History of

Organizational
Development
Organizational Development
OD Values:
1. Respect for people
2. Trust and support
3. Power equalization
4. Confrontation
5. Participation
A collection of planned interventions, built on
humanistic-democratic values, that seeks to improve
organizational effectiveness and employee well-being.
History of OD
Relatively new field of study 50s & 60s
No unifying theory just models of practice
Emerged from study of group dynamics & planned change.
Late 40s
T-groups training groups, behavioral skills and individual
insight into problem solving
Kurt Lewin at MIT RCGD, Teachers College/Columbia

Four Trunk Stems of OD
Laboratory
Training
Survey
research
and
Feedback
Action
Research
Socio-
technical
Approaches
How does OD Work?
Lewins 3 Phase OD Model

UNFREEZING

Resistance to change lessened,
need for change created
(Equilibrium disturbed)

MOVING

From old behaviour
to the new
(Changes)


REFREEZING

Change made
permanent

Laboratory Training
NTL Natl Training Laboratory
T-Group
L-Group
RCGD
Other universities set up training labs
Invention of flip chart
Next 10 years were tough frustration at inability to transfer
NTL to real world began to train teams.
Major Contributors
Kurt Lewin (T-Group)
Kenneth Benne, Leland Bradford and Ronald Lippitt.(L-Group)
Chris Argyris
1957, Yale, First to conduct team building sessions with
CEOs.
Douglas McGregor
1957, MIT Started program in org studies
Union Carbide transfer t-groups to complex organizations
Theory X and Y
The Human side of Enterprise.
Robert Blake
WWII served in Psych unit of Army Airforce
Looked at systems rather than individuals in system on one-
on-one basis
Link of systems process to OD
Managerial Grid win/lose dynamics
Warren Bennis
Only T-grouper to actually try to reshape an
organization from the top.
Led to his study of leadership
The Term OD
Emerged from Baton Rouge T-groups called
Development Groups
At that time we wanted to put a label on the program at
General Mills. We didnt want to call it management
development because it was total organization-wide, nor
was it human relations training. We didnt want to call it
organization improvement because that is a static term, so
we labeled the program organization Development
meaning system-wide change efforts. Richard
Beckhard
Rensis Likert and Lewin RCGD
Detroit Edison studies of feeding back data
Attitude surveys
Interlocking chain of conferences

Survey research/feedback and OD
Key executive perception
of problems
Consultation with behavioural
scientist consultant
Data gathering and
diagnosis by
consultant
Further data gathering
Feedback to key client
or client group
Joint action planning
(objectives of OD
programme and means
of attaining goals, eg
team building
Data gathering
Feedback to
client group
Discussion and work on
data feedback and data
by client group
Action planning
(determine objectives
and how to get there)
Action (new
behaviours)
Data gathering
(reassessment of
state of system)
Feedback
Discussion and work
on feedback and
emerging data
Action planning
Action
Etc
Action Research process
Travistock England
Initial focus was group work with families
Moved to organizations and communities
Experiments with soldiers in group work
Formed theories of group behavior
Eric Trist
Coal mines leaderless groups 1947
Industrial democracy, open systems


Sociotechnical & Socioclinical OD
Organizations are open sociotechnical systems
Organize around process not tasks
Flatten the hierarchy
Use teams to manage everything
Let customers drive performance
Reward team performance
Open to interact with its environment
Five Components
Consider the context of the past in organizations
first generation OD
Consider the future
Turbulent times speed of change
Globalization
Mergers/acquisitions
Private business in autocratic societies

Interest in Organizational Transformation
Multi level, qualitative, radical, discontinuous change
involving a paradigmatic shift, Levy & Merry.
Organizational Culture
Schein
Norms values artifacts assumptions
Learning organization
Argyris, Schon, Senge
Condition under which individuals, team and
organizations learn

2nd Generation OD
Learning Organization
Agyris Defensive routines
1. Bypass embarrassment and threat when possible
2. Act as though you are not bypassing them
3. Dont discuss steps 1 and 2 while they are happening
4. Dont discuss the undiscussability of the
undiscussable.
Senge Systems thinking
Learning disabilities in organizations
Different ways to think about complex problems.
The origin of the vision is much less important than
how it is shared
TQM
Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum
.a particular set of values about the individual and the
individuals role in the organization. Total quality efforts in
the companies encourage true employee involvement,
demand teamwork, seek to push decision making power
to lower levels in the company, and reduce barriers
between people. . . These values are at the core of OD as
well. - Ciampa
Thank you
Wake up Time