Page 118 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Unit 7: OD Intervention

Notes
Establishing inter-unit Task Forces
These groups can cross both functional parts of the organization as well as employee
levels. They are ideally accountable to one person and are appropriately rewarded for
completing their assigned task effectively. Then they disband.

Experimentation with Alternative Arrangements
Today organizations are subject to “management by best-seller.” The OD practitioner
attempts to get leaders to look for changes that may take 3-5 years to work through. The
meta-goal in these interventions is to create what is being called a “learning organization,”
one that performs experiments on organizational structure and processes, analyzes the
results, and builds on them.
Identifying “Key Communicators”
The OD professional here carefully determines who seems to be “in the know” within the
organization. These people often do not know that they are, in fact, key communicators.
These collections of individuals are then fed honest information during critical times,
one-on-one and confidentially.
Identifying “Fireable Offenses”
This intervention deepens the understanding of and commitment to the stated values of
the organization. The OD professional facilitates the work of the organization’s leaders to
answer the critical question, “If we’re serious about these values, then what might an
employee do that would be so affrontive to them that he/she would be fired?”
In-visioning
This is actually a set of interventions that leaders plan with OD’s help in order to “acculturate”
everyone in the organization into an agreed-upon vision, mission, purpose, and values.
The interventions might include training, goal setting, organizational survey-feedback,
communications planning, etc.
Management/Leadership Training
Many OD professionals come from a training background. They understand that
organizations cannot succeed long term without well- trained leaders. The OD contribution
there can be to ensure that the development curriculum emphasizes practical, current
situations that need attention within the organization and to monitor the degree to which
training delivery is sufficiently participative as to promise adequate transfer of learnings
to the job.
Setting up Measurement Systems
The total-quality movement emphasizes that all work is a part of a process and that
measurement is essential for process improvement. The OD professional is equipped with
tools and techniques to assist leaders and others to create measurement methods and
systems to monitor key success indicators.
Studies of Structural Causes
”Root-cause analysis” is a time-honored quality-improvement tool, and OD practitioners
often use it to assist organizational clients to learn how to get down to the basis causes of
problems.

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