Chapter 11
Top of Form
Chapter 11 address an organization process approach through four specific topics. The topics include diagnostic issues in organization process interventions, organization confrontation meetings, intergroup relations interventions, and large group interventions. The intent is to address system wide change through process interventions (Cummings & Worley, 2015).
Diagnostic issues in organization process interventions are normally required due to some form of environmental change that has taken place or will occur. By utilizing diagnostic data, an OD professional can likely present a solid business case regarding the current state restraints the organization faces and interventions that will need to take place.
Organization confrontation meetings is the first intervention and it is the earliest as it is an organization-wide approach supported by an OD professional (Cummings & Worley, 2015). I personally believe this is the empowerment phase for many organization that are choosing to make a change. This intervention supports people identifying gaps, or problems, prioritizing their efforts with actionable targets, and begin working on the issues at hand. This approach can be used across an organization from transaction-based employees (techs, nurses, clerks, etc.) to top level managers and professionals within the organization. Page 299 discusses the 10 steps for the application stages. The approach and results can be drastic, but they are meant to be as the method is usually used during times of stress and low performance.
Intergroup relations interventions is the second approach which consists of microcosm groups and intergroup conflict resolution groups so that means there are two interventions (Cummings & Worley, 2015). The two groups have different purposes. The Microcosm group consists of a small number of people representing different functions and levels, working through parallel processes. My experience is bringing these groups together to facilitate Kaizen Events (or Rapid Improvement Events) to allow for focus and change to take place regarding a specific area in need of change. The five steps discussed for microcosm groups include identifying the system-wide issue, bringing the group together for further analysis, provide training to ensure a mission or charter are in place for the group, addressing the issue through problem solving techniques, and dissolution of the group at the end. I personally think there should be some form of follow-up to allow for sustainment of the improvement work but that is not included in this methodology from what I could tell.
Large group interventions work on issues that affect the whole organization, often bringing together groups of 100+ people. The interventions can last between 1-5 days, sometimes the session is formal, sometimes they are informal, some are a single meeting, some a series of meeting…whatever is needed to ensure system wide change occurs (Cummings & Worley, 2015). The open-system approach is meant to ensure a wide range of stakeholders can present their view of the issue being addressed. Preparing for a large group meeting has four steps which include creating a compelling meeting theme, ensuring appropriate participants are engaged, relevant tasks to address the conference theme, and post-meeting follow-through work is established. Conducting the meeting includes current state mapping for the organization, assessing the org’s responses to the environmental expectations, identifying the core mission of the organization, creating a realistic future scenario of environmental expectations and organization responses, and comparing the present with the ideal future state and prepare an action plan for reducing discrepancy (Cummings & Worley, 2015) (Cummings & Worley, 2015). This approach is very formal compared to the Open-Space methods which are discussed on pages 313-317.
Chapter 12 talks about the different ways organizations can restructure. The structural design must fit at least four factors: the environment, organization size, technology, and organization strategy. Traditionally, organizations fall into three types of structure: functional structure, divisional structure, and matrix structure. Each one has advantages and disadvantage, see tables 12.1, 12.2, and 12.3.
Process-based structures emphasize on lateral rather on vertical relationships. Referred to as “horizontal,” “boundaryless,” or “team-based.” The features of this new form of organizing is process drive structure, work adds value, teams are fundamental, customers define performance, teams are rewarded for performance, teams are tightly linked to suppliers and customer, and team members are well informed and trained. Advantages and disadvantages can be found in table 12.4.
Customer-centric structure focuses sub-units on the creation of solutions and the satisfaction of key customers or customer groups. The most central process is new-product development. Deciding to execute a customer-centric organization is a substantial undertaking. Advantages and disadvantages are found in table 12.6.
Network structure manages diverse, complex, and dynamic relationships among multiple organizations or units, each specializing in a particular business function or task. The four basic types of networks are +internal market network, vertical market network, intermarket network, and opportunity network. They typically have the following three characteristics: vertical disaggregation, brokers, and coordinating mechanisms. Advantages and disadvantages are in table 12.7.
Downsizing refers to interventions aimed at reducing the size of the organization. It has four major components: it is associated with increasingly with mergers and acquisitions as redundant jobs are eliminated, result from organization decline caused by loss of revenues and market share by the technological and industrial change, can occur when organizations implement one of the new organizational structures often involves outsourcing work that is not essential to the organizations core competence, and downsizing can result from the beliefs and social pressures that smaller is better. The following steps tend to proceed: clarify the organization’s strategy, assess downsizing options and make relevant choices, implement the changes, address the needs of survivors and those who leave, and follow through with growth plans. Downsizing is mostly negative.
Reengineering is the final intervention of restructuring. These are the following steps in the reengineering efforts: prepare the organization, fundamentally rethink the way work gets done, and restructure the organization around the new business processes. The results were strongly associated with change in the following six key levers of behavior: including structure, skills, information systems, roles, incentives, and shared values.
Chapter 13
Employee involvement seeks to increase members input into decisions that affect organization performance and employee well-being. It has four key elements: power, information, knowledge and skills, and rewards. They contribute to the success by determining how much employee participation in decision making is possible in organizations. Internationally, EI may be considered a set of processes directed at changing the structure of the work situation within a particular economic and cultural environment and under the influence of particular values and philosophies. The positive linkage traditionally has the followed the idea that giving people more involvement in work decisions raises their job satisfaction and, in turn, their productivity. The employee involvement affects productivity in at least three ways: improved communication and coordination, improved motivation, and improved capabilities.
There are three major EI intervention, from least to most involved, parallel structure, total quality management, and high involvement organizations.
Parallel structures involve employees in resolving ill-defines, complex problems and build adaptability into bureaucratic organizations. They facilitate problem solving and change by providing time and resources for members to think, talk, and act in completely new ways. Management heavily influences the conditions under which parallel structures operate. Cooperative union-management and quality circle programs typically are implemented in the following steps: define the purpose, form a steering committee, communicate with organization members, create forums for employee problem solving, address the problems and issues, and implement and evaluate the changes. With lower-level employees, this opportunity to influence the formal organization leads to increased work satisfaction and task effectiveness.
Total quality management is more comprehensive approach to employee involvement than parallel structures. Quality is achieved when organization processes reliably produce products and services that meet or exceed customer expectations. It has five major steps: gain long-term senior management commitment, train members in quality methods, start quality-improvement projects, measure progress, and rewarding accomplishments. TQM has continued to evolve in most industrialized countries. It was positively associated with performance outcomes, such as productivity, customer service, product/service quality, and profitability, as well as with human outcomes, such as employee satisfaction and quality of work life.
High-involvement organizations address almost all features of an organizations design, structure, work design, management processes, physical layout, personnel policies, and reward systems are designed jointly by management and workers to promote high levels of involvement and performance. They are included in the following features, if not all. They are flat, lean organization structures, job design, open information system, career systems, selection, training, reward systems, personnel policies, and physical layouts. The two factors that are implemented are generally guided by an explicit statement of values that members want the new organizations to support and feature of the implementation process is its participative nature. The results generally support its positive effects.
Chapter 14
There are three approaches to work design. Engineering approach, motivational approach, and sociotechnical systems approach.
Engineering approach is the oldest and most prevalent approach to designing work is based on engineering concepts and methods. It proposes that the most efficient work designs can be determined by clearly specifying the tasks to be performed, the work methods to be used, and the work flow among individuals. It produces two kinds of work design: traditional jobs and traditional work groups.
Motivational approach to work design views the effectiveness of organizational activities primarily as a function of member needs and satisfaction and seeks to improve employee performance and satisfaction by enriching jobs. The two-factor theory of motivation proposed that certain attributes of work, such as meaningfulness, responsibility, and recognition, serve as “motivators” to increase job performance and satisfaction. “Hygiene factors,” such as company policies, working conditions, pay, and supervision, do not motivate people but rather prevent them from being dissatisfied with work. The five core job dimensions are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback from work itself. The basis steps for job enrichment include making a through diagnosis of the situation, forming natural work units, combining tasks, establishing client relationships, vertical loading, and opening feedback channels. The four organizational systems that can constrain the implantation of job enrichment are the technical system, the human resource system, the control system, and the supervisory system. Job enrichment research reports a positive effect.
The Sociotechnical system (STS) approach is currently the most expensive body of scientific and applied work underlying employee involvement and innovation work design. This theory is based on two fundamental premises: that an organization or work unit is combined, social-plus-technical system (sociotechnical), and that this system is open in relation to its environment. It consists of two independent but related parts: a social part and a technical part. The second major premises is the systems are open to their environments. This allows them to exchange with the environment while protecting themselves from external disruptions. In the self-managed work team, there are key interventions: team task design, team process interventions, and organizational support systems. The STS application generally has six steps: sanctioning the design effort, diagnosing the work system, generating appropriate designs, specifying support systems, implementing and evaluating the work designs, and continual change and improvement. Reports show favorable results.
Chapter 15
In Chapter 15, Performance management is an integrate process of defining, assessing, developing, and reinforcing employee work behaviors and outcomes. Business strategy defines the goals and objectives, policies, and intended relationships between the organization and its environment to achieve effectiveness. The level of employee involvement in an organization should determine the nature of performance management practices.
Goal setting involves managers and subordinate’s ion jointly establishing and clarifying employee goals. Two major outcomes of goal settings are establishing challenging goals and clarification of goal measurement. This is to affect a positive outcome. The features of goal-setting process are diagnosis, preparation for goal setting, setting the goals, and review. Management by objectives is a common form of goal setting. This has five basic steps: they are work group involvement, joint manager-subordinate goal setting, establishment of action plans for goals, establishing of criteria, or yardsticks, of success, and review and recycle.
Performance appraisal is a feedback system that involves the direct evaluation of individual or work group performance by a supervisor, manager, or peers. This represents an important link between goal-setting process and rewards system. The 360-degree feedback is used more for development than for compensation purposes. The performance appraisal system has six steps. They are select the right people, diagnosis the current situation, establish the system’s purposes and objectives, design the performance appraisal, experiment with implementation, and evaluate and monitor the system.
There are four specific rewards, including:
1) skill-based pay – the most traditional reward system is individual, and job based.
2) performance-based pay – organizations have devised many ways of linking pay to performance.
3) gain sharing – involve employees a bonus based on improvements in the operating results of an organization.
4) promotions – job movements are made from the top down.
The ability of rewards to motivate desired behavior depends on these five factors: availability, timeliness, performance contingency, durability, and visibility.
References
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2015). Organizational Development and Change (10th ed.).
