Page 115 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Organization Change and Development

Notes organisation will be how the organisation deals with the consultant, because his or her very
presence is de facto an intervention. Yet the focus in many traditional consultation models is on
the “objective data obtained in the interview” with a reference to how the interviewer about the
process and what could be inferred from the way he or she was received.
‘Human systems cannot be treated with high level of objectivity’ is, therefore, an important
insight that is all too often ignored in our change and consultation literature. In practice change
agents have learned from their own experience that “diagnostic” activities such as observations,
interviews and questionnaires are powerful interventions and that the process of learning about
a system and changing that system are, in fact, one and the same. This insight has many
ramifications, particularly for the ethics of research and consulting.
Many researchers and consultants assume that they can “objectively” gather data and arrive at a
diagnosis without having already changed the system. In fact, the method of gathering data
influences the system and therefore, must be considered carefully.

Example: Asking someone in a questionnaire how they feel about their boss gets the
respondent thinking about an issue that he or she might not have focused on previously and it
might get them talking to others about the question in a way that would create a common
attitude that was not there before.

7.10 Team Building

Richard Beckhard, one of the founders of the discipline referred to as organisation development
gave a systematic framework for the most effective interventions to achieve positive organisation
change.

Notes Beckhard’s team development model serves as a guide for executives and project
managers. There are a variety of situations where new teams are formed.
The project based, cross-functional work team has become the basis of industry in the 1990’s.
Virtual team organisation is rapidly becoming the model for flexibility and agility in organizing
quickly and effectively to get jobs done. New teams usually have a clear task focus in the early
going and there is usually a clear understanding of the short-term goals. The new team members
are also generally technically competent and there usually is a challenge in the project that will
draw on their technical capabilities. While the early activities of a team are clearly focused on
task and work issues, relationship problems tend do develop as they do in any human system.
By the time these interpersonal issues surface the team may be well along in its activities. The
issues may become very difficult and very costly to work out later in the game. There is a
significant benefit if a new team takes short time at the beginning of its life to examine
collaboratively how it is going to work together. Beckhard provides a tool to set the stage for
most effective team-work and high performance.
Team Buildings an OD intervention cab take many forms. The most common pattern is beginning
with interviews and other preliminary work, followed by a one-to three-day session.

Notes During the meeting the group diagnoses its function as a unit and plans
improvements in its operating procedures.

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