Page 100 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Unit 7: OD Intervention

his/her team by understanding how managerial style impacts organisational climate and more Notes
importantly how to-create an environment of high performance.
Most OD interventions are plans or programs comprised of specific activities designed to’ effect
change in some facet of an organisation. Numerous interventions have’ been developed over
the years to address different problems or create various results. However, they all are geared
toward the goal of improving the entire organisation through change in general, organisations
that wish to achieve a high degree of organisational change will employ a full range of
interventions, including those designed to transfer individual and group behavior and attitudes.
Entities attempting smaller changes will stop short of those goals, applying interventions targeted
primarily toward operating policies, management structures, worker skills, and personnel
policies. OD interventions can be categorized in a number of ways, including action, the type of
group for which they are intended, or the industry to which they apply. W.L. French identified
major families of interventions based on the type of activities that they included, such as activity
groups include team-building, survey feedback, structural change, and career-planning.

7.1 Organisation Development Intervention

OD interventions refer to various activities which a consultant and client organisation perform
for improving organisational performance through enabling organisational members better
manage their behavior, their work group, and organisational culture. OD interventions are also
referred as OD techniques or OD strategies as they are designed to accomplish specific objectives.
French and Bell have defined OD interventions as:
Sets of structured activities in which selected organisational units (target groups or individuals) engage
with a task or a sequence of tasks where the task goals are related directly or indirectly to organisational
improvement. Interventions constitute the action thrust of organisation development: they make things
happen.
An intervention is a deliberate process by which change is introduced into peoples’ thoughts,
feelings and behaviors. The overall objective of any intervention is to confront individuals,
teams or units of people in a non-threatening way and allow them to see their self-destructive
behavior and how it affects themselves and colleagues. It might involve several people who
have prepared themselves to talk to the target group that has been engaging in some sort of self-
destructive behavior. In a clear and respectful Way they inform the persons of factual information
regarding their behavior and how it may have affected them. The immediate objective of an
intervention is for the target to listen and to accept help. Organisation Development (OD)
intervention would be a combination of the ways a manager can influence the productivity of
his/her team by understanding how managerial style impacts organisational climate and more
importantly how to-create an environment of high performance.
Most OD interventions are plans or programs comprised of specific activities designed to’ effect
change in some facet of an organisation. Numerous interventions have’ been developed over
the years to address different problems or create various results. However, they all are geared
toward the goal of improving the entire organisation through change in general, organisations
that wish to achieve a high degree of organisational change will employ a full range of
interventions, including those designed to transfer individual and group behavior and attitudes.
Entities attempting smaller changes will stop short of those goals, applying interventions targeted
primarily toward operating policies, management structures, worker skills, and personnel
policies. OD interventions can be categorized in a number of ways, including action, the type of
group for which they are intended, or the industry to which they apply. W.L. French identified
major families of interventions based on the type of activities that they included, such as activity
groups include team-building, survey feedback, structural change, and career-planning.

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