Page 180 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Unit 13: Mechanistic and Organic Systems

Evans has identified three factors which have been responsible for the failure of OD programmes: Notes
 Failure of the management consultant group to correctly tailor the programme to actual
needs of the organisation;

 Failure to correctly model appropriate personnel behavior in the programme; and
 Failure to increase employee motivation through participation and development of
personal growth and self-esteem.

Thus, it can be visualized that OD itself may not be dysfunctional but application may be.
Therefore, in order to make best use of OD efforts some specific efforts are required. Some of
these efforts are as follows:
 There should be genuine support of OD programme from top management.
 Organisation must formulate the objectives of OD programme very clearly and specifically.

 Enough time should be allowed so that the effects of OD programme are realized.
 There should be proper use of OD interventions. These should be based on the specific
needs of the organisation.

 Only fully competent OD consultant should be pressed for the service and he should
develop understanding with internal change agents.

13.5 Some Indian Experience in OD

In India, O.D. and planned change started in the early 1960s. A group of Indian professionals
trained at the National Training Laboratories (NTL) at Bethel, Maine, USA, brought out a good
deal of O.D. technology in India. Grid programs were initiated and widely used in the Small
Industries Extension Training (SIET) Institute, Hyderabad, State Bank of India and in the Indian
Institute of Management (UM) programs in the mid 1960s. Unfortunately these remained isolated
efforts and did not take O.D. to its logical conclusions.
In the mid-1970s, O.D. was first introduced in India in Larsen and Toubro as a formal and
structured part of the HRD department. It was expected that the change process would get
institutionalized and more O.D. specialists would be developed. Unfortunately, this did not
happen as the corporate sector in the country has a very protected and secure environment and
there were very few compulsions to change. Hence O.D. remained mostly in academic institutions
– the forte of a few specialists and largely limited to T-group training and other training based
interventions. That it has a slow growth is indicated by the fact that even after 25 years of
existence, the Indian Society for Applied Behavioral Science (ISABS), an associate of NTL, produced
less than 100 process specialists in the vast country.
There have been several efforts to apply O.D. approach and associated techniques in India but it
has not created the desired impact. According to Srinivas (1994), one plausible explanation for
this is that O.D. as it has emerged to date is culture specific, that it cannot be simply applied to
locations outside the US. The issue of non-transferability of OD technology to cultures such as
India has arisen because of the fear or distrust of its techniques of confrontation. The general
practitioner or the change agent style of informality and an attitude of openness is also not
suited to the Indian context. However, a deeper examination of values embedded in Indian
religion and psycho-philosophy suggests that the cultural values are indeed largely supportive
of organisational renewal and change. The rich cultural heritage also contains a paradigm of
change, based on which new approaches and designs of O.D. interventions may be possible. And
such designs are likely to be accepted more readily in the country.

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