Organization development (OD)

Organization development (OD) is the study of successful organizational change and

performance. OD emerged from human relations studies in the 1930s, during which
psychologists realized that organizational structures and processes influence worker behavior
and motivation. More recently, work on OD has expanded to focus on aligning organizations
with their rapidly changing and complex environments through organizational
learning, knowledge management and transformation of organizational norms and values. Key
concepts of OD theory include: organizational climate (the mood or unique “personality” of an
organization, which includes attitudes and beliefs that influence members’ collective
behavior), organizational culture (the deeply-seated norms, values and behaviors that members
share) and organizational strategies (how an organization identifies problems, plans action,
negotiates change and evaluates progress).

Trends in Organization Development

Barbara Weinberger

I have been an Organization Development (OD) practitioner since receiving my M.S. in OD and
Change Management in 1997. Even when I had a different title (Talent Acquisition, HR
Manager), I found myself practicing OD. And during that time, I've seen an evolution in
terminology around OD. In particular, how do Talent Development and Leadership Development
relate to OD in 2016?

The best (most useful) OD model I've found is one based on the work of Jay Galbraith and
adapted for practical uses by Gloria Olson and Ed Savage at Texas Instruments in the late 1990s.
While I would rarely show this model to the clients I support, it is at the core of everything I do.

The Galbraith model subdivides OD into five categories, applied in this order:
1. STRATEGY: What are the vision, mission, values, and strategies that define and set the
direction for the organization?
2. ORGANIZATION DESIGN: What design will most effectively support the organization's
vision, mission, values, and strategies?
3. PROCESSES: What business and technical processes will ensure effectiveness across the
organization?
4. PEOPLE: How many people, with what skill sets, are required to effectively execute to the
organization's vision, mission, values, and strategies? How do you maintain competency (skills,
knowledge, attitude) in an ever-changing workforce?
5. REINFORCEMENT: How do you set up systems (compensation, communication, metrics,
performance management) that tell employees whether or not their efforts are yielding the
desired organizational results? How do you maintain the effectiveness of decisions made in Parts
1-4?
Viewed through this lens, it's clear that there is little to no difference between OD and Strategic
HR. It's no surprise then that in the past decade or so, academic HR programs have begun to
include more OD-related courses. It's also no surprise that companies have changed their
expectations of all of their HR practitioners to include a more strategic mindset.

Along with these changes have come changes in OD departments across corporate America.
Some resources have moved from the OD department to the HR generalist function, as more
demands are placed on those generalists. And titles have started to change within the OD
function itself. Perhaps the most common change is to use "Talent Development" or "Leadership
Development" instead of OD as the name of the department.

On the surface this would seem to be a narrowing of the focus of the OD function to one of its
five parts, the part focused on People. I believe, however, that something else is at play here. The
issue at hand is HOW the OD practitioner gets her job done.

When we say "Talent Development" or "Leadership Development", we're saying that we're
committing resources to the development of our talent base as a whole. ("Leadership
Development" implies the focus will be on developing leadership skills in our talent base.)
Where then does OD enter the picture? Has it been completely absorbed by the HR generalist
function?

I think not. I believe the use of the terms TD and LD instead of OD is an opportunity to embed
OD skills and an OD mindset in the broader talent base. In this world, the OD practitioner
doesn't engage with the client as an expert who is there to do the necessary OD work. Instead the
OD practitioner (with a TD or LD title) engages with the client for the purpose of education and
skills transfer.

More simply put: The necessary OD work is done by the client with active support from the
TD/LD practitioner. Knowledge and skills are transferred, and the client's OD competence
grows.

As an independent consultant, I see this shift occurring in multiple companies, and I welcome it!
I believe there is still a need for the OD organizational title in those cases where a company
(typically a large corporation) has an OD Center of Excellence, a "research arm" whose job it is
to stay current with OD trends and to educate their TD/LD counterparts.

This shift has implications for the skill sets required of people in the TD, LD, and OD roles. It is
imperative that OD roles in this changed world be populated with people who enjoy and
understand research, leading to more and more PhD holders in these roles.

As for the TD/LD roles, this opens up an opportunity to place former business managers in these
roles, an exciting proposition! With the backing of a highly skilled OD COE, those in TD/LD
roles need less formal OD training and more experience with OD in the field.

I welcome these changes! As long as there are organizations, there will be a need for OD. How
we implement OD, however, is limited only by our creativity and the needs of the business. This
is an exciting time in the evolution of the practice of OD and I'm privileged to be part of it.
CONDUCTING A SUCCESSFUL DEBRIEF FOR EVALUATION IN ORGANIZATION
DEVELOPMENT

Conducting a Successful Debrief for Evaluation in Organization Development

There are many tools to conduct feedback in order to determine the outcomes of a meeting,
event, or a process. In Organization Development, the 7th phase of the Action Research Model
(ARM) calls for the consultant to meet with the client to conduct a feedback session. One tool
that is frequently used is called a “debrief.”
The term “debriefing” refers to discussions that revolve around the sharing and examining of
information after an event has taken place.
Debriefing is a way of interrupting the flow of action by dividing it into blocks that can be
analyzed. During a client intervention, stakeholders are involved in many different tasks. They
will usually go from one task to the next without stopping to think what has happened, what was
effective, what could be improvement and why and how. As a consequence they collect
experiences but miss the learning that could extract from their actions.
Why is Debriefing Important?
It’s important to observe how the group is interacting, during, and after meetings. It’s important
to assess whether there were some meaningful moments to highlight learning moments. At
different times during a meeting, it’s important to ask the group to debrief. Any experience can
be enriched through a good debrief because it permits the group to pause after an action and
reflect on what happened. When debriefing is not used, we risk losing opportunities to learn and
improve how we work together.
How Can Debriefing Be Used?
Debriefing can serve as an opportunity to reflect on an experience and make it meaningful by
identifying what we learned about the project, the process, and the individuals involved.
As the OD Consultant, your job is to lead the client and members of the organization through a
thought- provoking, safe discussion by asking meaningful questions in a pre-planned
sequence. In many debriefing events, you can transfer the leadership role to the client to lead
their own discussion with support from you as the facilitator. A debrief usually follows this
sequence: rules, what, so what, and now what.
Debriefing, when done properly, can yield invaluable information about how to proceed in the
future and help an organization sustain gains and overcome challenges.
Debriefing sessions can be used for many different situations:

 During the course of a meeting

 At the end of a meeting
  After an exercise, event, game or simulation
 At the conclusion of a task.

There are three important steps to effectively debriefing after a project or initiative:
1. Setting up the debrief
First, explain to your client or team about why a debrief is important, what they will gain from
the debrief, how the debrief is conducted, and how the debrief will benefit them.
The debrief will provide valuable information to improve the process and behaviors of the group
for the next time or analyze a unique situation or project.
Debriefing also helps to identify strengths or how to learn from mistakes.
Debriefing is an excellent tool to support organizational learning for continuous learning and
improvement.
2. Conducting the Debrief
a) State why you are conducting the debrief. Connect the debrief to the purpose of meeting,
event, project, etc
b) Keep it simple. Select one or at the most two, clearly worded, thoughtful questions, which
will stimulate active reflection.
Debriefing Questions:

 What are your initial thoughts about the event we just completed?
 What happened that was successful?
 What would you do different next time? What will help the group to improve?
 What lessons were learned? What should we take away from this event?
c) Ask the group questions to debrief what actually happened? Explain the ground rules for
brainstorming – one answer at a time for each question.
· Everyone is allowed to respond freely without judgment or comment.
· Others are guided to listen openly.
· The point is to encourage reflectively listening to gain feedback and learn from the
experience.
· Write the questions down. Hearing the questions and reading the questions will reinforce
the focus you want to take.
· Provide time for quiet individual reflection. This allows an opportunity for those
individuals who don’t think out loud to collect their thoughts before the exchange begins.
d) Conduct a Debrief. Utilize the principles of dialogue to conduct the debrief – one thought at a
time, everyone actively listens, judgment suspended, be respectful, no ping pong, give everyone
time to share their opinions.
· When people have a chance to listen to each other, they trigger new ideas and ways of
proceeding. As such, it is important to ensure everyone is polled for their opinion.
· Keep the discussion focused on the project, not on the person. No blaming!
· Be careful not to lose focus of the purpose of the debrief. Take care that the debrief does
not become a session for complaining, or airy issues.
· Remind the group to answer the questions about their efforts. This means refraining from
explaining why certain actions were taken or why some events took place, Listen and record the
team’s observations without initial comment.
· Ask what went well – Ask what was successful, so that you can preserve the positive ways
in which the project was completed and what they would like to remember or share with
others. Encourage the group to comment on what they appreciated about the process from both
team, personal and project viewpoints.
· Ask what could be improved? – Remind the group it’s important to stay open and non-
defensive. Use the brainstorming format and be careful not to avoid delicate topics. Encourage
the group to share their thoughts openly focusing on improvement and problem solving
opportunities.
· Identify what you could do to differently next time. For example, if the group had
difficulty in some aspects of the project, what would be suggestions or lessons learned for next
time?
· Ask probing and clarifying questions to open up the discussion and gain agreement on the
feedback by asking for group consensus.
e) Write the feedback on a flipchart. Record the suggestions and feedback shared from the
dialogue. Review and summarize the feedback and ask the group for the implications and the
applications to be made in other scenarios, as well as how you can work more effectively and
efficiently next time.
f) Creating next steps on the agenda along with categories “How to improve our decision-
making?” or “How to improve our team communication?” How to improve our ability to change
rapidly?”
g) At the end of the meeting generate a list of next steps. Ask, How will we implement the
suggestions listed in our dialogue. Who will be responsible? What is the timeline? How will
we capture and share what we’ve learned?
h) Ask, how can we tie what we’ve learned to our successes? Keeping focused on how you are
going to use successes to measure results is key to an effective debrief meeting.
Benefits of debriefing
Debriefing impacts the organization culture by encouraging open feedback from everyone
involved. By giving individuals time to reflect on the successes of the change and ways to
improve, provides them an opportunity to share their story about how the organization solves
problems, involves others, and what it values. These success stories become part of the culture
and how business gets done, and builds commitment, trust, ownership, sustains engagement and
motivates everyone involved.
Author: Nancy Zentis, PhD, CEO and Founder, Institute of Organization Development.
Reorganizations: Don't Just Shake up the Bird Cage
Dan McCarthy
I’ve heard some employees call frequent, questionable reorganizations “shaking up the bird
cage”. You get a lot of noisy chaos and ruffled feathers flying, and at the end of the say, the same
bunch would just be sitting on different perches, albeit a little dizzy from all of the cage
rattling. Nothing else seems to change.
That kind of a cynical reaction is often the result of an organizational design process that started
and ended with an organization chart. It’s also a result of a lack of communication and change
leadership. People don’t understand the rationale, so they fill in the blanks with cynicism and
skepticism. Unfortunately, it’s often justified.
I’ve been involved in enough of these – as a manager, outside advisor, and recipient – to have
learned a few lessons.
Here are some tips that I hope will help the next time you’re thinking of re-drawing that org
chart:
Why Reorganize?
Most managers don’t decide to reorganize on a whim – it just seems that way, usually because of
a poor design or lack of communication.
The typical reasons a manager decides it’s time to reorganize are:
1. A key person has left, leaving a void and an opportunity to question the existing structure.
Like it or not, management org charts are usually built around individuals, not “positions”. When
a key individual departs, the rationale for the position often leaves with them.
2. There are problems (inefficiency, talent mis-matches, overlapping or underlapping roles, or
other operational issues). Work is not getting done, and/or it’s not being done well.
3. It’s required in order to seize a new opportunity (new market, product, service, etc…).
Your current structure just wasn’t designed to support your new business objectives.
While these are all good reasons, it’s important to consider reorganizing as just one possible
alternative. There are often lots of less disruptive ways to achieve the same objectives.
REFLECTION:
I have learned that Organizational Development is the study of successful organizational
change and performance. It is an ongoing, systematic process of implementing effective
organizational change. It is needed to improve efficiency and expand productivity in a certain
company. It can be used to solve problems within the organization or as a way to analyze a
process and find a more efficient way of doing it.
It is important for an organization to undergo a certain change. It is for the improvement
of the organization. It makes the organization more productive and efficient. It is important
because it will improve the communication between the members of the organization. It will also
develop the leadership within the organization. Organizational development does not just provide
a sudden change in an organization but also it will make a big impact for the future and it will be
a lifelong improvement for the organization.