MGM628 — Midterm Summary (Lectures 1–22)

📘 Lecture 1 — The Challenge for Organizations

📖 Overview: This lecture introduces the fundamental concepts of Organization Development (OD), explaining why organizations must constantly adapt to a rapidly changing world. It covers the major trends driving organizational change, defines what OD is and is not, and establishes the foundation for understanding how planned change can improve organizational effectiveness and health.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture examines the challenge facing modern organizations in a world of accelerating change, covering globalization, information technology, and managerial innovation as three major change drivers. It then defines Organization Development as a unique change strategy, explores what an ideal effective organization looks like, and traces the evolution of OD as a behavioral science-based discipline focused on both organizational and individual development.

📝 Lecture Summary

The Challenge for Organizations

We live in a world that has been turned upside down. Companies are pouring money, technology, and management expertise into previously off-limits regions, acquiring new enterprises, and forming joint ventures. Many major companies are going through significant changes including outsourcing, downsizing, reengineering, self-managed work teams, and flattening organizations. Some experts contend that if you can describe a job precisely or write rules for doing it, the job will probably not survive.

Change is avalanching down upon our heads, and most people are utterly unprepared to cope with it. Tomorrow's world will call for new organizational approaches. Organizations need to adapt to changing market conditions while coping with the need for a renewing rather than reactive workforce. Global competition and economic downturns have exposed a glaring weakness: many organizations have become overstaffed, cumbersome, slow, and inefficient.

The successful twenty-first century manager must deal with a chaotic world of new competitors and constant innovation. The only winning companies will be those that respond quickly to change. Modern managers must not only be flexible and adaptive but also able to diagnose problems and implement change programs. Organizations are never completely static; they are in continuous interaction with external forces including changing consumer lifestyles and technological breakthroughs.

🔑 Definition — Organizational Environment: The external forces (technological, economic, political, cultural) that continuously act on an organization, requiring adaptation and change.

The Growth and Relevance of OD

Three major trends are shaping change in organizations: globalization, information technology, and managerial innovation.

First, globalization is changing markets and environments. New governments, new leadership, new markets, and new countries are emerging, creating a new global economy. The toppling of the Berlin Wall, the evolution of the former Soviet Union into market-oriented states, and China's emergence as an open market represent powerful shifts in global economic influence.

Second, information technology is redefining the traditional business model by changing how work is performed, how knowledge is used, and how business costs are calculated. IT is at the heart of emerging e-commerce strategies, has fueled downsizing and restructuring, enabled telecommuting, and is changing how knowledge is used by reducing the concentration of power at the top. Ultimately, information technology will generate new business models where communication and information sharing is nearly free.

Third, managerial innovation has responded to globalization and information technology. New organizational forms such as networks, strategic alliances, and virtual corporations provide new ways of manufacturing goods and delivering services. New methods of change like downsizing and reengineering have radically reduced organization size and increased flexibility. New large-group interventions like the search conference and open space have increased the speed of organizational change.

These forces are interrelated, creating a highly uncertain and chaotic environment. OD is playing an increasingly key role in helping organizations change themselves, assess themselves and their environments, and revitalize their strategies, structures, and processes.

💡 Why this matters: Understanding these three trends explains why OD has become essential—organizations can no longer rely on static structures but must continuously develop their capacity for change.

What is Organization Development (OD)?

The key to survival and success lies not in rational, quantitative approaches but in a commitment to difficult-to-measure things like people, quality, customer service, and flexibility to meet changing conditions. Employee involvement and commitment is the true key to successful change.

🔑 Definition — Organization: The planned coordination of the activities of a number of people for the achievement of some common explicit purpose or goal, through division of labor and functions, and through a hierarchy of authority and responsibility.

🔑 Definition — Development: The act, process, result, or state of being developed—which means to advance, to promote the growth of, to evolve the possibilities of, to further, to improve, or to enhance something.

Combining these words suggests that organization development is the act, process, or result of furthering, advancing, or promoting the growth of organization. This is too broad, so we need the more specific definition from the literature.

🔑 Definition — Organization Development (OD): An effort (1) planned, (2) organization-wide, and (3) managed from the top, to (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in the organization's "processes," using behavioral science knowledge. (Richard Beckhard)

OD is not just "anything done to better an organization"; it represents a unique strategy for system change based in behavioral science theory and research. OD is a normative discipline—it prescribes how planned change in organizations should be approached and carried out if organizational improvement is to be obtained.

In summary, OD is a process of planned system change that attempts to make organizations (viewed as social-technical systems) better able to attain their short- and long-term objectives. This is achieved by teaching organization members to manage their organization processes and culture more effectively. OD has two broad goals: organization development and individual development. Improving the quality of life for individuals in organizations is a primary goal.

📌 Example: In a study examining the "high tech-high touch" phenomenon at Citicorp, the crucial component in adapting to technological change was the human factor. Employee involvement and commitment was the true key to successful change, not just the technology itself.

⭐ Key Takeaways

Students must understand that modern organizations face unprecedented change driven by globalization, information technology, and managerial innovation—and these forces are interrelated and accelerating. OD is defined precisely as a planned, organization-wide, top-managed effort using behavioral science knowledge to increase effectiveness and health through process interventions. The unique value of OD lies in its normative, prescriptive approach to system change that treats organizations as social-technical systems. A critical distinction is that OD has dual goals: organizational improvement AND individual development, with employee involvement being the true key to successful change. Finally, OD is not a one-time fix but a continuous process of teaching organization members to manage their own processes and culture more effectively.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the three major trends shaping change in organizations according to this lecture?
2. According to Richard Beckhard's definition, what are the five key components of Organization Development?
3. Why is the simple definition of OD as "anything done to better an organization" considered too broad and all-inclusive?
4. What does it mean that OD is a "normative discipline"?
5. What are the two broad goals of Organization Development, and why is the second one important?

📘 Lesson 02 — Consulting to

📖 Overview: This lecture differentiates Organization Development (OD) from traditional consulting models by examining three distinct consulting approaches. It establishes the core characteristics of OD as a unique change strategy, emphasizing its collaborative, humanistic, and systems-oriented nature while detailing the specific roles of OD consultants and the unique nature of OD interventions.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture examines three consulting models—Purchase of Expertise, Doctor-patient, and Process Consultation—and then details six primary distinguishing characteristics of OD. It explores the key elements of an OD Program (long-range, planned and sustained, strategy), the unique consultant-client relationship, the nature of OD interventions, targets of OD interventions, and the behavioral science base and desired outcomes of OD.

📝 Lecture Summary

Edgar Schein’s Three Consulting Models

Consulting to organizations takes different forms. Edgar Schein describes three consulting models. In the “purchase of expertise model,” a leader or group identifies a need for information or expertise that the organization cannot supply, and hires a consultant to obtain information and make a report with recommendations. In the “doctor-patient model,” a leader detects symptoms of ill health in some part of the organization and calls in a consultant who diagnoses the situation and prescribes a cure. In the “process consultation model,” the consultant works with the leader and group to diagnose strengths and weaknesses, identify problems, and develop action plans, assisting the client in becoming more effective at examining and improving its own processes. This third model is typical in OD and encourages greater collaboration.

🔑 Definition — Process Consultation Model: A consulting approach where the consultant works collaboratively with clients to diagnose problems, develop action plans, and strengthen the client’s ability to improve their own work processes. The OD consultant is an expert on process—how to “go about” effective problem solving and decision making. 💡 Why this matters: This model forms the philosophical foundation of how OD consultants operate, distinguishing them from traditional expert consultants.

Primary Distinguishing Characteristics of Organization Development

OD differs substantially from traditional “expert” models of consulting. The six primary distinguishing characteristics of OD are: Change — OD is a planned strategy to bring about organizational change focusing on the human and social side; Collaborate — OD involves a collaborative approach with participation of members most affected by changes; Performance — OD programs emphasize improving and enhancing performance and quality; Humanistic — OD relies on humanistic values aimed at making organizations more effective by opening opportunities for human potential; Systems — OD represents a systems approach concerned with interrelationships of divisions, departments, groups, and individuals as interdependent subsystems; Scientific — OD is based upon scientific approaches to increase organization effectiveness.

🔑 Definition — Humanistic Values: A set of values about people and organizations that aims at making organizations more effective by opening up new opportunities for increased use of human potential.

Elements of an OD Program

An OD Program is a long-range, planned, and sustained effort that unfolds according to a strategy. Long-range: Changing a system’s culture and processes is a difficult, complicated, and long-term matter if lasting change is to be effected. OD programs envision that system members become better able to manage their culture and processes, which takes time. Both parties envision an ongoing relationship of one, two, or more years. Planned and Sustained effort: OD involves deliberately planned change, not system “drifts.” An organizational subsystem is created and charged with responsibility for planning, managing, and evaluating the continuous process of organizational self-renewal. In large organizations, two to three years of OD effort is typical before completion of serious and self-sustaining change. Strategy: OD programs unfold according to a strategy. Consultants and clients develop overall goals and paths to goals, which guide programmatic activities.

🔑 Definition — OD Program: A long-range, planned, and sustained effort that unfolds according to a strategy, involving an ongoing relationship between client system and consultant. 📐 Key Insight: Good management practices without an OD program are not considered OD — the term “organization development” is not synonymous with “good management.”

The Unique Consultant-Client Relationship

The OD consultant establishes a unique relationship with client system members. The most fundamental differences are found in the role and behavior of the consultant. In OD, the consultant seeks and maintains a collaborative relationship of relative equality — both parties co-labor. The client group is encouraged to critique the consultant’s program and effectiveness. The consultant’s role is generally that of a facilitator, not an expert on matters of content; the consultant acts primarily as a question-asker and secondarily as an answer-giver.

🔑 Definition — Collaborative Relationship: A relationship where consultant and client “labor together” with relative equality, each possessing different but needed knowledge and skills.

The OD consultant role rests on three beliefs: First, let the consultant do what they do best (structuring activities) and let the client system do what it does best (bringing its special knowledge to bear on problems). Second, the best solution is in the heads of the client members, and the challenge is to structure situations to allow it to become known. Third, responsibility for changing rests ultimately in the client system members — they must “own” the problem and the solution. This third belief rests on Lewin’s conceptualization of “own” and “induced” forces, where an individual’s own forces toward behavior are more powerful than forces induced by an outside agent.

🔑 Definition — Lewin’s “Own” and “Induced” Forces: A conceptualization demonstrating that an individual’s own forces toward a particular behavior are more powerful in determining behavior than forces/motives/pushes induced by some outside agent. 📌 Example: In OD, the consultant does not give answers to problems but offers effective ways to work on problems. Clients expect expertise in facilitating/enabling the group to approach, diagnose, and solve its problems, not answers themselves.

The Unique Nature of OD Interventions

OD consultants fashion interventions — structured sets of activities and events designed to achieve certain outcomes. OD interventions are reflective, self-analytical, self-examining, proactive, diagnostically oriented, and action oriented. They focus on organization culture and its human processes. The overriding goal is that the client system members learn to do it themselves — becoming proficient in solving their own problems, present and future. This is supported by the ancient Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish, and you have given him a meal; teach a man to fish, and you have given him a livelihood.”

🔑 Definition — OD Intervention: A structured set of activities and events in the life of the organization designed to achieve certain outcomes, with the intent that the client system becomes proficient in solving its own problems. 📌 Example: The key difference between OD and expert consulting — expert consultants say “I should possess diagnostic skills,” while OD consultants say “the client system members should possess diagnostic skills.”

Targets of OD Interventions

The targets of OD interventions differentiate OD from other improvement strategies. The OD prescription calls for certain configurations of people as targets: intact work groups, two or more work-related groups, subsystems of organizations, and total organizations. Katz and Kahn speak of “role sets” — the offices and people an individual interacts with while performing role-relevant behavior. A second major target is intergroup configurations — enhancing key interdependencies across units and levels. A third target is the organization’s processes and culture — problem-solving, planning, self-renewal, decision-making, and communications processes. The focus is always on improving the system’s ability to cope and its relationships with subsystems and the environment.

🔑 Definition — Role Set: The relatively small number of others an organization member is directly associated with, typically including immediate supervisor, subordinates, and certain members of one’s own or other units by virtue of work-flow, technology, and authority structure.

Behavioral Science Base and Desired Outcomes

OD consultants utilize a behavioral science knowledge base — theories, concepts, and practices from sociology, psychology, social psychology, education, economics, psychiatry, and management are brought to bear on real organizational problems. The desired outcomes of OD efforts include organizational effectiveness and health, better system functioning, and greater ability to achieve objectives. Particularly distinctive are outcomes relating to a changed organizational culture, changed processes (especially renewal and adaptation processes), and establishing norms of continual self-study and pro-action. Michael Beer lists the aims of OD as enhancing congruence between organizational structure, processes, strategy, people, and culture; developing new and creative organizational solutions; and developing the organization’s self-renewing capacity.

🔑 Definition — Self-renewing Capacity: The organization’s ability to continually examine and improve its own processes, maintain built-in OD functions to face dilemmas, and sustain organizational renewal over time.

⭐ Key Takeaways

OD is fundamentally different from traditional consulting models because it uses the process consultation model where the consultant facilitates rather than prescribes solutions. The six distinguishing characteristics (change, collaborate, performance, humanistic, systems, scientific) define OD’s unique approach. The consultant-client relationship is collaborative and based on relative equality, where the consultant is an expert on process, not content, and the client must “own” problems and solutions. OD interventions are reflective and self-analytical, aiming to teach the client system to diagnose and solve its own problems. The targets of OD interventions are intact work groups, intergroup configurations, and organizational culture and processes, always with the goal of developing self-renewing capacity.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are Edgar Schein’s three consulting models, and which one is typical in OD?
2. List the six primary distinguishing characteristics of Organization Development.
3. What three elements define an OD Program, and why must it be long-range?
4. What are the three beliefs that underlie the OD consultant’s nondirective role?
5. What is the overriding goal of OD interventions, and how does it differ from expert consulting models?

📘 Lecture 03 — What an “ideal” effective, healthy organization would look like?

📖 Overview: This lecture defines the characteristics of an effective, healthy organization, emphasizing the importance of adaptability in a rapidly changing environment. It explores how organizations must evolve to meet technological, social, and economic challenges, using examples like 3M and Trilogy Software to illustrate successful adaptation.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture begins by listing ten specific characteristics of an ideal effective organization, then addresses the inevitability of change in modern business environments. It discusses how the organization of the future must be faster, quality-conscious, employee-involved, customer-oriented, and smaller, concluding with a case study of Trilogy Software as a model for the new kind of company.

📝 Lecture Summary

What an “ideal” effective, healthy organization would look like?

An effective organization is defined by ten key characteristics that promote goal achievement, open communication, and adaptability. The organization manages work against goals and plans, and form follows function—meaning the task determines how human resources are organized. Decisions are made near the sources of information, regardless of position on the organization chart. The reward system compensates managers comparably for short-term profit, subordinate growth, and creating viable working groups.

🔑 Definition — Effective Organization: An organization where the total entity, its subparts, and individuals manage work against goals and plans, with form following function, decisions made near information sources, and a balanced reward system.

Communication is open and confronting, with minimal inappropriate win/lose activities between groups. High conflict (clash of ideas) exists about tasks, but little energy is spent on interpersonal clashes. The organization operates as an open system, interacting with each other and the larger environment. There is a shared value of helping each person maintain integrity and uniqueness in an interdependent environment. Finally, the organization operates in an action-research way, building in feedback mechanisms for continuous learning from experience.

The only constant is Change

While many organizations adapt to information technology changes, few adapt to changing social and cultural conditions. Change is unavoidable and has become so rapid that it is a moving target. The technological, social, and economic environment is rapidly changing, requiring organizations to respond effectively to survive. Increases in productivity of 100 percent, not 10 percent, will be required for corporations to compete effectively.

🔑 Definition — Change: An unavoidable, moving target in the technological, social, and economic environment that organizations must respond to effectively to survive.

💡 Why this matters: Past failures to give enough attention to the changing environment are now creating problems for many executives. In contrast, 3M Corporation developed an outstanding reputation for innovation. 3M is big but acts small, with its 15 percent rule allowing people to spend up to 15% of the work week on anything product-related—the source of the famous Post-it note.

The Organization of the Future

The fundamental nature of managerial success is changing relentlessly. Traditional sources of competitive advantage, like economies of scale and huge advertising budgets, are no longer effective. Today's managers need a new mind set valuing flexibility, speed, innovation, and challenge from constantly changing conditions. Virtual organizations can spring up overnight as networks of free agents combining expertise for new projects.

📐 Changing Organization Traits: Faster, Quality conscious, Employee involvement, Customer oriented, Smaller

Successful firms will share certain common traits: they will be faster and more responsive to innovation, quality conscious and totally committed to quality, focused on employee involvement to add value through human resources, customer oriented to create niche markets, and smaller with more autonomous units.

OD in Practice: Trilogy Software – A New Kind of Company

Joe Liemandt formed Trilogy Software Inc. in Austin, Texas in 1989, growing from 400 to 1000 employees within four years. Today, Trilogy is among the world's largest privately held software companies. All who work for Trilogy are shareholders, managers, and partners.

🔑 Definition — New Kind of Company: An organization where all employees are shareholders, managers, and partners, with flexible work arrangements, compensation linked to contribution, and mutual commitment building continuity.

The founder's biggest worry is holding onto people, not competing companies. He personally teaches a large portion of classes for Trilogy's employee recruitment and development program—the glue that binds the organization. Trilogy has unusual practices including perks like a speedboat for water skiing, fully stocked kitchens on every floor, Friday parties, spontaneous awards like sports cars and trips to Las Vegas, and bonuses equal to 50 or 100 percent of regular salaries for top performers.

📌 Example: Trilogy Software's CEO once took the entire company on a week-long, all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii to build commitment and culture.

💡 Why this matters: The economy is fostering new kinds of organizations with new practices and operating rules that offer flexibility in how, when, and where you work, compensation linked to contribution, and freedom to move between projects—while also offering the advantages of belonging to an organization where mutual commitment builds continuity.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The ten characteristics of an effective organization form the foundation for understanding organizational health, with particular emphasis on goal management, open communication, and feedback mechanisms. Change is the only constant, and organizations must be prepared to respond to technological, social, and economic shifts with 100% productivity improvements rather than 10%. The organization of the future will be faster, quality-conscious, employee-involved, customer-oriented, and smaller. The Trilogy Software case demonstrates that treating employees as partners and shareholders, with generous perks and development programs, is crucial for attracting and retaining talent in a competitive environment. A new managerial mindset valuing flexibility, speed, and innovation is essential for success.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the ten characteristics of an effective, healthy organization?
2. Why is change considered a "moving target" in modern organizations?
3. What was the 3M 15 percent rule and what famous product came from it?
4. What are the five common traits of successful organizations of the future?
5. How does Trilogy Software approach employee retention and what makes its culture unique?

📘 Lecture 4 — A Brief History of OD

📖 Overview: This lecture traces the historical evolution of Organization Development by examining its five major stems or origins. It explains how OD emerged from laboratory training, action research, participative management, quality of work life approaches, and strategic change. Understanding these roots is essential for grasping how OD has evolved into its current practice.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture covers the five major stems of OD, beginning with Laboratory Training (T-Groups) and its development at NTL-Bethel. It then explores Action Research and Survey Feedback, including Kurt Lewin's foundational work and the development of the Likert Scale. The lecture also addresses the application of participative management, productivity and quality of work life approaches, and strategic change and organization transformation.

📝 Lecture Summary

Laboratory Training (The T-Group):

This stem of OD pioneered laboratory training, or the T-group – a small, unstructured group in which participants learn from their own interactions and evolving dynamics about such issues as interpersonal relations, personal growth, leadership, and group dynamics. Laboratory training began in 1946, when Kurt Lewin (1898–1947), widely recognized as the founding father of OD, and his staff at the Research Centre for Group Dynamics at MIT were asked by the Connecticut Interracial Commission for help on research in training community leaders. A workshop was developed, and the community leaders were brought together to learn about leadership and to discuss problems. At the end of each day, the researchers discussed privately what behaviors and group dynamics they had observed. The community leaders asked permission to sit in on these feedback sessions, and eventually the first T-group was formed in which people reacted to data about their own behavior.

The researchers drew two conclusions: (1) Feedback about group interaction was a rich learning experience, and (2) The process of "group building" had potential for learning that could be transferred to "back-home" situations. As a result, the Office of Naval Research and the National Education Association provided financial backing to form the National Training Laboratories (NTL), and Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine was selected as a site for further work. The first Basic Skill Training Groups (later called T-groups) were offered in 1947. In the 1950s, three trends emerged: the emergence of regional laboratories, the expansion of year-round sessions of T-groups, and the expansion of the T-group into business and industry. As trainers began to work with more permanent and complex social systems, they experienced frustration in transferring laboratory behavioral skills to organizations. Applying T-group techniques to organizations gradually became known as team building – a process for helping work groups become more effective in accomplishing tasks and satisfying member needs.

💡 Why this matters: The T-group was the first systematic attempt to use experiential learning about group dynamics as a tool for organization change, and it laid the foundation for modern team building interventions.

Action Research/Survey Feedback:

The second stem refers to the processes of action research and survey feedback. The action research contribution began in the 1940s with studies conducted by social scientists John Collier, Kurt Lewin, and William Whyte. They discovered that research needed to be closely linked to action if organization members were to use it to manage change. A collaborative effort was initiated between organization members and social scientists to collect research data about an organization's functioning, to analyze it for causes of problems, and to devise and implement solutions. After implementation, further data were collected to assess the results, and the cycle of data collection and action often continued. The results of action research were twofold: members of organizations were able to use research on themselves to guide action and change, and social scientists were able to study that process to derive new knowledge that could be used elsewhere.

Notable examples include Lewin's work at Harwood Manufacturing Company, the classic research by Lester Coch and John French on overcoming resistance to change, Whyte and Edith Hamilton's study of Chicago's Tremont Hotel, and Collier's efforts to apply action research to improving race relations. Today, action research is the backbone of most OD applications.

A key component of most action research studies was the systematic collection of survey data that was fed back to the client organization. Following Lewin's death in 1947, his Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT moved to Michigan and joined with the Survey Research Center as part of the Institute for Social Research, headed by Renis Likert, a pioneer in developing scientific approaches to attitude surveys. Likert's doctoral dissertation, "A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes," developed the widely used, five-point "Likert Scale."

In an early study by the institute, Likert and Floyd Mann administered a companywide survey of management and employee attitudes at Detroit Edison. The feedback process that evolved was an "interlocking chain of conferences." The major findings were first reported to top management and then transmitted throughout the organization. A follow-up study indicated that more significant and positive changes, such as job satisfaction, had occurred in departments receiving feedback compared to those that did not practice feedback. From these findings, Likert and Mann derived several conclusions about the effects of survey feedback on organization change.

🔑 Definition — Likert Scale: A scale often used in questionnaires where respondents specify their level of agreement to a statement, traditionally using a five-point scale (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree).

📐 Formula/Process: After the questionnaire is completed, each item may be analyzed separately or item responses may be summed to create a score for a group of items.

📌 Example: The ice cream statement — "Ice cream is good for breakfast" — is rated on a five-point Likert scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree.

🔑 Definition — Survey Feedback: A process of systematically collecting survey data and feeding it back to the client organization for discussion and action planning.

Results of Action Research/Survey Feedback:

Likert and his colleagues found that: (1) When the survey data were reported to a manager who failed to discuss the results with subordinates and failed to plan with them what to do to bring improvement, little change occurred. (2) When the manager discussed the results with subordinates and planned with them what to do to bring improvement, substantial favorable changes occurred. The process of feeding back data from an attitude survey had more positive change in business organizations than that coming from traditional training courses. The effectiveness of this method is that it deals with the system of human relationships as a whole (supervisors and subordinates can change together) and it deals with each manager, supervisor, and employee in the context of his job, his own position, and his own work relationship.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The five major stems of OD are: Laboratory Training (T-groups), Action Research/Survey Feedback, Participative Management, Quality of Work Life, and Strategic Change/Organization Transformation. Kurt Lewin is recognized as the founding father of OD, having contributed to the development of T-groups, survey feedback, and action research. The T-group was the first systematic attempt to use group dynamics for learning about interpersonal relations and leadership. Action research is characterized by a collaborative cycle of data collection, feedback, action planning, implementation, and follow-up data collection. The Likert Scale is the most widely used scale in survey research, and effective survey feedback requires managers to discuss results with subordinates and plan improvements together.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the five major stems from which OD emerged?
2. Who is recognized as the founding father of OD, and what were his major contributions?
3. What is a T-group, and how did it originate from the 1946 Connecticut workshop?
4. What is action research, and what are the key steps in the action research cycle?
5. What did Likert and Mann discover about the conditions under which survey feedback leads to positive organization change?

📘 Lecture 5 — The Evolution of OD

📖 Overview: This lecture traces the historical evolution of Organization Development, focusing on the major intellectual stems that shaped modern OD practice. It covers Participative Management, Quality of Work Life initiatives, and Strategic Change, concluding with a comprehensive five-stage model for implementing organizational development programs. Understanding this evolution is critical for grasping why OD practitioners use specific interventions today.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture examines three major stems of OD evolution: Likert's Participative Management (System 1-4), the Quality of Work Life movement in two phases, and Strategic Change interventions. It then presents a detailed five-stage model of organization development covering anticipation of need, practitioner-client relationship, diagnosis, action planning, and self-renewal. The lecture concludes with discussions on continuous improvement and the role of power in OD.

📝 Lecture Summary

Participative Management

The intellectual advances from laboratory training and action research led to the belief that a human relations approach represented the one-best-way to manage organizations. This was exemplified by Likert's Participative Management (System 4) framework, which characterized organizations as having one of four management systems. System 1 (Exploitative authoritative) exhibits an autocratic, top-down approach with motivation based on punishment and occasional rewards — resulting in mediocre performance. System 2 (Benevolent authoritative) is similar but more paternalistic, allowing slightly more interaction within management-defined boundaries. System 3 (Consultative) increases employee interaction and consultation, though management still makes final decisions. System 4 (Participative group) is almost the opposite of System 1, designed around group methods of decision making and supervision, fostering high degrees of member involvement and participation. System 4 achieves high levels of productivity, quality, and member satisfaction.

Likert applied System 4 management using a survey-feedback process. The intervention started with members completing the Profile of Organizational Characteristics, which asked about present and ideal conditions of six features: leadership, motivation, communication, decisions, goals, and control. Data were fed back to work groups, who examined discrepancies between present and ideal situations using System 4 as the benchmark, then generated action plans.

🔑 Definition — System 4 (Participative Group System): Organizations designed around group methods of decision making and supervision that foster high member involvement and participation, achieving high productivity, quality, and satisfaction. 📐 Formula: None explicitly stated in text 📌 Example: An organization using System 4 would have work groups highly involved in setting goals, making decisions, improving methods, and appraising results, with communication occurring both laterally and vertically.

Quality of Work Life

The QWL contribution to OD can be described in two phases. The first phase (starting in the 1950s) aimed at better integrating technology and people, involving joint participation by unions and management in work design. The most distinguishing characteristic was the development of self-managing work groups — composed of multiskilled workers given autonomy and information to design and manage their own task performances.

Two definitions of QWL emerged initially. The first defined QWL in terms of people's reaction to work, focusing on individual outcomes like job satisfaction and mental health. The second defined QWL as an approach or method, synonymous with techniques like job enrichment, self-managed teams, and labor-management committees.

The second phase of QWL started in 1979, driven by growing international competition, especially from Japan. Programs expanded beyond work design to include reward systems, work flows, management styles, and the physical work environment. This phase added organizational efficiency to what had been primarily a human dimension concern. Quality circles — groups of employees trained in problem-solving methods who meet regularly to resolve work-environment, productivity, and quality-control concerns — became particularly popular.

Today, this second phase continues primarily under the banner of "employee involvement" (EI) rather than QWL. More recently, "employee empowerment" has been used interchangeably with EI, though EI is considered broader and less restrictive. The QWL approach has gained new momentum by joining forces with the total quality movement advocated by Deming & Juran, where the organization is viewed as a set of processes linked to quality, modeled through statistical techniques and improved continuously.

🔑 Definition — Quality Circle: Groups of employees trained in problem-solving methods who meet regularly to resolve work-environment, productivity, and quality-control concerns and develop more efficient ways of working. 📌 Example: A manufacturing company might form quality circles where workers from different departments meet weekly to identify production bottlenecks and propose solutions, implementing changes that improve both quality and efficiency.

Strategic Change

The strategic change stem is a recent influence on OD's evolution, arising as organizations and their environments became more complex and uncertain. Strategic change involves improving the alignment among an organization's environment, strategy, and organization design. Interventions include efforts to improve both the organization's relationship to its environment and the fit between its technical, political, and cultural systems.

The need for strategic change is usually triggered by major disruptions such as lifting of regulatory requirements, a technological breakthrough, or a new CEO from outside. One of the first applications was Richard Beckhard's open system planning, which proposed that an organization's environment and strategy could be described and analyzed. Since then, change agents have proposed various large-scale or strategic change models, each recognizing that strategic change involves multiple levels of the organization, culture change, is often driven from the top by powerful executives, and has important effects on performance.

💡 Why this matters: Implementing strategic change requires OD practitioners to be familiar with competitive strategy, finance, and marketing in addition to team building, action research, and survey feedback — significantly expanding OD's relevance to organizations.

🔑 Definition — Strategic Change: Improving the alignment among an organization's environment, strategy, and organization design, involving multiple levels and culture change, often driven from the top.

A Model for Organization Development

Organization development is a continuing process of long-term organizational improvement consisting of a series of stages, emphasizing a combination of individual, team, and organizational relationships. The primary difference between OD and other behavioral science techniques is the emphasis on viewing the organization as a total system of interacting and interrelated elements.

Many OD programs use the action research model, which involves collecting information about the organization, feeding it back to the client system, and developing action programs. The lecture presents a five-stage model of total organization development, where each stage depends on the preceding one.

Stage One: Anticipate a Need for Change

The organization must anticipate a need for change, beginning with the manager's perception that the organization is in a state of disequilibrium or needs improvement. This disequilibrium may result from growth, decline, or competitive, technological, legal, or social changes. There must be a felt need, because only felt needs convince individuals to adopt new ways.

📌 Example: A new AT&T CEO brought in the company's top 20 officers and told them the tradition of keeping people in top jobs as long as they didn't mess up was over, saying "You are going to be in my boat or out of it."

Stage Two: Develop the Practitioner-Client Relationship

After an organization recognizes a need for change and an OD practitioner enters, a relationship develops. The client is the person or organization being assisted. The exchange of expectations and obligations (formation of a psychological contract) depends on a good first impression or match between practitioner and client. The practitioner attempts to establish open communication, trust, and shared responsibility.

📌 Example: At one company, OD started at the vice-presidential level using internal practitioners; at another, an external practitioner from a university was invited by the industrial relations group.

Stage Three: The Diagnostic Phase

The practitioner and client gather data to understand client system problems — the diagnosis. One rule: question the client's diagnosis, as their perspective may be biased. The diagnostic phase determines the exact problem, identifies causal forces, and provides a basis for selecting change strategies.

📌 Example: A company with high employee turnover (34% vs. industry) used a questionnaire to discover employees felt it had become bureaucratic. OD programs then reduced turnover to 19%.

Stage Four: Action Plans, Strategies, and Techniques

The diagnostic phase leads to interventions aimed at resolving problems. Programs apply OD techniques such as Total Quality Management (TQM), job design, role analysis, goal setting, team building, and inter-group development. More time is typically spent on this stage than any other.

Stage Five: Self-Renewal, Monitor, and Stabilize

This final step monitors results and stabilizes desired changes. Each stage needs monitoring to gain feedback on member reactions. Once a problem is corrected, means must be devised to ensure new behavior is stabilized and internalized — otherwise the system regresses. The client system needs to develop the capability to maintain innovation without outside support.

Continuous Improvement

In today's environment, there are only two kinds of companies — those that are changing and those going out of business. The five-stage model shows how different OD methods are used to continuously improve performance. As an OD program stabilizes, the need for the practitioner should decrease. If the client moves toward independence and self-renewal capacity, termination is easily accomplished.

An important issue is whether the practitioner can deal effectively with power and its use. Hierarchical organizations rely on power, and political infighting is a reality. OD practitioners act as facilitators to promote team problem solving and collaboration, encouraging values like trust, openness, and consensus. While OD is not a political/power intervention, practitioners must be aware of politics and use problem-solving approaches compatible with power-oriented situations.

📌 Example: A study by Eisenhardt and Bourgeois found that politics influence decisions and political conflicts within top management teams are associated with poor firm performance.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The lecture establishes that OD evolved through three major intellectual stems: Participative Management (Likert's System 4), Quality of Work Life (from job enrichment to employee involvement), and Strategic Change (aligning environment, strategy, and design). The five-stage model of OD — anticipate need, develop practitioner-client relationship, diagnose, implement action plans, and self-renew — provides a systematic framework for any change effort. Students must remember that System 4 represents the ideal participative benchmark, that QWL evolved from work design to broader organizational improvement under the banner of employee involvement, and that strategic change requires OD practitioners to master business skills beyond traditional behavioral science. Crucially, successful OD requires recognizing power dynamics while maintaining a facilitative, non-political role, and ensuring the client system develops self-renewal capacity so changes are sustained without external dependency.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the four management systems in Likert's framework, and how does System 4 differ from System 1?
2. What were the two phases of the Quality of Work Life movement, and what drove the shift from the first to the second phase?
3. What triggers the need for strategic change, and what three elements does strategic change seek to align?
4. What are the five stages of the organization development model, and why is each dependent on the preceding stage?
5. Why must OD practitioners be aware of organizational power and politics, even though OD is not considered a political intervention?

📘 Lecture 6 — The Organization Culture

📖 Overview: This lecture explores organizational culture as the "personality" of an organization, examining both its visible and invisible manifestations. It explains how culture is created, maintained, and changed, and why understanding cultural norms is critical for organizational effectiveness and employee success. The lecture emphasizes that culture can be a powerful hidden asset or a dangerous liability.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture defines organizational culture and its visible/invisible manifestations, explains the role of norms (pivotal and peripheral), describes the socialization process for new employees, examines how individuals adjust to cultural norms, discusses psychological contracts between employees and organizations, and presents a real-world case study (Setpoint) demonstrating the tangible value of corporate culture.

📝 Lecture Summary

Organizational Culture: Definition and Overview

Organizational culture is the personality of the organization, comprised of the assumptions, values, norms, and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors. Culture is difficult to express distinctly, but everyone knows it when they sense it. For example, the culture of a large for-profit corporation is quite different from that of a hospital or a university. You can tell an organization's culture by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what members brag about, what they wear, and similar cues.

🔑 Definition — Organizational Culture: "The culture of an organization is its customary and traditional way of thinking and doing things, which is shared to a greater or lesser degree by all its members, and which new members must learn and at least partially accept, in order to be accepted into service in the firm. Culture covers a wide range of behavior: the methods of production; job skills and technical knowledge; attitudes towards discipline and punishment; the custom and habit of managerial behavior; its way of doing business; the methods of payment; the values placed on different types of work; beliefs in democratic living and joint consultation."

Culture shows up in both visible and invisible ways. The surface layer of culture includes easy-to-observe manifestations like dress code, work environment, perks, and titles. However, the far more powerful aspects of culture are invisible. The cultural core is composed of beliefs, values, standards, paradigms, worldviews, moods, internal conversations, and private conversations of the people in the group. This invisible foundation underlies all actions and decisions within a team, department, or organization.

Visible Manifestations of Culture: Dress Code, Work Environment, Benefits, Perks, Conversations, Work/Life Balance, Titles & Job Description, Organizational Structure

Invisible Manifestations of Culture: Values, Private Conversations (with self or confidants), Invisible Rules, Attitudes, Beliefs, Worldviews, Moods and Emotions, Unconscious Interpretations, Standards of Behavior, Paradigms, Assumptions

💡 Why this matters: Business leaders often assume their company's vision, values, and strategic priorities are synonymous with culture. However, these may only be "words hanging on a plaque on the wall." What creates embodiment (or lack thereof) is the actual culture that permeates employees' psyches, bodies, conversations, and actions.

Culture is created and constantly reinforced on a daily basis through conversations, symbols, rituals, written materials, and body language. Small, mundane actions and behaviors create and can shift culture. Failure to discuss values, purpose, and rules often leads to a culture at cross purposes with the group's stated intentions. Poor communication creates confusion and often a crisis of meaninglessness.

Since culture is created every time a group of people comes together to form a team, a company will have many sub-cultures within its main culture. For example, marketing and technology teams may have different worldviews, jargon, work hours, and ways of doing things. A big challenge for today's company is to create a strong, cohesive corporate culture that pulls all sub-cultures together.

Corporate culture starts when the organization begins and develops as it grows. It controls how people interact with each other and stakeholders outside the organization. Over time, culture changes as people come and go. In a well-established company, the culture is so strong that even new top management may not be able to change it. Employees who feel comfortable with the company culture will stay; those who don't will leave or underperform.

Culture is extremely powerful. The rules of the game, what behavior is ethical and accepted, the mood of the organization, and employee enthusiasm are all contained in culture. Culture can be a powerful, hidden asset or a liability — a time-bomb waiting to go off. If leadership has not proactively created a corporate culture to support the company's purpose, the culture is likely a hidden liability.

Every time people come together with a shared purpose, culture is automatically created out of the combined thoughts, energies, and attitudes of the group.

New employees, consultants, or visitors who cannot adapt to corporate culture have slight chances for success. Members of the culture will reject the person outright and work against them. This happens because people tend to prefer conformity in their culture, which represents a harmonious environment where behavior and actions are predictable. Most people have a deeply rooted desire for order and stability, which conformity provides.

Culture determines a company's dress code, work environment, work hours, rules for getting ahead and getting promoted, how the business world is viewed, what is valued, who is valued, and much more.

Norms

Norms are organized and shared ideas regarding what members should do and feel, how behavior should be regulated, and what sanctions should be applied when behavior does not coincide with social expectations. The values and behaviors of every organization are unique. Some patterns of behavior may be functional and facilitate organizational goals; others may inhibit or restrict goal accomplishment.

🔑 Definition — Pivotal Norms: Norms essential to accomplishing the organization's objectives. 🔑 Definition — Peripheral Norms: Norms that support and contribute to pivotal norms but are not essential to the organization's objectives.

For example, dress codes enforced Monday through Thursday are probably peripheral in light of Friday's casual dress day. Pivotal and peripheral norms constantly confront individuals in an organization, and they must decide whether to conform. The pressure to conform varies, allowing individuals some degree of freedom depending on how they perceive rewards or punishments.

The Socialization Process

Even with effective recruiting, new employees must adjust to organizational culture. Because they are unaware of the culture, new employees are likely to disagree with or question existing customs and values.

🔑 Definition — Socialization: The process that adapts employees to the organization's culture.

Example: The socialization of employees at Procter and Gamble Co. starts at an early age because employees often begin their careers there and grow up together. The culture is resistant to new ideas and insular. P&G promotes from within, is located in Cincinnati where employees live near one another, and CEO Alan Lafley admitted, "I am worried that I will ask the organization to change ahead of its understanding, capability, and commitment."

New Employee Expectations

To function effectively, managers and members must be aware of the organization's norms — how sharply they are defined and how strongly they are enforced. Entry into a new situation often results in anxiety or stress. The less an individual can relate the new situation to previous situations, the greater the feelings of anxiety and discomfort. The more the individual can meet expectations, the less the discomfort.

Some organizations assign mentors to new employees. Example: W. L. Gore & Associates assigns each new hire a sponsor who acts as a mentor. Twenty percent of Gore's associates are sponsors, and the sponsor is typically the person with the most at stake in making the new associate successful. The philosophy is that if you sponsor someone, you want them to be successful, so you offer them opportunities. If the new associate is successful, the team will be successful, and the company will be successful.

Encounter Organization's Culture

Organizational culture provides a way for members to meet and get along. Three important aspects of socialization when joining an organization are:

1. Deciding who is a member and who is not
2. Developing an informal understanding of behavioral norms
3. Separating friends from enemies

To work together effectively, individuals need to understand power, status, rewards, and sanctions for specific behaviors. While individual employees experience a new situation, the organization may be attempting to influence them. If new members come expecting a certain set of norms and those expectations reflect actual norms, the integration process is relatively painless.

Adjustment to Cultural Norms

New members often find norms unclear, confusing, and restrictive. They may react in different ways:

• Conformity (extreme): Accepting all norms, resulting in uniformity, stagnation, non-responsiveness, and loss of creativeness
• Rebellion (extreme): Rejecting all values or leaving the organization
• Creative Individualism (ideal): Accepting pivotal norms while seriously questioning peripheral norms

Creative individualism is the ideal behavior for a healthy and effective organization, but it is often difficult for newcomers to correctly determine which norms are peripheral and which are pivotal. What is pivotal in one department may be peripheral in another. Since norms are changing and dynamic, organization members must have awareness to discern these differences.

Results

Only the more healthy organizations allow members to challenge their norms. The aim of Organization Development (OD) is to develop an organizational climate appropriate to the organization's mission and members. OD involves changing the culture so that more effective means of interacting, relating, and problem-solving result. OD seeks to develop the organization to the point where it feels comfortable allowing members to openly examine both pivotal and peripheral norms, with the ultimate goal of building a more effective organization.

In both types of organizations, each person tends to:

1. Separate more important from less important goals
2. Develop ways to measure their accomplishments
3. Create explanations for why goals may not always be met

Psychological Contracts

🔑 Definition — Psychological Contract: An unwritten agreement between individuals and the organization of which they are members. It describes certain expectations that the organization has of the individual and the individual's expectations of the organization.

Because both parties are growing and changing, the contract must be open-ended so that old and new issues can be renegotiated.

The organization has certain expectations of members (being on time, quality/quantity of work, loyalty, appearance). For a lasting, healthy relationship, individuals must comply with these expectations. Unfulfilled expectations often result in high turnover, absenteeism, sabotage, and worker alienation.

Similarly, the individual has expectations of the organization (work experience, security, advancement, social relationships, remuneration). For the individual to be satisfied and stay, the organization must meet these expectations.

When either party's expectations are not adequately satisfied, friction and difficulties develop. If unsolved, these problems may culminate in the individual leaving. All too often, the problem is "solved by not solving it" — both parties continue with a tenuous, unharmonious relationship.

Sometimes the psychological contract does not address certain key expectations. Unstated or assumed expectations can lead to an organization of individuals who feel cheated or managers disappointed in subordinates. To avoid misunderstandings, both parties should formulate a psychological contract that can be continually renegotiated.

OD in Practice: What's your culture worth?

Case Study: Setpoint

The founders of Setpoint had a good idea of the company culture they wanted to build, but didn't realize it would become one of the company's most valuable assets. Setpoint was a custom-manufacturing company with about 30 employees, designing and building factory-automation equipment.

Steve Peterson, owner of Peterson Inc. (about 300 employees), visited Setpoint. During a tour with CEO Joe Knight, Peterson noticed a large whiteboard in the shop with about 20 rows and 10 columns of numbers forming a table. When asked about it, Knight explained it tracked projects and whether they were making money.

Knight called a technician to explain the board. The technician walked through calculating gross profit earned the previous week on each project, explained gross profit per hour, discussed the ratio of overall gross profit to operating expenses (targeting about 2.0), and showed complete understanding of the company's financial position.

Peterson was amazed: "I could see that the board was a cherished possession... the people on the shop floor had it down like that. It was their scoreboard. It was the way they could tell if they were winning or losing."

Merger Negotiation: Shortly after, Peterson began negotiating to acquire Setpoint — not for market share, earnings, cash flow, or strategic advantage, but for their corporate culture. Peterson was willing to pay a substantial price for that particular type of culture.

⭐ Key Takeaways

Organizational culture is the invisible energy field that determines how people think, behave, and interact in an organization — it manifests visibly in dress, environment, and perks, but its real power lies in invisible beliefs, values, and assumptions. Norms are the shared expectations that regulate behavior, with pivotal norms being essential to organizational goals and peripheral norms being supportive but non-essential. New employees undergo socialization to adapt to culture, ideally achieving creative individualism where they accept pivotal norms while questioning peripheral ones. The psychological contract is an unwritten agreement of mutual expectations between individuals and organization — unfulfilled expectations destroy employee engagement and organizational health. The Setpoint case demonstrates that corporate culture can be so valuable that companies are willing to pay substantial premiums to acquire it.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the visible and invisible manifestations of organizational culture, and why are the invisible aspects more powerful?
2. Distinguish between pivotal norms and peripheral norms, providing an example of each.
3. What is creative individualism and why is it considered the ideal adjustment to cultural norms?
4. Define psychological contract and explain what happens when the organization's or individual's expectations are unfulfilled.
5. How did Setpoint's corporate culture become a valuable asset worth acquiring, and what did the whiteboard demonstrate about the employees' relationship with the organization?

📘 Lecture 7 — The Nature of Planned Change

📖 Overview: This lecture introduces the concept of planned organizational change and its central role in Organization Development (OD). It explores three major theories of planned change—Lewin’s Change Model, the Action Research Model, and contemporary adaptations—with a detailed application of Lewin’s model through the British Airways case study, demonstrating how organizations can systematically manage transformation.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture begins by distinguishing planned change from unplanned change and defining Organization Development as directed at increasing organizational effectiveness. It then presents Lewin’s three-stage change model (Unfreezing, Movement, Refreezing) across three organizational levels (individual, structural, and climate/interpersonal). Detailed sub-processes for each stage are explained, including disconfirmation, psychological safety, identification with role models, and personal/relational refreezing. Finally, the British Airways privatization case is used to illustrate how each stage of Lewin’s model was applied in practice over a five-year period.

📝 Lecture Summary

Theories of Planned change

All approaches to OD rely on a theory about planned change. The three major theories of organization change that have received considerable attention in the field are: Lewin's change model, the action research model, and contemporary adaptations of action research.

Lewin’s Change Model

According to the open-systems view, organizations—like living creatures—tend to be homeostatic, or continuously working to maintain a steady state. This helps explain why organizations require external impetus to initiate change and why that change will be resisted even when necessary. Organizational change can occur at three levels, each requiring different change strategies:

1. Changing the individuals who work in the organization—their skills, values, attitudes, and eventually behavior.
2. Changing various organizational structures and systems—reward systems, reporting relationships, work design.
3. Directly changing the organizational climate or interpersonal style—how open people are, how conflict is managed, how decisions are made.

According to Lewin, a pioneer in social psychology of organizations, the first step of any change process is to unfreeze the present pattern of behavior as a way of managing resistance to change. Depending on the organizational level, unfreezing might involve selectively promoting or terminating employees (individual level), developing experiential training programs (structural level), or providing data-based feedback (climate level).

The second step, movement, involves making the actual changes that will move the organization to another level of response. On the individual level, people behave differently with new skills. On the structural level, changes occur in reporting relationships and reward systems. On the climate level, behavior patterns indicate greater interpersonal trust and openness.

The final stage, refreezing, involves stabilizing or institutionalizing these changes by establishing systems that make these behavioral patterns “relatively secure against change.” This may involve redesigning recruitment processes or ensuring new behaviors become operating norms.

🔑 Definition — Homeostatic: Continuously working to maintain a steady state, like organizations resisting change even when it is necessary.

Stage 1: Unfreezing

Three ways of unfreezing an organization are: i. Disconfirmation ii. Induction of guilt or anxiety iii. Creation of psychological safety

i. Disconfirmation or lack of confirmation: Organizational members are not likely to embrace change unless they experience some need for it. Unfreezing involves reducing those forces maintaining the organization’s behavior at its present level. By introducing information that shows discrepancies between behaviors desired by organization members and those currently exhibited, members can be motivated to engage in change activities.

ii. Induction of guilt or anxiety: This is establishing a gap between what is current but not working well and some future goal that would make things work better. When people recognize a gap between what is and what would be better, they will be motivated via guilt or anxiety to reduce the gap. But disconfirmation and induction alone are not enough.

iii. Creation of psychological safety: To face disconfirmation and experience guilt or anxiety, people must believe that moving will not bring humiliation or loss of self-esteem. People must still feel worthy, psychologically safe. The consultant must take care that when people admit something is wrong, they will not be punished or humiliated.

Stage 2: Moving (Changing)

The second step, movement, involves making the actual changes. On the individual level, people behave differently with new skills. On the structural level, changes occur in organizational structures and reward systems. On the climate level, behavior patterns indicate greater interpersonal trust and openness.

Two main processes for accomplishing this stage: i. Identification with a new role model ii. Scanning the environment for new information

i. Identification with a new role model, mentor, boss, or consultant to “begin to see things from that other person’s point of view. If we see another point of view operating in a person to whom we pay attention and respect, we can begin to imagine that point of view as something to consider for ourselves.”

ii. Scanning the environment for new, relevant information. For example, a consultant working with a chairman and president might quote other chairman-president/CEO models from other client organizations—some that worked well and some that did not—bringing new relevant information to help them move forward.

Stage 3: Refreezing

This final stage involves stabilizing or institutionalizing changes by establishing systems (such as norms, policies, and structures) that make behavioral patterns “relatively secure against change.” The refreezing stage may involve:

• Redesigning the organization’s recruitment process to increase likelihood of hiring applicants who share the new management style and value system.
• Ensuring new behaviors become operating norms, reward systems reinforce those behaviors, and a new participative management style predominates.

This stage can be seen in two parts: i. Personal refreezing ii. Relational refreezing

i. Personal refreezing is the process of taking the new, changed way of doing things and making it fit comfortably into one’s total self-concept. This involves practice—trying out new roles and behaviors, getting feedback, and making adjustments until the new way feels reasonably comfortable.

ii. Relational refreezing is the process of assuring that the client’s new behavior will fit with significant others. When one person changes in a system, others must change as well to maintain the relationship. This involves openly engaging with others about the new way of doing things to help them see why the change is better than the old way.

Case Example: British Airways

In 1982, Margaret Thatcher’s government decided to convert British Airways (BA) from government ownership to private ownership. BA had regularly required large subsidies (almost $900 million in 1982). Growing deregulation of international air traffic placed BA at even greater risk of financial losses. To privatize, BA needed to become profitable. The internal changes transformed BA’s culture from “bureaucratic and militaristic” to “service-oriented and market-driven.”

Table: British Airways Success Story

Unfreezing in BA: The first step involved a massive reduction in the worldwide BA workforce (from 59,000 to 37,000). Within a year, all BA performance indices improved. The downsizing reduced hierarchical levels, giving more autonomy to operating people. No one was actually laid off—early retirement with substantial financial settlements was used. A second major change occurred in BA’s top management: Lord John King was appointed chairman, and Sir Colin Marshall was appointed CEO. Marshall had a marketing background, unlike his predecessors who were retired Royal Air Force officers. Marshall decided BA’s strategy should be to become “the World’s Favorite Airline.” To support unfreezing, “Putting People First” training was introduced, aiming to challenge prevailing wisdom about how things were done at BA.

Movement in BA: Marshall hired Nicholas Georgiades, a psychologist, as director of human resources. Georgiades developed specific tactics and programs including “Managing People First” and “Leading the Service Business”—experiential programs with heavy doses of individual feedback. These programs aimed to identify dysfunctional management styles and develop a new, open, participative management style. On the structural level, diagonal task forces composed of individuals from different functions and levels were used extensively. A bottom-up, less centralized budgeting process was introduced. Redefining BA’s business as service (rather than transportation) represented a critical shift on the climate level. Off-site team-building meetings were chosen to deal with these issues.

An important element was acceptance of the concept of “emotional labor” that Georgiades championed—the high energy levels required to provide quality service in an uncertain environment. Recognition that service is emotionally draining is critical to developing systems of emotional support. Another support mechanism was retraining traditional personnel staff to become internal change agents. A new bonus system demonstrated management’s commitment to sharing financial gains.

Refreezing in BA: Continued involvement of top management ensured changes became “fixed.” People who exemplified new BA values were more likely to be promoted. Additional programs like “Open Learning” and “Top Flight Academies” (including one leading to an MBA) were introduced. A new performance appraisal system based on both behavior and results was created to emphasize customer service and subordinate development. A performance-based compensation system was installed. Task forces continued to be used to solve emerging problems. Attention was paid to BA’s symbols—new uniforms, refurbished aircraft, and a new corporate coat of arms with the motto “We fly to serve.” Unique development was the creation of teams for consistent cabin-crew staffing. Continued use of data feedback on management practices throughout the system was maintained.

📌 Example — BA Unfreezing: BA reduced workforce from 59,000 to 37,000 employees. Within one year, on-time departures and arrivals improved, out-of-service aircraft decreased, lost bags decreased. Hierarchical levels were reduced, giving operating staff more autonomy. No layoffs occurred—early retirement with settlements was used.

📌 Example — BA Movement: Marshall hired Nicholas Georgiades as HR director. Georgiades created “Managing People First” training for middle and senior managers. These experiential programs provided individual behavioral feedback. Diagonal task forces were formed from different functions and levels to plan changes in MIS, staffing, and uniforms.

📌 Example — BA Refreezing: A new performance appraisal system was created based on both behavior and results, emphasizing customer service. A performance-based compensation system was installed. “Top Flight Academies” were established, including an executive program leading to an MBA. New uniforms, refurbished aircraft, and a new coat of arms (“We fly to serve”) were introduced.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The most critical concept is Lewin’s three-stage change model: Unfreezing (creating readiness for change through disconfirmation, anxiety induction, and psychological safety), Movement (actual change through identification with role models and environmental scanning), and Refreezing (stabilizing change through personal and relational integration). Change must be managed across three levels simultaneously: individual (skills and attitudes), structural (systems and rewards), and climate/interpersonal (trust and openness). The British Airways case demonstrates that successful transformation requires top management commitment, compassionate handling of resistance (like downsizing with early retirement), systematic training programs, and institutionalization of new values through performance systems and symbols. Emotional labor—the psychological cost of service work—must be recognized and supported with peer groups and internal change agents.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the three stages of Lewin’s Change Model, and what is the main purpose of each stage?

2. What are the three ways to unfreeze an organization, and why is psychological safety necessary for change to begin?

3. What is the difference between personal refreezing and relational refreezing, and why are both necessary for lasting change?

4. How did British Airways apply the unfreezing stage through workforce reduction, and what specific measures were taken to minimize pain during downsizing?

5. What was the concept of “emotional labor” introduced by Georgiades at BA, and what support mechanisms were created to address it?

📘 Lecture 8 — Action Research Model

📖 Overview: This lecture explores the Action Research Model as a foundational framework for Organization Development (OD), emphasizing planned change as a cyclical, iterative process of research and action. It covers the seven main phases of the model, the role of collaboration between OD practitioners and organization members, and contemporary adaptations including participatory action research and appreciative inquiry.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture covers the Action Research Model's cyclical phases including entry, contracting, diagnosis, feedback, planning change, intervention, evaluation, and termination of OD efforts. It distinguishes between phases and steps, discusses the collaborative nature of data gathering and feedback, and explains contemporary adaptations such as participatory action research and appreciative inquiry in various organizational and international settings.

📝 Lecture Summary

The Action Research Model

The action research model focuses on planned change as a cyclical process in which initial research about the organization provides information to guide subsequent action, then results are assessed to provide further information to guide further action. This iterative cycle of research and action involves considerable collaboration among organization members and OD practitioners. Action research is traditionally aimed both at helping specific organizations implement planned change and at developing general knowledge that can be applied to other change settings.

Entry (Problem Identification)

This stage usually begins when a key executive or someone with power senses that the organization has one or more problems that might be solved with the help of an OD practitioner. Contact between consultant and client initiates the entry phase.

🔑 Definition — Entry: The initial phase where the OD practitioner and client begin exploring the possibility of a working relationship.

During this process, the consultant assesses:

• The probability of relating with the client
• The motivation and values of the client
• The client's readiness for change
• The extent of resources available
• Potential leverage points of change

Contracting (Consultation with a Behavioral Science Expert)

During initial contact, the OD practitioner and client carefully assess each other. The practitioner has their own normative, developmental theory and must be conscious of those assumptions and values. Sharing them with the client from the beginning establishes an open and collaborative atmosphere.

🔑 Definition — OD Contract: Unlike other types of contracts, the OD contract states three critical areas:

• What each expects to get from the relationship
• How much time each will invest, when, and at what cost
• The ground rules under which the parties will operate

Diagnosis (Data Gathering and Preliminary Diagnosis)

This step involves gathering appropriate information and analyzing it to determine the underlying causes of organizational problems.

🔑 Definition — Diagnosis: The process of collecting and analyzing data to understand organizational problems and their root causes.

Four basic methods of gathering data:

• Interviews
• Process observation
• Questionnaires
• Organizational performance data (often overlooked)

One approach to diagnosis begins with observation, proceeds to a semi-structured interview, and concludes with a questionnaire to measure precisely the problems identified. In OD, "every action on the part of the consultant constitutes an intervention" that will have some effect on the organization.

Feedback (Feedback to a Key Client or Group)

Because action research is collaborative, diagnostic data are fed back to the client, usually in a group meeting. The feedback step helps members determine the strengths and weaknesses of the organization under study.

🔑 Definition — Feedback: The process of returning gathered information to organization members to validate findings and determine next steps.

The feedback session has three steps:

1. Consultant provides summary of data and preliminary analysis
2. General discussion for clarification questions
3. Time devoted to interpretation and possible changes to analysis

💡 Why this matters: The action research process is very different from the doctor-patient model where the consultant makes a diagnosis and prescribes a solution. Failure to establish a common frame of reference may lead to faulty diagnosis or a communications gap where the client is unwilling to believe or accept the prescription.

Case Example: An OD practitioner interviewed senior management with four questions:

1. What are the strengths? (Senior management experience, workforce commitment, good people throughout)
2. What are the weaknesses? (Marketing & servicing system, lack of priorities, individual priorities over organizational, lack of management depth)
3. Are you in favor of the off-site meeting?
4. What should be the objective? (Agree on regional structure, set financial objectives, list of things to do/stop doing)

Planning Change (Joint Action Planning)

The OD practitioner and client members jointly agree on actions to be taken. This begins the moving process from Lewin's change model, as the organization decides how to reach a different quasi-stationary equilibrium.

🔑 Definition — Joint Action Planning: Collaborative process where specific actions are determined based on diagnosis, culture, technology, environment, and resources.

Good diagnosis determines the intervention. The purposes are to:

• Generate alternative steps for corrective response to identified problems
• Decide on the step or order of steps to take

Intervention (Action)

This stage involves the actual change from one organizational state to another. It may include installing new methods and procedures, reorganizing structures and work designs, and reinforcing new behaviors.

🔑 Definition — Intervention: The implementation phase where planned changes are executed, typically requiring a transition period.

Examples by level:

• Individual level: Job redesign and enrichment, training and management development, quality of working life changes, management by objectives, career development
• Group level: Team building, autonomous work groups, quality control circles

Evaluation (Data Gathering After Action)

Because action research is cyclical, data must be gathered after action to measure effects and feed results back to the organization, which may lead to re-diagnosis and new action.

🔑 Definition — Evaluation: The systematic assessment of change effects to inform subsequent cycles of diagnosis and action.

Termination of the OD Effort

An organization has a constant need for periodic, objective diagnostic check-ups by external consultants. Termination is not an applicable phase for internal OD practitioners—they may conclude specific programs but should not terminate the relationship. A primary role of internal practitioners is to serve as guardians of the new culture and help regulate social change.

Phases not Steps

Phases are a more appropriate term than steps because steps imply discrete actions, while phases connote a cycle of changes. In actual practice, phases blend, overlap, and do not follow one from the other. For example, when collecting information for diagnosis, an intervention is occurring simultaneously.

Contemporary Adaptations of Action Research

Trends in application:

• Movement from smaller subunits to total systems and communities
• Application in international settings, particularly developing nations
• Use to promote social change and innovation in community development

Key Adaptation 1: Participatory Action Research Contemporary applications have increased member involvement in the change process. Referred to as "participatory action research," "action learning," "action science," "self-design," or "appreciative inquiry," this approach emphasizes organization members learning firsthand about planned change. Both parties become "co-learners" in diagnosing, designing, implementing, and assessing changes.

Key Adaptation 2: Appreciative Inquiry This model proposes that words and conversations determine what is important in organizational life. It challenges the assumption that organizations are problems to be solved—instead, it suggests the most important change an organization can make is to begin conversations about what the organization is doing right.

Five steps of Appreciative Inquiry:

1. Focus inquiry on successful aspects (e.g., successful collaborations, customer satisfaction)
2. Gather data about the "best of what is" in the organization
3. Examine data to find stories for "possibility propositions" bridging current best practices with ideal possibilities
4. Bring stakeholders together to construct a vision of the future ("what should be")
5. Implement changes similarly to action research

💡 Why this matters: Research on expectation effects supports that people tend to act in ways that make their expectations occur—a positive vision energizes and directs behavior to make that expectation come about.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The Action Research Model is a cyclical, collaborative process where research guides action and action generates new research, distinguishing it from the doctor-patient model of consulting. Students must remember the seven phases—entry, contracting, diagnosis, feedback, planning change, intervention, and evaluation—and understand that these are overlapping phases, not discrete steps. The feedback process is especially critical because it validates findings collaboratively and prevents the common failure of consultants' recommendations being rejected or misunderstood. Two contemporary adaptations are essential: participatory action research (where members become co-learners) and appreciative inquiry (which focuses organizational conversations on strengths and positive possibilities). Finally, internal OD practitioners should never fully terminate their relationship with the organization but serve as guardians of the new culture.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the seven phases of the Action Research Model, and why are they called "phases" rather than "steps"?
2. Explain the difference between the doctor-patient model and the action research model in OD consulting.
3. What are the three steps of a feedback session, and why is establishing a common frame of reference critical?
4. Describe the two key contemporary adaptations of action research discussed in the lecture.
5. How does appreciative inquiry differ from traditional action research in its starting point and focus?

📘 Lecture 9 — General Model of Planned Change

📖 Overview: This lecture presents a comprehensive framework for understanding how planned change unfolds in organizations. It covers the four basic activities of organization development, different types of planned change based on magnitude and organizational context, and critiques of the planned change model. The lecture concludes with a case study applying these concepts.

🗂️ Topics Covered

This lecture covers the general model of planned change with four sequential activities: entering and contracting, diagnosing, planning and implementing change, and evaluating and institutionalizing change. It then explores three dimensions along which planned change varies: magnitude of change (incremental vs. quantum), degree of organization (over-organized vs. under-organized), and domestic vs. international settings. Finally, the lecture presents a critique of planned change regarding its conceptualization and practice, followed by the Dim Lighting Co. case study for application.

📝 Lecture Summary

General Model of Planned Change

The three theories of planned change—Lewin's change model, the action research model, and contemporary adaptations—suggest a general framework for planned change. This framework describes four basic activities that practitioners and organization members jointly carry out in organization development. The arrows connecting the different activities show the typical sequence of events: from entering and contracting, to diagnosing, to planning and implementing change, to evaluating and institutionalizing change. The lines connecting the activities emphasize that organizational change is not a straightforward, linear process but involves considerable overlap and feedback among the activities.

Entering and Contracting

The first set of activities in planned change concerns entering and contracting. These events help managers decide whether they want to engage further in a planned change program and to commit resources to such a process. Entering an organization involves gathering initial data to understand the problems facing the organization or the positive opportunities for inquiry. Once this information is collected, the problems or opportunities are discussed with managers and other organization members to develop a contract or agreement to engage in planned change. The contract spells out future change activities, the resources that will be committed to the process, and how OD practitioners and organization members will be involved. In many cases, organizations do not get beyond this early stage because disagreements about the need for change surface, resource constraints are encountered, or other methods for change appear more feasible.

When OD is used in nontraditional and international settings, the entering and contracting process must be sensitive to the context in which the change is taking place.

Diagnosing

In this stage of planned change, the client system is carefully studied. Diagnoses can focus on understanding organizational problems, including their causes and consequences, or on identifying the organization's positive attributes. The diagnostic process is one of the most important activities in OD. It includes choosing an appropriate model for understanding the organization and gathering, analyzing, and feeding back information to managers and organization members about the problems or opportunities that exist.

Diagnostic models for analyzing problems explore three levels of activities:

• Organization issues represent the most complex level of analysis and involve the total system.
• Group-level issues are associated with department and group effectiveness.
• Individual-level issues involve the way jobs are designed.

Gathering, analyzing, and feeding back data are the central change activities in diagnosis. Data can be gathered through interviews, observations, survey instruments, or archival sources such as meeting minutes and organization charts. Organization members, often in collaboration with an OD practitioner, jointly discuss the data and their implications for change.

Planning and Implementing Change

In this stage, organization members and practitioners jointly plan and implement OD interventions. They design interventions to achieve the organization's vision or goals and make action plans to implement them. There are several criteria for designing interventions, including the organization's readiness for change, its current change capability, its culture and power distributions, and the change agent's skills and abilities.

Depending on the outcomes of diagnosis, there are four major types of interventions in OD:

1. Human process interventions at the individual, group, and total system levels.
2. Interventions that modify an organization's structure and technology.
3. Human resource interventions that seek to improve member performance and wellness.
4. Strategic interventions that involve managing the organization's relationship to its external environment and the internal structure and process necessary to support a business strategy.

Implementing interventions is concerned with managing the change process. It includes motivating change, creating a desired future vision of the organization, developing political support, managing the transition toward the vision, and sustaining momentum for change.

Evaluating and Institutionalizing Change

The final stage in planned change involves evaluating the effects of the intervention and managing the institutionalization of successful change programs. Feedback to organization members about the intervention's results provides information about whether the changes should be continued, modified, or suspended. Institutionalizing successful changes involves reinforcing them through feedback, rewards, and training. It demonstrates how traditional planned change activities, such as entry and contracting, survey feedback, and change planning, can be combined with contemporary methods, such as large-group interventions and high levels of participation.

Different Types of Planned Change

The general model of planned change describes how the OD process typically unfolds in organizations. In actual practice, the different phases are not nearly as orderly as the model implies. OD practitioners tend to modify or adjust the stages to fit the needs of the situation. Steps in planned change may be implemented in a variety of ways, depending on the client's needs and goals, the change agent's skills and values, and the organization's context. To understand these differences, planned change can be contrasted across situations on three key dimensions: the magnitude of organizational change, the degree to which the client system is organized, and whether the setting is domestic or international.

Magnitude of Change

Planned change efforts can be characterized as falling along a continuum ranging from incremental changes that involve fine-tuning the organization to quantum changes that entail fundamentally altering how it operates.

Incremental changes tend to involve limited dimensions and levels of the organization, such as the decision-making processes of work groups. They occur within the context of the organization's existing business strategy, structure, and culture and are aimed at improving the status quo. Planned change traditionally has been applied in situations involving incremental change, where the focus is on resolving specific social problems in bureaucratic structures.

Quantum changes, on the other hand, are directed at significantly altering how the organization operates. They tend to involve several organizational dimensions, including structure, culture, reward systems, information processes, and work design. They also involve changing multiple levels of the organization, from top-level management through departments and work groups to individual jobs.

In recent years, OD has been concerned increasingly with quantum change due to greater competitiveness and uncertainty. Because quantum change involves most features and levels of the organization, it is typically driven from the top, where corporate strategy and values are set. Change agents help senior managers create a vision of a desired future organization and energize movement in that direction.

💡 Why this matters: It is important to emphasize that quantum change may or may not be developmental in nature. Organizations may drastically alter their strategic direction without developing their capacity to solve problems and achieve high performance and quality of work life. The OD approach to quantum change is particularly relevant in today's rapidly changing and competitive environment.

Degree of Organization

Planned change efforts also can vary depending on the degree to which the organization or client system is organized.

In over-organized situations, such as in highly mechanistic, bureaucratic organizations, various dimensions such as leadership styles, job designs, organization structure, and policies and procedures are too rigid and overly defined for effective task performance. Planned change in over-organized situations is generally aimed at loosening constraints on behavior. Changes are designed to liberate suppressed energy, increase the flow of relevant information, and promote effective conflict resolution.

In under-organized organizations, there is too little constraint or regulation for effective task performance. Leadership, structure, job design, and policy are poorly defined. Communication is fragmented, job responsibilities are ambiguous, and employees' energies are dissipated because they lack direction. Underorganized situations are typically found in areas such as product development, project management, and community development.

When applied to under-organized situations, planned change is aimed at increasing organization by clarifying leadership roles, structuring communication, and specifying job responsibilities. This requires a modification of the traditional phases of planned change and includes the following four steps:

1. Identification: Identifies the relevant people or groups who need to be involved in the change program.
2. Convention: The relevant people or departments are brought together to begin organizing for task performance.
3. Organization: Different organizing mechanisms are created to structure the newly required interactions among people and departments.
4. Evaluation: The outcomes of the organization step are assessed, signaling the need for adjustments or further activities.

Domestic vs. International Settings

Planned change efforts traditionally have been applied in North American and European settings but increasingly are used outside of those cultures. The action research model reflects the underlying values and assumptions of these geographic settings, including equality, involvement, and short-term time horizons. In other societies, however, a very different set of cultural values may operate. For example, the cultures of most Asian countries are more hierarchical and status conscious, less open to discussing personal issues, more concerned with saving "face," and have a longer time horizon for results.

The cultural values that guide OD practice in the United States include a tolerance for ambiguity, equality among people, individuality, and achievement motives. When OD is applied outside of the North American or European context, the action research process must be adapted to fit the cultural context. Each step in the general model of planned change must be carefully mapped against the cultural context.

Conducting OD in international settings is highly stressful on OD practitioners. To be successful, they must develop a keen awareness of their own cultural biases, be open to seeing issues from another perspective, be fluent in the values and assumptions of the host country, and understand the economic and political context of business there. Most OD practitioners adopt a "cultural guide," often a member of the organization, to help navigate the cultural nuances of change.

Critique of Planned Change

Despite continued refinement, the models and practice of planned change are still in a formative stage of development, and there is considerable room for improvement. Critics have pointed out several problems with how planned change has been conceptualized and practiced.

Conceptualization of Planned Change: Planned change has typically been characterized as involving a series of activities for carrying out effective organization development. However, considerably more information is needed to guide how steps should be performed in specific situations. Porras and Robertson argued that planned change activities should be guided by information about (1) the organizational features that can be changed, (2) the intended outcomes, (3) the causal mechanisms by which outcomes are achieved, and (4) the contingencies upon which successful change depends. They noted that the key to organizational change is change in the behavior of each member and that information about causal mechanisms producing individual change is lacking.

A related deficiency is knowledge about how the stages of planned change differ across situations. Most models specify a general set of steps intended to be applicable to most change efforts, but considerably more effort needs to be expended identifying situational factors that may require modifying the general stages.

Planned change also tends to be described as a rationally controlled, orderly process, but critics argue this is seriously misleading. Planned change has a more chaotic quality, often involving shifting goals, discontinuous activities, surprising events, and unexpected combinations of changes.

Finally, the relationship between planned change and organizational performance and effectiveness is not well understood. OD traditionally has had problems assessing whether interventions are producing observed results due to the complexity of the change situation, lack of sophisticated analyses, and long time periods for producing results.

Practice of Planned Change: A growing number of OD practitioners have acquired skills in a specific technique and have chosen to specialize in that method. Although specialization may be necessary, it can lead to myopia. Some OD practitioners favor particular techniques and ignore other strategies that might be more appropriate, tending to interpret organizational problems as requiring the favored technique.

Effective change depends on a careful diagnosis of how the organization is functioning. Diagnosis requires both time and money, and some organizations are not willing to make the necessary investment. Rather, they rely on preconceptions about what the problem is and hire consultants with skills appropriate to solve that problem.

In situations requiring complex organizational changes, planned change is a long-term process involving considerable innovation and learning on site. Some organizations demand more rapid solutions and seek quick fixes from experts. Unfortunately, some OD consultants are more than willing to provide quick solutions, selling prepackaged programs that have trouble gaining wide organizational support and seldom produce advertised positive results.

Other organizations have not recognized the systemic nature of change. They believe that intervention into one aspect of the organization will be sufficient and are unprepared for the other changes that may be necessary to support a particular intervention. Changing any one part of an organization often requires adjustments in other parts to maintain appropriate alignment.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The general model of planned change comprises four core activities—entering and contracting, diagnosing, planning and implementing change, and evaluating and institutionalizing change—that form the foundation of organization development. Planned change varies significantly across three critical dimensions: the magnitude of change (incremental vs. quantum), the degree of organization (over-organized vs. under-organized), and cultural context (domestic vs. international settings). Quantum change is more complex and requires long-term commitment from top management, while incremental change is more bounded and problem-focused. The critique of planned change highlights serious deficiencies in both its conceptualization (overly rational and orderly, lacking contingency thinking) and practice (technique myopia, quick fixes, failure to recognize systemic nature of change). The Dim Lighting Co. case demonstrates how these concepts apply to real organizational decisions about resource allocation, innovation, and managing competing stakeholder interests.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the four basic activities in the general model of planned change, and how do they relate to each other?
2. What are the key differences between incremental change and quantum change in terms of scope, organizational levels affected, and duration?
3. How does the planned change process differ when applied to over-organized versus under-organized organizations?
4. What cultural adaptations must be made when applying OD in international settings, particularly in Asian contexts compared to North American settings?
5. According to Porras and Robertson, what four types of information should guide planned change activities, and what is the key mechanism for organizational change?

📘 Lecture 10 — The Organization Development Practitioner

📖 Overview: This lecture provides a personal perspective on OD practitioners, examining who they are, their roles, and the essential character of OD as a helping profession. It explores the three main categories of practitioners—specialists, related-field professionals, and line managers—along with the advantages and disadvantages of internal versus external practice, and the critical importance of trust in practitioner-client relationships.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture covers three sets of OD practitioners: professionals specializing in OD, those in related fields like reward systems and business strategy, and line managers who apply OD to their work areas. It examines external and internal practitioners' advantages and disadvantages, the external-internal practitioner team approach, the practitioner style model, and developing trust relationships through various communication responses.

📝 Lecture Summary

Who is the Organization Development Practitioner?

The term organization development practitioner refers to at least three sets of people. The most obvious group are those specializing in OD as a profession—internal or external consultants who traditionally share a common set of humanistic values promoting open communications, employee involvement, and personal growth. In recent years, these professionals have expanded to include concern for organizational effectiveness, competitiveness, and bottom-line results, resulting in a more diverse set of professionals geared to helping organizations cope with competitive pressures.

Second, the term applies to people specializing in fields related to OD, such as reward systems, organization design, total quality, information technology, and business strategy. These content-oriented fields increasingly integrate with OD's process orientation, particularly as OD projects become more comprehensive. Professionals in these fields do not subscribe fully to traditional OD values nor have extensive OD training, but they apply their special competence within an OD-like process, often by engaging OD professionals and managers to design and implement change programs.

Third, the term applies to the increasing number of managers and administrators who have gained competence in OD and apply it to their own work areas. Studies suggest that OD applied by managers rather than OD professionals is growing rapidly. As Kanter studied, firms like General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, and 3M have managers and employees who have become "change masters." Managers gain competence through interacting with OD professionals in actual change programs, supplemented by formal training from organizations like the National Training Laboratories, the Center for Creative Leadership, and the Gestalt Institute.

🔑 Definition — "Change Masters": Managers and employees who have gained the expertise to introduce change and innovation into the organization.

In practice, the distinctions among these three sets of OD practitioners are blurring. A growing number of managers have transferred into the OD profession, while more OD practitioners gain professional competence in related specialties like business process reengineering, reward systems, and organization design. Cross-training and integration are producing a more comprehensive and complex kind of OD practitioner with greater diversity of values, skills, and experience.

External and Internal Practitioners

In every large-scale planned change program, some person or group is designated to lead the change—the change leader. The practitioner is the person leading or guiding the process of change. Internal practitioners are already members of the organization, either managers practicing OD with their work groups or OD specialists from human resources or organization development departments. External practitioners are brought in from outside the organization as OD specialists, often referred to as consultants.

🔑 Definition — Practitioner: The change leader, the person leading or guiding the process of change in an organization.

The External Practitioner

The external practitioner is someone not previously associated with the client system. Coming from the outside, they see things from a different viewpoint and from a position of objectivity. Because external practitioners are invited into the organization, they have increased leverage (the degree of influence and status within the client system) and greater freedom of operation than internal practitioners. Research suggests that top managers view external practitioners as having a more positive role in large-scale change programs.

🔑 Definition — Leverage: The degree of influence and status within the client system.

External practitioners are less in awe of power wielded by organization members and do not depend on the organization for raises, approval, or promotions. Because they usually have a broad career base and other clients, they tend to have a more independent attitude about risk-taking. For example, at McKinsey & Co., consultants are direct, outspoken, and challenge the client's opinions—though their work is not necessarily organization development.

The disadvantages of external practitioners result from the same factors. Outsiders are generally unfamiliar with the organization system, culture, communication networks, and formal or informal power systems. They may have difficulty gathering pertinent information simply because they are outsiders.

The Internal Practitioner

The internal practitioner is already a member of the organization—a top executive, an organization member who initiates change in their work group, or a member of the human resources or organization development department. Many large organizations (including Disney, IBM, General Electric, General Motors, Honeywell, Union Carbide, and the US Army and Navy) have created internal OD practitioner groups, often operating out of the human resources area.

Advantages include familiarity with the organization's culture and norms, knowledge of the power structure, being already known to employees, and having a personal interest in seeing the organization succeed.

Disadvantages include potential lack of specialized OD skills (though this is becoming less significant with more university programs), lack of objectivity, being more likely to accommodate to management's needs, potential negative influence from previous work and relationships, and sometimes lacking necessary power and authority when in remote staff positions.

The External-Internal Practitioner Team

The external-internal practitioner team is probably the most effective approach for large-scale change. OD researcher John Lewis found that successful external OD practitioners assisted in the development of their internal counterparts. Each partner brings complementary resources—the external practitioner brings expertise, objectivity, and new insights, while the internal practitioner brings detailed knowledge of organization issues, long-time acquaintance with members, and awareness of system strengths and weaknesses.

The collaborative relationship provides integration of abilities, skills, and resources, serving as a model for the rest of the organization embodying trust, respect, honesty, confrontation, and collaboration. The team approach makes it possible to divide the workload and share in diagnosis, planning, and strategy.

💡 Why this matters: In the example of the U.S. Navy's Command Development Program, internal change agents recommended training seminars away from the Navy environment with civilian clothing to lessen authority issues, but higher authority ordered them held on naval bases in uniform. An external practitioner with greater leverage might have provided enough support to gain approval for the desired program.

Another reason for using this team approach is to achieve greater continuity. External practitioners are generally available only a few days a month, while the internal practitioner provides a continuing point of contact. Since many OD programs last three to five years, the external-internal combination provides the stimulation and motivation needed to keep change programs moving during periods of resistance.

Practitioner Style Model

There is often a gap between the practitioner's and the client's understandings about OD and change. The practitioner needs to assess this gap because a relationship is possible only if the practitioner can be flexible enough to understand where the client is and help them learn about the OD change process. The practitioner brings certain knowledge, skills, values, and experience, while the client system has its own values and expectations. The target organization has its own subculture and level of readiness for change.

Developing a Trust Relationship

The development of openness and trust between practitioner and client is an essential aspect of the OD program. Trust is necessary for cooperation and communication. When there is no trust, people tend to be dishonest, evasive, and not authentic, and communication is often inaccurate, distorted, or incomplete.

There are several basic responses the practitioner may use in the communication process aimed at developing a trust relationship:

• Questions — "How do you see the organization?" • Applied expertise (advising) — "One possible intervention is team building." • Reflection — "It sounds like you would like to see a participative form of leadership." • Interpretation — "From your description, inter-team conflict could be the problem." • Self-disclosure — "I've felt discouraged myself when my ideas were rejected." • Silence — Say nothing, let the client sort out their thoughts.

How these responses are used is important. The more balanced the practitioner's use of these responses and the more open the range of responses, the higher the level of trust. For example, practitioners who rely exclusively on questions create a one-way flow of information, while those who rely heavily on advising may develop a dependency relationship.

During early contacts with the client system, practitioners should reflect on: the attitude of the client system toward OD, the gut-level meaning of the client's problem, whether an OD program will alleviate the problem, and the practitioner's potential impact on the system. Once answered, the practitioner can decide whether to continue or terminate the relationship.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The three categories of OD practitioners—professionals specializing in OD, those in related fields, and line managers—are increasingly blurring through cross-training and integration, producing more comprehensive practitioners. External practitioners bring objectivity and leverage but lack organizational familiarity, while internal practitioners have cultural knowledge and continuity but may lack objectivity and power. The external-internal practitioner team is the most effective approach as it combines complementary strengths and provides both fresh perspective and ongoing support. Trust development is essential and depends on the practitioner's balanced use of communication responses including questions, advising, reflection, interpretation, self-disclosure, and silence. Practitioners must assess the gap between their own understanding and the client's to determine whether to continue or terminate the change relationship.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the three sets of people referred to by the term "organization development practitioner"?
2. What are three advantages and three disadvantages of using an external practitioner versus an internal practitioner?
3. Why is the external-internal practitioner team considered the most effective approach for large-scale change programs?
4. What are the six basic communication responses a practitioner can use to develop a trust relationship with the client?
5. What four types of questions should a practitioner reflect on during early contacts with the client system?

📘 Lecture 11 — Creating a Climate for Change

📖 Overview: This lecture examines the foundational elements of the practitioner-client relationship in Organization Development, emphasizing the importance of openness, trust, and value alignment. It explains who the true client is in OD, identifies five distinct practitioner styles, and explores four modes of practitioner-client relationships. The lecture also includes a case study to apply these concepts.

🗂️ Topics Covered

This lecture covers the concept of the true client in OD as the relationship or interface between individuals and units, not any single person or group. It details five practitioner styles—Stabilizer, Cheerleader, Analyzer, Persuader, and Pathfinder—based on emphasis on effectiveness versus morale. The four practitioner-client relationship modes (apathetic, gamesmanship, charismatic, consensus) are explained based on sharing of ideas and acceptance of responsibility. Important dimensions for building effective relationships and a case study of Grayson Chemical Company are also presented.

📝 Lecture Summary

Creating a Climate for Change

OD practitioners agree that an open give-and-take relationship with the client is desirable. This depends on the practitioner's ability to form relationships of openness and trust. The change agent should act congruently, practicing what they preach, to create a positive climate for participation and learning. The basic value system of the OD practitioner may conflict with the organization's culture, so an assessment of the degree of difference and the likelihood of working through these differences should be part of the initial intervention. The practitioner must also examine the degree of conflict and collaboration between organization units to avoid being party to existing conflicts.

Who is Client?

The correct answer is (7), "none of the above." The client in OD consultation is never one individual, group, team, or subsystem. The client is the relationship and/or interface between individuals and units within and related to the system. The arrows in a system diagram represent the true client. The degree to which a consultant is effective is a function of maintaining a certain social distance and operating on the boundaries of units rather than exclusively within them, allowing the consultant to maintain an objective stance between persons and units in conflict.

OD Practitioner Styles:

The OD practitioner initiates, stimulates, or facilitates a change program. Intervention refers to the practitioner's entry into the client system. Practitioner styles are based on emphasis upon two dimensions: effectiveness (goal accomplishment) and morale (relationships and participant satisfaction).

The Stabilizer Style:

The goal of the stabilizer style is neither effectiveness nor participant satisfaction. The practitioner tries to keep from rocking the boat and maintain a low profile. The underlying motivation is often survival or following directives of top management. This style is typically found in large organizations where development programs are not highly regarded by top management.

The Cheerleader Style:

The cheerleader style places emphasis on the satisfaction of organization members and is chiefly concerned with employee motivation and morale. The cheerleader practitioner seeks warm working relationships and is more comfortable in non-confrontational situations. Effectiveness per se is not emphasized, with the assumption that high member satisfaction will lead to effectiveness. This assumption is contradicted by evidence.

The Analyzer Style:

The analyzer style places great emphasis on efficiency and gives little emphasis to member satisfaction. The analyzer feels comfortable with rational assessment of problems and assumes facts will lead to solutions. Practitioners may be confrontational, relying on authority and rational problem-solving. This style is based on specialized expertise and the belief that the client cannot learn the skills to solve its own problems.

The Persuader Style:

The persuader style focuses on both effectiveness and morale but optimizes neither. It provides a low-risk strategy that avoids direct confrontation. This approach is used when the practitioner has little power or leverage. A great deal of effort is applied to satisfy different forces, often resulting in a watered-down change program where organization improvement is unlikely.

The Pathfinder Style:

The pathfinder style seeks both high effectiveness and high member satisfaction, believing that greater effectiveness is possible when all members are involved and problem-solving is done through teamwork. Confrontation and conflict are seen as means to a more effective organization. This approach uses collaborative problem solving and challenges underlying patterns of member behavior. The pathfinder practitioner helps the organization focus on its most critical issues and focuses on six essential processes: (1) communication, (2) member role and functions in groups, (3) group problem-solving and decision-making, (4) group norms and growth, (5) leadership and authority, and (6) inter-group cooperation and competition.

💡 Why this matters: These five styles are not mutually exclusive. All can be effective and are interrelated. A practitioner may transition from one style to another to meet changing client system needs.

Practitioner-Client Relationship Modes:

Eric H. Neilsen identified dimensions based on whether members (1) share ideas, assumptions, perceptions, and feelings, and (2) accept personal responsibility for their behavior.

The Apathetic Mode:

Members keep their true ideas to themselves, assuming sharing will not make a difference. They follow established routines, take no responsibility, and do as they are told. They view change with skepticism, assuming higher authority has sanctioned it.

The Gamesmanship Mode:

Members keep their true feelings to themselves, assuming sharing may threaten personally desired outcomes. They take responsibility for their behavior, conforming outwardly but manipulating strategic factors for personal gain. Members may favor change if it serves their personal interest.

The Charismatic Mode:

A limited number of members openly share ideas and feelings, based on perceptions of leadership. Followers look for cues from leaders, so responsibility is low for most members. Members view change as desirable if leaders approve but rely on leaders to interpret results.

The Consensus Mode:

Members continuously share perceptions and feelings openly. Personal viewpoints are seen as relevant and expressed. Decisions are made and differences resolved through sharing viewpoints, involving both data sharing and maintaining responsibility for actions. Members see the OD process as consistent with their way of operating.

Important Dimensions in Practitioner-Client Relationship:

• The practitioner's attitudes and behavior create a climate where feelings can be freely expressed.
• Ability to listen effectively and express ideas clearly.
• The practitioner is honest with the client; facades have no place.
• Power equalization ensures the power differential is not too great, allowing a collaborative relationship.
• All key parties must be involved in the OD program; ignoring key people leads to increased resistance and ineffectiveness.
• A good relationship increases the probability of a successful OD program; a superficial relationship increases the probability of failure.

Case: The Grayson Chemical Company

The Grayson Chemical Company was a 40-year-old industrial chemical manufacturer with stagnant management. Declining earnings led the board to recruit a new CEO, Tom Baker, from outside. Baker faced a culture where decisions were made by the book, things were done because "they have always been done this way," and incompetent managers were promoted. Three board members gave conflicting advice: one suggested motivating existing people, another recommended bringing in a new team of people Baker knew, and a third advised bringing in proven managers from different industries.

🔑 Definition — OD Practitioner: The person who initiates, stimulates, or facilitates a change program, who may come from inside or outside the organization.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The true client in OD is never an individual or single group but rather the relationship and interface between individuals and units within the system. Five practitioner styles exist—Stabilizer, Cheerleader, Analyzer, Persuader, and Pathfinder—each emphasizing effectiveness and morale to different degrees, with the Pathfinder style being the most comprehensive. The practitioner-client relationship can exist in four modes: apathetic, gamesmanship, charismatic, and consensus, with consensus being the most desirable. Key relationship dimensions include creating a climate for open expression, honest communication, power equalization, and involving all key parties. The Grayson Chemical case illustrates how conflicting board advice and a stagnant culture require the practitioner to choose an appropriate style for organizational renewal.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. Who is the true "client" in an OD consultation?
2. What are the two dimensions that define the five practitioner styles?
3. Which practitioner style seeks both high effectiveness and high member satisfaction?
4. What are the four practitioner-client relationship modes identified by Eric Neilsen?
5. Why is power equalization important in the practitioner-client relationship?

📘 Lecture 12 — OD Practitioner Skills and Activities

📖 Overview: This lecture explores the competencies, skills, and knowledge required for effective Organizational Development (OD) practitioners. It covers the evolving role of OD professionals, including basic skills like intrapersonal and interpersonal abilities, consultation skills, and theory knowledge. The lecture also examines the differences between internal and external consultants, the concept of marginality, emotional demands of the role, and the continuum of using client versus consultant knowledge.

🗂️ Topics Covered

This lecture covers the ongoing projects to define OD practitioner competencies, basic skills required for all practitioners (intrapersonal, interpersonal, general consultation, and OD theory), the practitioner skills profile including leadership and project management, the ten primary abilities of an effective OD consultant, the roles of internal versus external consultants, the concept of marginality and its importance, emotional demands on practitioners, and the continuum of using client-centered versus consultant-centered knowledge.

📝 Lecture Summary

Much of the literature about the competencies of an effective OD practitioner reveals a mixture of personality traits, experiences, knowledge, and skills

Research on successful change practitioners yields attributes like diagnostic ability, basic knowledge of behavioral science techniques, empathy, goal-setting ability, problem-solving ability, self-assessment, objectivity, imagination, flexibility, honesty, consistency, and trust. Two ongoing projects attempt to define and categorize these skills. The first effort, updated annually by fifty well-known practitioners, lists 187 statements in nine areas: entry, start-up, assessment and feedback, action planning, intervention, evaluation, adoption, separation, and general competencies. The second project, by the Academy of Management's Organization Development and Change Division, seeks to guide graduate curriculum development with two competency lists: foundation competencies (knowledge from organization behavior, psychology, group dynamics, management theory, research methods, and business practices) and core competencies (knowledge of organization design, system dynamics, OD history, and skills to manage the consulting process, diagnose systems, design interventions, and evaluate change).

Based on available studies, all OD practitioners should have the following basic skills and knowledge:

1. Intrapersonal skills. OD is a human craft requiring practitioners to process complex, ambiguous information and make informed judgments. Practitioners must have personal centering to know their own values, feelings, and purposes, active learning skills, a balance between rational and emotional sides, and the ability to manage stress to avoid burnout.
2. Interpersonal skills. Practitioners must create and maintain effective helping relationships with individuals and groups. This requires understanding the organization's perspective, listening to members' perceptions, establishing trust and rapport, giving and receiving feedback, serving as credible role models, providing counseling and coaching, and negotiating acceptable roles while managing changing expectations.
3. General consultation skills. Practitioners need to carry out effective diagnosis by engaging organization members, asking the right questions, and collecting/analyzing information using methods like interviews or surveys and techniques like force-field analysis. They also need to design and execute interventions, define action plans, gain commitment, and tailor interventions based on progress.
4. Organization development theory. Practitioners should have general knowledge of OD including planned change, the action research model, contemporary change management approaches, the range of available interventions, and the need for evaluating and institutionalizing change programs. They must understand their own role in the emerging field.

Susan Gebelein lists six key skill areas critical for internal practitioners:

• Leadership: Keeping members focused on key company values and opportunities for improvement.
• Project Management: Involving the right people and departments to keep the change program on track.
• Communication: Communicating key values to everyone in the organization.
• Problem-Solving: Implementing solutions and focusing on future problems, not just today's.
• Interpersonal: Giving everyone tools and confidence to be involved in the change process, including facilitating, building relationships, and process skills.
• Personal: Having confidence to help the organization make tough decisions, introduce new techniques, and try new things.

Consultant’s Abilities

Ten primary abilities are key to an OD consultant’s effectiveness:

1. Ability to tolerate ambiguity. Every organization is different; enter with few preconceived notions.
2. Ability to influence. The consultant must enjoy power and have talent for persuasion.
3. Ability to confront difficult issues. Much OD work involves exposing issues members are reluctant to face.
4. Ability to support and nurture others. Important in times of conflict, stress, and before a manager's first team-building experience.
5. Ability to listen well and empathize. Especially important during interviews, conflict situations, and when client stress is high.
6. Ability to recognize one’s feelings and intuition quickly. Important to distinguish own perceptions from client's and use feelings as timely interventions.
7. Ability to conceptualize. Think and express cause-and-effect and if-then linkages within the systemic context of the client organization.
8. Ability to discover and mobilize human energy. Effective interventions tap existing energy within the organization and provide direction for productive use.
9. Ability to teach or create learning opportunities. Should be utilized on the job, during meetings, and within the mainstream of the change effort.
10. Ability to maintain a sense of humor. Useful for reducing tension and sustaining perspective; not taking oneself too seriously is critical.

Role of Organization Development Professionals Position

OD professionals have positions that are either internal or external to the organization.

• Internal consultants are members of the organization, often in the human resources department. They have advantages during entry: ready access to clients, relationships, knowledge of company jargon, insights into root causes, time efficiency, and steady pay. They are obligated to work with everyone.
• External consultants are not members of the client organization; they work for a consulting firm, university, or themselves. They can select clients according to their own criteria, have higher status during diagnosis allowing objective probing, and have formal contracts with the ability to terminate projects at will.

🔑 Definition — Marginality: The state of successfully straddling the boundary between two or more groups with differing goals, value systems, and behavior patterns.

During the entry process, internal consultants have advantages like ready access, relationships, and knowledge. External consultants can select clients. In diagnosis, internal consultants know members and enjoy rapport, while external consultants have higher status and objectivity. In intervention, both rely on valid information, free and informed choice, and internal commitment. A promising approach is the internal-external consulting team, combining external expertise and objectivity with internal knowledge and acceptance. Effectiveness depends on strong, supportive collegial relationships, continuous feedback, and commitment to learning.

Marginality

The marginal person successfully straddles boundaries between groups with differing goals, values, and behaviors. Marginality is now seen positively. Those good at marginal roles have personal qualities of low dogmatism, neutrality, open-mindedness, objectivity, flexibility, and adaptable information-processing ability. They thrive on conflict, ambiguity, and stress, and are more likely to develop integrative decisions reconciling opposing viewpoints.

There are two other boundaries: the activities boundary and the membership boundary. For change activities, the consultant must help but not be directly involved. For membership, the consultant is never quite in nor quite out—involved enough to understand client feelings but distant enough to see them objectively. The internal OD practitioner cannot be a consultant to their own group or any group within the same vertical path of the managerial hierarchy.

Emotional Demands

The OD practitioner role is emotionally demanding. Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to recognize and express emotions appropriately, use emotions in thought and decisions, and regulate emotion in oneself and others. It supplements rational thought and helps prioritize thinking. Emotional intelligence increases with age and experience and can be developed through personal growth processes like sensitivity training, counseling, and therapy.

🔑 Definition — Emotional intelligence: The ability to recognize and express emotions appropriately, to use emotions in thought and decisions, and to regulate emotion in oneself and in others.

Use of Knowledge and Experience

The professional OD role ranges from client-centered (using the client's knowledge and experience) to consultant-centered (using the consultant's knowledge and experience). Traditionally, OD consultants worked at the client-centered end, remaining neutral and refusing to offer expert advice. With the proliferation of interventions in structural, human resource, and strategy areas, the role has expanded to include the consultant-centered end. The consultant may take on a modified role of expert, with consent and collaboration of organization members. For example, in major structural redesign, the consultant presents basic concepts and jointly selects approaches with managers. Expertise is always shared rather than imposed.

📐 Continuum of Use of Knowledge and Experience: Client-centered (using client's knowledge) ↔ Consultant-centered (using consultant's knowledge). The consultant's role falls along this entire continuum, moving between reliance on members' knowledge and taking on the expert role as needed.

⭐ Key Takeaways

OD practitioners require a blend of intrapersonal skills (personal centering, active learning, stress management), interpersonal skills (building trust, rapport, and helping relationships), general consultation skills (diagnosis, intervention design, action planning), and knowledge of OD theory. The consultant's ten primary abilities include tolerating ambiguity, influencing, confronting issues, supporting others, listening, recognizing feelings, conceptualizing, mobilizing energy, teaching, and maintaining humor. A critical distinction exists between internal and external consultants: internal consultants have ready access and relationships but may lack objectivity and face career risks, while external consultants bring higher status and objectivity but need to build trust from scratch. The internal-external consulting team approach combines both advantages. The concept of marginality is essential—the consultant must straddle boundaries without being fully inside or outside the client system to maintain objectivity while understanding client perspectives. Emotional intelligence is as important as cognitive intelligence, and the consultant's role operates along a continuum from client-centered to consultant-centered, adapting to the situation and sharing expertise rather than imposing it.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the four basic skills and knowledge areas that all OD practitioners should possess, according to the studies cited in this lecture?
2. What are the key differences between internal and external OD consultants during the entry, diagnosis, and intervention stages of the action research process?
3. What is meant by "marginality" in the context of the OD practitioner's role, and why is it considered important for effectiveness?
4. List at least five of the ten primary abilities that are key to an OD consultant's effectiveness.
5. How has the OD professional's role evolved along the continuum from client-centered to consultant-centered, and what factors have driven this expansion?

📘 Lecture 13 — Professional Values

📖 Overview: This lecture explores the core values underlying Organization Development, including humanistic values, the spirit of inquiry, and democracy. It examines how OD practitioners balance the tension between individual freedom and organizational constraints, and addresses the critical ethical dilemmas that arise in OD practice, providing guidelines for professional conduct.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture covers traditional humanistic values in OD including concern for inquiry, democracy, and helpfulness, along with extended values focused on organizational effectiveness and performance. It discusses the tension between freedom and constraint in organizations, professional ethics and the five types of ethical dilemmas (misrepresentation, misuse of data, coercion, value and goal conflict, and technical ineptness), along with ethical guidelines and approaches to resolving dependency issues in the helping relationship.

📝 Lecture Summary

Professional Values

Values have played an important role in organization development from its beginning. Traditionally, OD professionals have promoted a set of values under a humanistic framework, including a concern for inquiry and science, democracy and being helpful. They have sought to build trust and collaboration; to create an open, problem-solving climate; and to increase the self-control of organization members.

More recently, OD practitioners have extended those humanistic values to include a concern for improving organizational effectiveness (for example, to increase productivity or to reduce turnover) and performance (for example, to increase profitability). They have shown an increasing desire to optimize both human benefits and production objectives.

The lecture traces these values back to sensitivity training, which has a humanistic value orientation — the belief that it is worthwhile to have the opportunity throughout their lives to learn and develop personally toward a full realization and actualization of individual potential. From sensitivity training came the value that people's feelings are just as important as facts for diagnosis and change. Another value is that conflict, whether interpersonal or intergroup, should be brought to the surface and dealt with directly, rather than ignored, avoided, or manipulated.

Two main value systems from sensitivity training are: the spirit of inquiry (from science), which includes the hypothetical spirit (being tentative, checking assumptions, allowing for errors) and experimentation (putting ideas to the test); and democratic values, which include collaboration and conflict resolution through rational means.

🔑 Definition — Spirit of inquiry: "All experienced behavior is subjected to questioning and examination, limited only by the threshold of tolerance to truth and new ideas."

🔑 Definition — Democratic value: The learning process in sensitivity training is collaborative between participant and trainer, not a traditional authoritarian student-teacher relationship. Conflict resolution through rational means means "there is a problem-solving orientation to conflict rather than the more traditional approaches based on bargains, power plays, suppression, or compromise."

💡 Why this matters: The lecture emphasizes that most organizations treat employees as expendable, and OD helps correct imbalances between human needs and organizational demands.

The Right Goal for OD

OD's right goal grows from its proper setting. If the proper setting is organizations, then there is only one right goal for OD: to confront an issue that is the tension between freedom and constraint. OD's right purpose is to redress the balance between freedom and constraint.

There is always tension between the autonomy of the individual and the requirements of the organization. It is practically impossible to determine the proper balance, but when either factor is obviously out of balance, the OD consultant's goal is to work toward reducing the heavier side.

The joint values of humanizing organizations and improving their effectiveness have received widespread support. However, practitioners face serious challenges in simultaneously pursuing greater humanism and organizational effectiveness. For example, expensive capital equipment may run most efficiently if highly programmed and routinized, but people may not derive satisfaction from working with such technology. These are the value dilemmas often faced when trying to optimize both human benefits and organizational effectiveness.

External Value Conflicts

OD practitioners are dealing more with value conflicts with powerful outside groups. Organizations are open systems existing within increasingly turbulent environments. For example, hospitals face complex task environments with multiple external stakeholders including patients, suppliers, medical groups, insurance companies, employers, government, stockholders, unions, the press, and various interest groups.

These external groups often have different and competing values for judging the organization's effectiveness. Stockholders may judge the firm in terms of earnings per share, the government in terms of compliance with equal employment opportunity legislation, patients in terms of quality of care, and ecology groups in terms of hazardous waste disposal.

Recent attempts to help firms manage external relationships suggest the need for new interventions and competence in OD. Practitioners must have not only social skills but also political skills. Under conditions of power and dominance relationships and competition for scarce resources, OD practitioners may need power-oriented interventions such as bargaining, coalition forming, and pressure tactics.

For example, firms in the tobacco industry have formed a powerful industry coalition to lobby against anti-smoking legislation, spending enormous sums on advertising, public relations, and refuting research showing the dangers of smoking.

Professional Ethics

Ethical issues in OD are concerned with how practitioners perform their helping relationship with organization members. Inherent in any helping relationship is the potential for misconduct and client abuse. OD practitioners can let personal values stand in the way of good practice or use the power inherent in their professional role to abuse organization members.

Ethical Guidelines

The field of OD has always shown concern for the ethical conduct of its practitioners. Statements of ethics governing OD practice have been sponsored by the Organization Development Institute, the American Society for Training & Development, and a consortium of professional associations in OD. The consortium jointly sponsored an ethical code derived from a large-scale project at the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Ethical Dilemmas

Figure 17 presents a process model explaining how ethical dilemmas occur in OD. Antecedent conditions include an OD practitioner and a client system with different goals, values, needs, skills, and abilities. During the entry and contracting phase, these differences may or may not be addressed. If the contracting process is incomplete, the subsequent intervention process is subject to role conflict and role ambiguity. This produces five types of ethical dilemmas:

1. Misrepresentation: Occurs when OD practitioners claim that an intervention will produce results that are unreasonable for the change program or the situation. The client can also contribute by portraying inaccurate goals and needs.

📌 Example: In "The Undercover Change Agent" case, a consultant sold T-groups as the intervention that would solve organizational problems. After the president made a surprise visit and found the T-group in direct contradiction to his leadership concepts, the consultant was fired.

2. Misuse of Data: Occurs when information gathered during the OD process is used punitively. Large amounts of information are obtained during entry and diagnostic phases. It is a human tendency to use data to enhance a power position. To minimize this, practitioners should reach agreement upfront about how data will be used, reviewed periodically.

3. Coercion: Occurs when organization members are forced to participate in an OD intervention. People should have freedom to choose whether to participate. However, freedom to choose requires knowledge about OD. Many members have little information about OD interventions.

Coercion also involves manipulation and dependency. Kelman pointed out that behavior change "inevitably involves some degree of manipulation and control." The dilemma has two horns: (1) any attempt to change is manipulation, and (2) no formula exists to structure a change situation so that manipulation is totally absent.

Dependency issues arise because helping relationships invariably create dependency. A major goal in OD is to lessen clients' dependency on consultants. Approaches to resolve dependency include:

• Openly discussing how to handle the dependency problem
• Focusing on problem finding rather than solutions
• Changing the client's expectation from being helped to managing the problem

4. Value and Goal Conflict: Occurs when the purpose of the change effort is not clear or when client and practitioner disagree on how to achieve goals.

OD pioneer Gordon Lippitt suggested the real question is: assuming change will occur anyway, doesn't the consultant have a responsibility to guide the change in the most constructive fashion possible?

Argyris takes an even stronger stand, maintaining that OD practitioners' responsibilities are comparable to lawyers or physicians who may not refuse to perform their services. He suggests providing "first aid" as long as it doesn't compromise the consultant's values.

📌 Example: Argyris suggests that if the Ku Klux Klan asked for assistance and was genuinely interested in self-assessment, the consultant should be willing to help. If later the Klan's objectives proved dishonest, the consultant could withdraw without being compromised.

5. Technical Ineptness: Occurs when OD practitioners try to implement interventions for which they are not skilled or when the client attempts a change for which it is not ready. Selecting an appropriate intervention depends on careful diagnosis of the organization. Many consultants emphasize a favorite intervention (team building, total quality management, self-managed teams) based on their own values rather than organizational needs.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The most critical points for exam understanding are: OD's foundational values stem from humanistic psychology and sensitivity training, emphasizing inquiry, democracy, and the legitimacy of feelings as data. The right goal of OD is to constantly redress the balance between individual freedom and organizational constraint. Practitioners face five main ethical dilemmas — misrepresentation, misuse of data, coercion, value and goal conflict, and technical ineptness — which can be prevented through clear contracting, upfront agreements about data use, education of clients, and careful diagnosis. Modern OD requires both social and political skills to manage relationships with external stakeholders who have competing values. The dependency issue in the helping relationship must be actively managed by redirecting client energy toward problem finding and self-management.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the two main value systems derived from sensitivity training, and what elements does each contain?

2. According to the lecture, what is "the right goal" for OD, and how does it address the tension between freedom and constraint?

3. List the five types of ethical dilemmas that can occur in OD practice as shown in Figure 17.

4. How does Kelman's analysis of the coercion dilemma present two horns of a problem, and what solutions does he propose?

5. What three approaches does the lecture suggest for resolving dependency issues in the consultant-client relationship?

📘 Lecture 14 — Entering and Contracting

📖 Overview: This lecture introduces the initial steps of the Organization Development (OD) process: entering and contracting. It explains how these foundational activities define the problems or opportunities for development, establish a collaborative relationship between the OD practitioner and the client, and set the parameters for diagnosis, intervention, and evaluation. Understanding entering and contracting is critical because improper execution can lead to confusion, misalignment, and failure in subsequent OD phases.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture covers the two main phases of entering and contracting in OD. First, it examines entering into an OD relationship, including clarifying the organizational issue, determining the relevant client team members, and selecting an appropriate OD practitioner. Second, it addresses developing a contract, focusing on mutual expectations, time and resources, and ground rules. The lecture concludes with a detailed application example of contracting at Charity Medical Center, illustrating how these concepts play out in a real healthcare setting.

📝 Lecture Summary

Entering into an OD Relationship

An OD process begins when an organization member contacts an OD practitioner about addressing an organizational issue. Determining whether to enter into an OD relationship involves clarifying the nature of the organization’s current functioning and the issue, identifying the relevant client system, and assessing the appropriateness of the particular OD practitioner. The practitioner may need to collect preliminary data about the organization, while the organization may gather information about the practitioner's competence.

💡 Why this matters: Proper entry ensures both parties have enough information to make informed choices about proceeding to develop a contract. Without this, subsequent efforts may be misdirected.

Clarifying the Organizational Issue

Organizations typically start with a presenting problem—the issue that caused them to consider an OD process. This may be specific (e.g., decreased market share, increased absenteeism) or general (e.g., “we’re growing too fast”). Often, the presenting problem includes an implied or stated solution. However, the presenting problem is often only a symptom of an underlying problem. For example, team conflict may result from ineffective reward systems, personality differences, inappropriate structure, or poor leadership.

Gaining clarity may require collecting preliminary data through examining company records and interviewing key members over a short period (a few hours to two days). This provides rudimentary knowledge to enable informed choices about proceeding.

🔑 Definition — Presenting problem: The issue that has caused an organization to consider an OD process, which may be a symptom of a deeper underlying problem.

📌 Example: A manager may say, "We need some team building," believing conflict is the problem. But deeper diagnosis might reveal that the conflict stems from an ineffective reward system or poor leadership—issues that team building alone cannot solve.

Determining the OD Team Members

A second activity is defining who the relevant client system or team members are—those organization members who can directly impact the change issue. Unless these members are identified and included in the entering and contracting process, they may withhold support and commitment. The complexity varies: if the issue is within a single unit, members of that unit must be included. If the issue crosses multiple units, hierarchical levels, or includes external parties (suppliers, customers), the team expands accordingly.

🔑 Definition — Client system: The group of organization members who are directly involved in or affected by the organizational issue and need to be included in the OD process.

📌 Example: For improving productivity in a unionized plant, the team must include union officials, not just managers and staff. Excluding them can cause the project to fail.

Selecting an OD Practitioner

The final entry activity is selecting an OD practitioner with appropriate expertise and experience. The late Gordon Lippitt suggested criteria including: ability to form sound interpersonal relationships, degree of focus on the problem, skills relative to the problem, extent the consultant clearly informs the client about their role, and membership in a professional association. References from other clients are highly important.

OD consulting is as much a person specialization as a task specialization. The practitioner must have both technical skills and the interpersonal competence to use themselves as an instrument of change. The most important question is: how effective has the person been in the past, with what kinds of organizations, using what techniques?

Consultants also bear responsibility for seeking an appropriate match. If a good match does not exist, practitioners should inform clients and help them find more suitable help.

🔑 Definition — Instrument of change: The OD practitioner’s ability to use their own personality, interpersonal competence, and technical skills as a tool to facilitate organizational change.

Developing a Contract

Contracting is a natural extension of the entering process that clarifies how the OD process will proceed. It establishes expectations of the parties, time and resources to be expended, and ground rules. The goal is to make a good decision about how to carry out the OD process.

Contracting can range from informal (a verbal agreement) to formal (a written document, especially with outside practitioners and government agencies). Regardless of formality, all OD processes require some explicit contracting.

🔑 Definition — Contracting: The step in OD that clarifies mutual expectations, time and resources, and ground rules for how the client and practitioner will work together.

Mutual Expectations

This part focuses on what each party expects to gain. The client states the services and outcomes expected from the practitioner (e.g., decreased turnover, higher job satisfaction). The OD practitioner states what they expect to gain, such as opportunities to try new interventions, report results to other potential clients, and receive appropriate compensation or recognition.

📌 Example: A client may state they want a diagnosis of poor productivity causes. The practitioner may expect access to workers to conduct that diagnosis—a critical point of negotiation.

Time and Resources

Both parties must commit time and resources. Essential requirements are things absolutely necessary for success (e.g., access to key people, enough time, commitment from certain individuals). Desirable requirements are nice to have but not absolutely necessary (e.g., written rather than verbal reports). Failure to make these requirements explicit can ruin an OD effort.

🔑 Definition — Essential requirements: Resources or conditions that are absolutely necessary for the change process to be successful. 🔑 Definition — Desirable requirements: Resources or conditions that would be helpful but are not absolutely necessary for success.

Ground Rules

The final part specifies how the client and practitioner will work together. Parameters include confidentiality, how the practitioner will handle personal or interpersonal issues, how to terminate the relationship, and whether the practitioner makes expert recommendations or helps the manager make decisions. For internal consultants, handling sensitive information and delivering bad news are especially important.

Application 1: Contracting at Charity Medical Center

Charity Medical Center (CMC), a 500-bed acute-care hospital, was part of Jefferson Hospital Corporation (JHC). CMC faced declining market share for six months. Senior management invited several consultants, including external OD practitioner John Murray, to present on implementing Total Quality Management (TQM).

John conducted initial interviews with vice president Joan Grace, who noted the hospital's main advantage was being a level-one trauma center but that the hospital's reputation for patient care was low. John gathered additional materials (mission statement, strategic plan, organization chart, performance analysis) and interviewed the hospital president, observed a nursing unit, and spoke with JHC's HR vice president.

Key findings from preliminary data:

• CMC actually comprised two hospitals (a 150-bed suburban hospital also reported to CMC's president)
• Last year's strategic plan included a budget for patient-care quality improvement
• JHC was in flux—policies were still being established
• Management and nursing staff were extremely busy with meetings
• A large consulting firm had been awarded a contract for "job redesign" in two departments
• Most nursing units operated under outdated management principles

John identified several issues: the relevant client was difficult to identify (Joan Grace was responsible, but the president, physicians, suburban hospital, and corporate office were key stakeholders); the job redesign contract seemed disconnected from the TQM effort and the market share problem; and the consulting firm's packaged approach conflicted with John's OD-based philosophy.

In his presentation, John described the quality movement, its application in healthcare, and emphasized that TQM requires thorough diagnosis, considerable resource commitment, and senior management involvement. He noted that TQM could address certain problems but wasn't designed to directly address broader performance issues like market share.

After the presentation, Joan asked John to discuss how to proceed. John identified several "knotty issues":

1. The relationship between market share problems and a quality program was unclear
2. Managers were frustrated by their inability to influence change due to busy schedules
3. A quality improvement process might solve some problems but not all

John proposed:

1. A thorough diagnosis of reasons for market-share decline, patient-care quality, and managerial frustration
2. Postponing the job redesign effort
3. A two-day management meeting to examine diagnostic information and decide about TQM

Joan was uncomfortable—the two-day meeting seemed difficult given everyone's busy schedules, there was a sense of urgency, and postponing the politically supported job redesign was sensitive. John explained that diagnostic information was the first step in TQM (data-based decision making), that proceeding without it could implement the wrong change, and that the two-day meeting would allow fact-based decision making. Regarding the job redesign, he argued that redesign without considering TQM would likely need to be redone.

After discussion, Joan agreed that the two-day meeting was important and that access to corporate officers, employees, managers, and physicians was reasonable. She needed to speak with the senior management team about postponing the job redesign. A week later, Joan called and agreed to John's requests, asking him to submit a written proposal.

💡 Why this matters: This case demonstrates that effective contracting requires the practitioner to negotiate essential conditions (diagnosis, management commitment, coordination with other efforts) even when they create discomfort. John Murray's willingness to challenge the client's assumptions and requests ultimately led to a more informed and appropriate change process.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The entering and contracting phase is the critical foundation of any OD effort—it defines the issues, identifies who needs to be involved, and establishes how the process will unfold. The presenting problem is often only a symptom of deeper issues, so preliminary data collection is essential to clarify the real organizational issue. Determining the relevant client system requires including all parties who can directly impact the change, including those from multiple units, hierarchical levels, and even external stakeholders. Selecting an OD practitioner should be based on references, track record, interpersonal skills, and a match between the practitioner's expertise and the organization's needs, not on packaged solutions. Effective contracting requires explicit agreement on mutual expectations, essential and desirable resources, and ground rules for confidentiality and decision-making, even when these create discomfort—as the Charity Medical Center case demonstrates.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What is the difference between a presenting problem and an underlying problem in OD, and why is it important to distinguish between them during the entering stage?

2. What are the three key activities involved in entering an OD relationship, and what is the purpose of each?

3. What are the three key areas that an OD contract should address, and what does each area cover?

4. In the Charity Medical Center case, what "knotty issues" did John Murray identify before agreeing to proceed, and what were his three requests to address them?

5. What criteria did Gordon Lippitt suggest for selecting an OD practitioner, and why is checking references particularly important?

📘 Lecture 15 — Diagnosing Organizations

📖 Overview: This lecture explores the concept of organizational diagnosis, moving beyond the medical model to a collaborative process between consultants and organization members. It introduces the critical task/process distinction, the diagnostic process cycle, performance gap analysis, and the open-systems model as a foundational framework for understanding organizational functioning.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture begins by explaining the task/process relationship and its importance in diagnosis, then defines what diagnosis means in organization development. It describes the cyclical diagnostic process, introduces the performance gap concept and gap analysis, discusses the need for diagnostic models, and concludes with the open-systems model and a case study of the Old Family Bank.

📝 Lecture Summary

Diagnosing Organizations

The lecture opens by noting that diagnosis is medical jargon for the gap between sickness and health. As biology grew in the late 19th century, doctors became industrial engineers of the human body, claiming expertise by factoring in every relevant variable. Similarly, in industrial science, diagnosis is conceived as identifying and closing gaps between how things are and how they should be.

🔑 Definition — Task/Process Relationship: The subtle interplay between ends and means, methods and goals. A task is concrete, observable, and thing-oriented—referring to what is to be done. Process refers to how—reflecting perceptions, attitudes, and reasoning. Process diagnosticians ask “Why aren’t we making progress?” rather than when, where, or how many.

📌 Example: Task/process thinking is likened to the Old Woman/Young Woman visual paradox—you cannot see both at once but can learn to shift between them. Through trained observation, you can diagnose linkages between task and process, such as when work stops, determining what is not being talked about.

💡 Why this matters: Left-brain diagnostic thinking leads people to focus on task (the compass) and consider process (the altimeter) a frill. Group dynamics’ great contribution was its relentless gaze at process as inseparable from task, the diagnoser inseparable from the diagnosis, and a leader’s effectiveness inseparable from follower contributions.

What is Diagnosis?

Diagnosis is the process of understanding how the organization is currently functioning, providing information necessary to design change interventions. It generally follows successful entry and contracting, which set the stage for diagnosis by helping OD practitioners and client members jointly determine organizational issues to focus on, how to collect and analyze data, and how to work together to develop action steps.

🔑 Definition — Diagnosis in OD: A collaborative process between organization members and the OD consultant to collect pertinent information, analyze it, and draw conclusions for action planning and intervention. It may be aimed at uncovering causes of specific problems, understanding effective processes, or assessing overall functioning to discover areas for future development.

The lecture emphasizes two critical distinctions from the medical model:

1. Collaborative nature: Both organization members and change agents should be involved in discovering determinants of effectiveness and developing appropriate interventions.
2. Not problem-focused only: Diagnosis can be problem oriented (seeking reasons for problems) or development oriented (assessing current functioning to discover areas for future development).

Organizational diagnosis examines two broad areas:

1. Interacting sub-elements: Divisions, departments, products, and relationships between them, including comparisons of top, middle, and lower levels of management.
2. Organizational processes: Communication networks, team problem-solving, decision-making, leadership and authority styles, goal-setting and planning methods, and management of conflict and competition.

The Process

Diagnosis is a cyclical process involving data gathering, interpretations, and identification of problem areas and possible action programs.

📐 Formula — The Diagnostic Process (9 steps):

1. Preliminary identification of possible problem areas (often brings out symptoms)
2. Gather data based on preliminary problems
3. Categorize data
4. Analyze and present data to client in feedback session
5. Determine if enough data are available
6. Jointly diagnose and identify likely problem areas
7. Determine client’s level of motivation to work on problems
8. Identify target systems and design change strategy
9. Monitor results to determine degree of change versus desired goals

The Performance Gap

Performance gap is the difference between what the organization could do by virtue of its opportunity in its environment and what it actually does.

🔑 Definition — Gap Analysis: A method where data are collected on the actual state of the organization and the ideal or desired state (where the organization should be). The gap or discrepancy between actual state and ideal forms a basis for diagnosis and intervention design.

The gap may result from:

• Ineffective performance by internal units
• Competitive changes or new innovations
• Failure to adapt to changes in the external environment

Important problems are often hidden or obscure, while obvious problems are relatively unimportant. A performance gap may continue for some time before recognition, or its awareness may unfreeze functions most in need of change.

📌 Example — Self-assessment version of gap analysis uses questionnaires to gather information in four key areas:

1. The organization’s strengths
2. What can be done to take advantage of strengths
3. The organization’s weaknesses
4. What can be done to alleviate weaknesses

In organizational diagnosis, the practitioner looks for causality—a cause-effect relationship where change in one factor (e.g., compensation) will cause change in another (e.g., productivity). The client is often aware of symptoms (declining sales, high turnover, loss of market share), but the practitioner tries to identify what factors are causing the problem.

The Need for Diagnostic Models

Diagnostic models are conceptual frameworks that describe relationships among different features of the organization, its context, and its effectiveness. They point out what areas to examine and what questions to ask in assessing how an organization is functioning.

⚠️ Caution: All models represent simplifications of reality and choose certain features as critical, which can result in biased diagnosis. For example, a model relating team effectiveness to handling interpersonal conflict would focus on relationships, decision-making, and conflict resolution—ignoring skill composition, task complexity, and member interdependencies.

Sources of diagnostic models include:

1. Thousands of articles and books discussing how organizations function (employee stress, leadership, motivation, group dynamics, job design, career development)
2. OD practitioners’ experience in organizations (only a small part translated into diagnostic models)

The lecture introduces a general framework based on the systems perspective prevalent in OD today.

Open-Systems Model

Systems theory describes properties and behaviors of systems (organizations, groups, people). Systems are unitary wholes composed of parts or subsystems; the system integrates parts into a functioning unit.

🔑 Definition — Open-Systems Model: The general diagnostic model based on systems theory that underlies most of OD. Open systems (organizations and people) exchange information and resources with their environments and are influenced by external forces.

Key Properties of Open Systems:

1. Hierarchical ordering: Each higher level comprises lower-level systems (society → organizations → groups → individuals)
2. Inputs, transformations, and outputs
3. Boundaries
4. Feedback
5. Equifinality
6. Alignment

Case: The Old Family Bank

📌 Example: A large bank studied turnover, absenteeism, and productivity. Two departments tied for lowest turnover and absenteeism but had opposite productivity rankings:

• Check-sorting department: Ranked #1 most productive despite undesirable working conditions (hot in summer, cold in winter, working alone, rotating breaks). Workers showed high loyalty to the company, felt wages and benefits were competitive, and were committed to high performance.
• Data-processing department: Ranked last in productivity despite perfect working conditions (air-conditioned, quiet, comfortable). Workers liked each other but felt management emphasized production over staff units, and pay gaps did not reflect skill differences.

Interview Data: Check-sorting workers showed loyalty to the company; data-processing workers displayed little loyalty to the company despite high cohesion among themselves.

Case Analysis Form:

Problems:

• Macro: Lack of loyalty to entire bank could affect effectiveness; poor process for setting pay policies
• Micro: Data-processing team not loyal to larger organization; personnel believe management doesn't appreciate them; potentially underpaid compared to similar workers

Causes:

• Data-processing workers don't recognize all factors affecting pay and rewards
• They may have access to more company-wide information without understanding how managers make decisions based on that data

Systems Affected: The attitude of data-processing personnel likely affects the entire bank’s operations

Alternatives:

1. Gather more data to confirm/disprove initial diagnosis
2. Use force-field analysis to better understand the problem
3. Check regional employment data for competitive pay; adjust if warranted
4. Meet with the department to explain pay-setting procedures and rationale

Recommendations: All alternatives can be undertaken

⭐ Key Takeaways

The most critical concepts to remember are: diagnosis in OD is a collaborative process, not a medical one where an expert prescribes solutions—both consultant and client jointly discover issues and develop interventions. The task/process distinction is fundamental: task refers to what is done, while process refers to how it is done, and effective diagnosis requires shifting attention between both like a pilot scanning instruments. The diagnostic process is cyclical with nine steps, and the performance gap (difference between actual and ideal states) provides a basis for gap analysis and intervention design. Diagnostic models are simplifications that focus on certain features and can create bias, so they must be chosen carefully, and the open-systems model with its key properties (inputs, transformations, outputs, boundaries, feedback, equifinality, alignment) provides the foundational framework for most OD diagnosis.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the two key differences between diagnosis in organization development and the medical model of diagnosis?
2. What is the task/process relationship, and why can't we see both aspects simultaneously according to the lecture?
3. List the nine steps of the diagnostic process in order.
4. What is a performance gap, and what are three possible causes of such a gap?
5. What are the key properties of open systems, and why is the open-systems model important for organizational diagnosis?

📘 Lecture 16 — Organization as Open Systems

📖 Overview: This lecture introduces the concept of organizations as open systems that continuously exchange information and resources with their environments. It explains why understanding external forces is crucial for explaining internal organizational behavior, and it presents the key properties of open systems along with a comprehensive model for diagnosing organizations at multiple levels.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture covers the concept of open vs. closed systems, then explores five key properties of open systems: inputs/transformations/outputs, boundaries, feedback, equifinality, and alignment. It then introduces a comprehensive model for diagnosing organizational systems at three levels (organization, group, and individual), with a deep dive into organization-level diagnosis including inputs like general environment and industry structure (Porter's five forces), design components, and the strategic orientation.

📝 Lecture Summary

Organization as Open Systems

Systems vary in how open they are to their environments. Open systems, such as organizations and people, exchange information and resources with their environments and are influenced by external forces like raw material availability, customer demands, and government regulations. Open systems display a hierarchical ordering: society comprises organizations, organizations comprise groups (departments), and groups comprise individuals. Despite differences in size and complexity, open systems share common properties, including inputs, transformations, and outputs; boundaries; feedback; equifinality; and alignment.

Inputs, Transformations, and Outputs

Any organizational system is composed of three related parts: inputs, transformations, and outputs. Inputs consist of human or other resources (information, energy, materials) coming into the system from the external environment. For example, a manufacturer acquires raw materials from an outside supplier. Transformations are the processes of converting inputs into outputs, carried out by a production or operations function composed of both social (people and work relationships) and technological (tools, techniques, methods) components. Banks transform deposits into mortgage loans; schools transform students into educated people. Outputs are the results of what is transformed and sent to the environment. Group health insurance companies receive premiums and medical bills, transform them through physician visits, and export treated patients and payments.

🔑 Definition — Open System: A system that exchanges information and resources with its external environment and cannot completely control its own behavior.

Boundaries

Boundaries are the borders or limits of a system. Closed systems have relatively rigid and impenetrable boundaries, whereas open systems have far more permeable borders. Defining boundaries in social systems is difficult because there is continuous inflow and outflow through them. For example, when a fire alarm sounds in Sweden, the address is put into a computer terminal, and the information is stored in Cleveland, Ohio—challenging traditional notions of organizational boundaries. The definition of a boundary is somewhat arbitrary because social systems have multiple subsystems. The boundaries used for studying leadership may differ from those used to study intergroup dynamics. The permeability of boundaries varies from fixed to diffuse; a police force has more rigid boundaries than political parties.

🔑 Definition — Boundary: The border or limit of a system that distinguishes it from its environment; in open systems these are permeable.

Feedback

Feedback is information regarding the actual performance or results of the system, but only when it is used to control the future functioning of the system. Feedback can maintain the system in a steady state (e.g., keeping an assembly line at a certain speed) or help the organization adapt to changing circumstances. McDonald’s uses strict feedback processes to ensure meals are consistent across outlets. A salesperson reporting poor sales may insist on organizational change, and a market research study may lead to changes in an advertising campaign.

🔑 Definition — Feedback: Information about actual performance or results that is used to control the future functioning of the system.

Equifinality

Equifinality suggests that similar results may be achieved with different initial conditions and in many different ways. In closed systems, a direct cause-and-effect relationship exists between initial conditions and final state (e.g., pushing a computer's "on" switch powers it up). Biological and social systems operate differently. This concept means a manager can use varying degrees of inputs and transform them in various ways to obtain satisfactory outputs. The function of management is not to seek a single rigid solution but to develop a variety of satisfactory options. Organizations and departments providing routine services, like AT&T and MCIWorldCom's long-distance phone services, can be designed quite differently and still achieve the same result.

🔑 Definition — Equifinality: The principle that similar results may be achieved with different initial conditions and in many different ways.

Alignment

A system's overall effectiveness is determined by the extent to which different parts are aligned with each other. This alignment concerns relationships between inputs and transformations, between transformations and outputs, and among subsystems of the transformation process. Diagnosticians who view relationships among various parts of a system as a whole take a systemic perspective. Alignment represents the extent to which features, operations, and characteristics of one system support the effectiveness of another. For example, General Electric uses a diversification strategy supported by a divisional structure; a functional structure would not fit because one division should focus on one product line. The systemic perspective suggests that diagnosis is the search for misfits among various parts and subsystems.

🔑 Definition — Alignment: The extent to which the features, operations, and characteristics of one system support the effectiveness of another system. 💡 Why this matters: Alignment is the core concept driving organizational diagnosis—if parts don't fit, the organization will be ineffective.

Diagnosing Organizational Systems

When viewed as open systems, organizations can be diagnosed at three levels. The highest level is the overall organization (strategy, structure, processes). The next level is the group or department (group design, norms, work schedules). The lowest level is the individual position or job (how jobs are designed). Diagnosis can occur at all three levels or be limited to a particular level. The key is knowing what to look for at each level and how levels affect each other. For example, diagnosing a work group requires knowledge of group variables and how the larger organization design affects the group. The lecture presents a comprehensive model (Figure 22) showing for each level: (1) inputs, (2) key design components of the transformation subsystem, and (3) system outputs. Cross-level relationships emphasize that organizational levels must fit with each other for effective operation.

Organization-Level Diagnosis

The organization level is the broadest systems perspective in diagnostic activities. The model proposes that an organization's transformation processes, or design components, represent how the organization positions and organizes itself within an environment (inputs) to achieve specific outputs. The combination of design component elements is called a strategic orientation.

Inputs: Two key inputs affect how an organization designs its strategic orientation:

1. General environment — external elements and forces that can affect attainment of objectives, described in terms of uncertainty in social, technological, economic, ecological, and political forces. More uncertainty makes it harder to design an effective strategic orientation. For example, the Swiss watch industry was caught off guard by Timex's mass production in the 1960s and later by digital technology.
2. Industry structure (task environment) — defined by Michael Porter's five forces: supplier power (unions as powerful labor suppliers), buyer power (airlines forcing Boeing to lower prices), threats of substitutes (frozen yogurt replacing ice cream), threats of entry (ease of starting restaurants reducing profits), and rivalry among competitors (multiple organizations competing for same customers).

In addition to content, inputs must be understood for their rate of change and complexity. Dynamic environments change rapidly and unpredictably, requiring flexible strategic orientations. Complexity refers to the number of important elements in the environment. Software development organizations face dynamic and complex environments; glass jar manufacturers face more stable and less complex environments.

🔑 Definition — Strategic Orientation: The combination of design component elements that represents how an organization positions and organizes itself within its environment.

⭐ Key Takeaways

Organizations must be understood as open systems that constantly exchange resources with their environments, meaning they are always influenced by external forces. The five key properties—inputs/transformations/outputs, boundaries, feedback, equifinality, and alignment—provide a complete framework for analyzing any organizational system. Equifinality is critical because it means there is no single best way to design an organization; managers should develop multiple satisfactory options. Alignment is the essence of diagnosis: effectiveness depends on how well all parts fit together, and diagnosis is the search for misfits. Finally, diagnosis must occur at three levels (organization, group, individual) while recognizing that higher levels serve as critical inputs to lower levels.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What distinguishes an open system from a closed system, and why are organizations considered open systems?
2. What are the three parts of any organizational system, and how do they relate to the environment?
3. Explain the concept of equifinality and why it means there is no "one best way" to design an organization.
4. According to Porter's five forces model, what are the five forces that make up an organization's task environment?
5. What does it mean for organizational parts to be "aligned," and why is the search for misfits important in diagnosis?

📘 Lecture 17 — Diagnosing Organizations

📖 Overview: This lecture examines the comprehensive model for diagnosing organizational systems at the organization level, focusing on how to analyze an organization's strategic orientation through its five design components: strategy, technology, structure, measurement systems, and human resources systems. It emphasizes the importance of alignment between these components and with the external environment, using Nike as a real-world case study.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture covers organization-level diagnosis by examining five major design components of a strategic orientation—strategy, technology, structure, measurement systems, and human resources systems—and their intermediate output of culture. It then discusses organizational outputs (performance, productivity, stakeholder satisfaction), the critical concept of alignment among components and with inputs, and provides a detailed diagnostic analysis of Nike's strategic orientation as an application example.

📝 Lecture Summary

Organization-Level Diagnosis: Design Components

Figure 23(A) shows that a strategic orientation is composed of five major design components—strategy, technology, structure, measurement systems, and human resources systems—and an intermediate output—culture. Effective organizations align their design components to each other and to the environment.

A strategy represents the way an organization uses its resources (human, economic, or technical) to gain and sustain a competitive advantage. It can be described by the organization’s mission, goals and objectives, strategic intent, and functional policies. A mission statement describes the long-term purpose of the organization, the range of products or services offered, the markets to be served, and the social needs served by the organization’s existence. Examples include Walt Disney ("To make people happy"), Wal Mart ("To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same thing as rich people"), Merck ("To preserve and improve human life"), and Mary Kay Cosmetics ("To give unlimited opportunity to women").

🔑 Definition — Goals and objectives: statements that provide explicit direction, set organization priorities, provide guidelines for management decisions, and serve as the cornerstone for organizing activities, designing jobs, and setting standards of achievement. Goals and objectives should set a target of achievement (such as 50-percent gross margins, an average employee satisfaction score of four on a five-point scale, or some level of productivity); provide a means or system for measuring achievement; and provide a deadline or timeframe for accomplishment.

🔑 Definition — Strategic intent: a succinct label that describes how the organization intends to achieve its goals and objectives. For example, an organization can achieve goals through differentiation of its product or service, by achieving the lowest costs in the industry, or by growth.

🔑 Definition — Functional policies: the methods, procedures, rules, or administrative practices that guide decision making and convert plans into actions. In the semiconductor business, for example, Intel has a policy of allocating about 30 percent of revenues to research and development to maintain its lead in microprocessors production.

Technology is concerned with the way an organization converts inputs into products and services. It represents the core of the transformation function and includes production methods, workflow, and equipment. Automobile companies have traditionally used an assembly-line technology to build cars and trucks. Two features of the technological core influence other design components: interdependence and uncertainty. Technical interdependence involves ways in which the different parts of a technological system are related. High interdependence requires considerable coordination among tasks, such as might occur when departments must work together to bring out a new product. Technical uncertainty refers to the amount of information processing and decision making required during task performance. Generally, when tasks require high amounts of information processing and decision making, they are difficult to plan and routinize. The technology of car manufacturing is relatively certain and moderately interdependent, so automobile manufacturers can specify workers' behaviors and coordination in advance.

The structural system describes how attention and resources are focused on task accomplishment. It represents the basic organizing mode chosen to (1) divide the overall work of an organization into subunits that can assign tasks to individuals or groups and (2) coordinate these subunits for completion of the overall work. Structure needs to be closely aligned with the organization’s technology.

Two ways of determining how an organization divides work are to examine its formal structure or to examine its level of differentiation and integration. Formal structures divide work by function (accounting, sales, or production), by product or service (Chevrolet, Buick, or Pontiac), or by some combination of both (a matrix composed of functional departments and product groupings). The second way to describe how work is divided is to specify the amount of differentiation and integration in a structure. Applied to the total organization, differentiation refers to the degree of similarity or difference in the design of two or more subunits or departments. In a highly differentiated organization, there are major differences in design among the departments—some are highly formalized with many rules, others have few rules, and others are moderately formal or flexible.

The way an organization coordinates work across subunits is called integration. Integration can be achieved in a variety of ways—using plans and schedules; using budgets; assigning special roles such as project managers, liaison positions, or integrators; or creating cross-departmental task forces and teams. The amount of integration required in a structure is a function of (1) the amount of uncertainty in the environment, (2) the level of differentiation in the structure, and (3) the amount of interdependence among departments. As uncertainty, differentiation, and interdependence increase, more sophisticated integration devices are required.

Measurement systems are methods of gathering, assessing, and disseminating information on the activities of groups and individuals in organizations. Such data tell how well the organization is performing and are used to detect and control deviations from goals. Closely related to structural integration, measurement systems monitor organizational operations and feed data about work activities to managers and members so they can better understand current performance and coordinate work. Effective information and control systems are clearly linked to strategic objectives; provide accurate, understandable, and timely information; are accepted as legitimate by organization members; and produce benefits in excess of their cost.

Human resources systems include mechanisms for selecting, developing, appraising, and rewarding organization members. These influence the mix of skills, personalities, and behaviors of organization members. Strategy and technology provide important information about the skills and knowledge required for organizational success. Appraisal processes identify whether those skills and knowledge are being applied to the work, and reward systems complete the cycle by recognizing performance that contributes to goal achievement. Reward systems may be tied to measurement systems so that rewards are allocated on the basis of measured results.

💡 Why this matters: The alignment of human resources systems with strategy and technology ensures that employees have the right skills and are motivated toward organizational goals, directly impacting performance outcomes.

Organization culture is the final design component. It represents the basic assumptions, values, and norms shared by organization members. These cultural elements are generally taken for granted and serve to guide members’ perceptions, thoughts, and actions. For example, McDonald’s culture emphasizes efficiency, speed, and consistency. It orients employees to company goals and suggests the kinds of behaviors necessary for success. In Figure 23(A), culture is shown as an intermediate output from the five other design components because it represents both an outcome and a constraint. It is an outcome of the organization’s history and environment as well as prior choices about strategy, technology, structure, measurement systems, and human resources systems. It is also a constraint because it is more difficult to change than the other components. In diagnosis, the interest is in understanding the current culture well enough to determine its alignment with the other design factors.

Outputs

The outputs of a strategic orientation can be classified into three components. First, organization performance refers to financial outputs such as profits, return on investment, and earnings per share. For nonprofit and government agencies, performance often refers to the extent to which costs were lowered or budgets met. Second, productivity concerns internal measurements of efficiency such as sales per employee, waste, error rates, quality, or units produced per hour. Third, stakeholder satisfaction reflects how well the organization has met the expectations of different groups. Customer satisfaction can be measured in terms of market share or focus-group data; employee satisfaction can be measured in terms of an opinion survey; investor satisfaction can be measured in terms of stock price.

Alignment

The effectiveness of an organization’s current strategic orientation requires knowledge of the above information to determine the alignment among the different elements. Two critical questions must be asked:

1. Does the organization’s strategic orientation fit with the inputs?
2. Do the design components fit with each other?

For example, if the elements of the external environment (inputs) are fairly similar in their degree of certainty, then an effective organization structure (design factor) should have a low degree of differentiation—departments should be designed similarly because each faces similar environmental demands. On the other hand, if the environment is complex and each element presents different amounts of uncertainty, a more differentiated structure is warranted. Chevron Oil Company’s regulatory, ecological, technological, and social environments differ greatly in uncertainty. The regulatory environment is relatively slow-paced and detail-oriented, so the regulatory affairs function is formal and bound by protocol. In the technological environment, new methods for discovering, refining, and distributing oil products are changing rapidly, so those departments are much more flexible and adaptive—very different from the regulatory affairs function.

Analysis: Application 2 — Nike's Strategic Orientation

In 1993, Nike was the leader in domestic-brand athletic footwear with more than 30 percent market share. It also produced sports apparel, hiking boots, and upscale men’s shoes. But after six years of solid growth, international sales were falling, sales of basketball shoes were down, and the firm’s stock price had dropped 41 percent since November 1992. Analysts were projecting declines in both total revenues and profits. In addition, Nike faced attacks from stakeholder groups—organized labor believed Nike exploited foreign labor; the African-American sector noted the lack of diversity in Nike’s workforce; and the general public was growing tired of sensationalizing athletes.

Nike’s traditional strategy was built around high-performance, innovative athletic shoes, aggressive marketing, and low-cost manufacturing. Using input from athletes, Nike developed strong competence in producing high-quality athletic shoes for running, basketball, and other sports. By contracting with well-known athletes to endorse its products, a Nike image of renegade excellence and high performance emerged. Nike contracted with low-cost foreign manufacturing plants to produce its shoes.

An athletic shoe retailer places orders with Nike representatives (who are not employees but contractors) for delivery in six to eight months through the Futures program, which offers the retailer 10 percent off wholesale for making advanced orders. Orders are compiled and production scheduled with one of Nike’s Asian manufacturing partners. On-site Nike employees guarantee quality standards.

Nike’s culture is distinctive—built by athletes for athletes, very entrepreneurial, with the "Just Do It" marketing campaign describing how things are done. As one senior executive put it: "It’s fine to develop structures and plans and policies, if they are viewed, and used, as tools. But it is so easy for them to become substitutes for good thinking, alibis for not taking responsibility..."

Although Phil Knight sets general direction, he rarely sets clear goals. Knight views Nike as a growth company, but others are concerned that going public produced pressures for profitability that sometimes work against growth. Implementation depends on people being tuned into day-to-day operations.

Nike changed from a functional organization in 1985 to a product division structure in 1987, with additional structural change in 1993. The new president, Tom Clark, implemented stronger communication and collaboration among manufacturing, marketing, and sales. The aim is to fit pieces together in ways that best meet product, customer, and market needs.

For coordination, Nike relies on meetings ranging from informal hallway gatherings to three-day off-site events. Membership is fluid, with only needed people invited. More formal systems are often localized and met with resistance. With the exception of the Futures program, there is little in the way of formal information systems.

Knight favors an annual performance review system with annual pay increases tied to performance, but the system is fairly unstructured—some managers do reviews well and others do not. No formal compensation policy exists, but most employees believe Nike is a "great place to work" where rewards come in the form of growth opportunities, autonomy, and responsibility.

Diagnosis questions for inputs:

1. What is the company’s general environment? Nike’s environment is uncertain and complex. Technologically, Nike depends on the latest breakthroughs in shoe design and materials. Socially and politically, its international operations require awareness of demands from multiple countries, cultures, and governments.
2. What is the company’s industry structure? Nike’s industry is highly competitive. The threat of entry is high; substitute products are a threat; supplier bargaining power is low; buyer bargaining power is moderate; and rivalry among firms is severe (Reebok, Adidas, New Balance, Puma, Converse, Tiger).

Diagnosis of strategic orientation:

1. Strategy: No formal mission statement, but a clear sense of initial purpose in high-performance footwear that has blurred with expansion. Goals are nebulous—Knight sets only general direction. Strategic intent is fairly clear: differentiation through high-quality, high-performance shoes. Informal policies dominate.
2. Technology, structure, measurement systems, and human resources systems: Technology is moderately uncertain and interdependent. The product division structure appears moderately differentiated but not highly integrated. The contract relationships give it a fluid, network-like structure. Human resources and measurement systems are underdeveloped—no compensation policy, formal control systems resisted, except for the Futures program tracking orders.
3. Culture: Dominant feature driven by athletic norms of winning, competition, achievement, and performance.

Alignment analysis:

1. Inputs and strategic orientation: The complex and uncertain environment fits well with Nike’s focus on differentiation and flexible organization design—explaining its success through the 1970s, 1980s, and into the 1990s.
2. Design components alignment: Individual elements of strategy are not aligned—differentiation intent conflicts with growth goals and a diversified mission. However, there appears good fit between strategy and other design components (flexible structure, informal systems, driving culture). Technology aligns with structure. The Futures program reduces market uncertainty and integrates activities. The lack of formal HR systems supports fluidity but creates problems for hiring and development.

Culture plays a powerful role—promoting coordination, socializing and developing people, and moving information. Any change effort must acknowledge culture's role and design interventions accordingly.

Suggested interventions: (1) Increase clarity about strategy without formalizing it (to avoid cultural resistance); (2) Increase integration and coordination of structure, measurement systems, and human resources systems without increasing formalization.

⭐ Key Takeaways

An organization's strategic orientation consists of five design components—strategy, technology, structure, measurement systems, and human resources systems—with culture as an intermediate output that both results from and constrains these components. Effective diagnosis requires examining the alignment between inputs (environment, industry structure) and the strategic orientation, as well as alignment among the design components themselves. The Nike case demonstrates that even a highly successful organization can have misalignments—such as growth goals conflicting with differentiation strategy—and that culture can be both a powerful coordinating mechanism and a barrier to change. Measurement systems (like Nike's Futures program) can strategically reduce environmental uncertainty by shifting risk to retailers and enabling advanced planning. Finally, any organizational intervention must respect the existing culture, as it can either sabotage or facilitate change efforts.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the five design components of a strategic orientation, and how does culture relate to them?
2. Explain the difference between differentiation and integration in organizational structure, and describe when more sophisticated integration devices are needed.
3. What three categories of outputs are used to assess an organization's effectiveness?
4. Using the Nike example, what misalignments exist between the elements of its strategy, and how do they create problems?
5. How does Nike's Futures program function as both a measurement system and an integration mechanism, and what strategic advantage does it provide?

📘 Lecture 18 — Diagnosing Groups and Jobs

📖 Overview: This lecture covers the second major phase in the model of planned change — diagnosis — focusing on group-level and job-level systems. It provides detailed diagnostic frameworks for work groups and individual jobs, explaining how to assess inputs, design components, outputs, and fits to improve organizational effectiveness.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture discusses group-level diagnosis including inputs (organization design), design components (goal clarity, task structure, group composition, group functioning, performance norms), and outputs (performance and quality of work life). It also covers the fits between group design components and inputs, followed by a detailed application to the top-management team at Ortiv Glass Corporation, analyzing why the team's problem-solving meetings were ineffective.

📝 Lecture Summary

Group-Level Diagnosis

The lecture presents the group-level diagnostic model, which is similar to other popular models such as Hackman and Morris's task group design model and McCaskey's framework for analyzing groups. It shows the inputs, design components, outputs, and relational fits for group-level diagnosis.

Inputs

Organization design is the major input to group design. It consists of the design components characterizing the larger organization within which the group is embedded: technology, structure, measurement systems, and human resources systems, as well as organization culture. Technology can determine the characteristics of the group's task; structural systems can specify the level of coordination required among groups. The human resources and measurement systems, such as performance appraisal and reward systems, play an important role in determining team functioning. For example, individually based performance appraisal and reward systems tend to interfere with team functioning because members may be more concerned with maximizing their individual performance to the detriment of team performance. Collecting information about the group's organization design context can greatly improve the accuracy of diagnosis.

🔑 Definition — Organization design: The design components characterizing the larger organization within which the group is embedded, including technology, structure, measurement systems, human resources systems, and organization culture.

Design Components

Groups have five major design components: goal clarity, task structure, group composition, group functioning, and performance norms.

Goal clarity involves how well the group understands its objectives. In general, goals should be moderately challenging; there should be a method for measuring, monitoring, and feeding back information about goal achievement; and the goals should be clearly understood by all members.

Task structure is concerned with how the group's work is designed. Task structures can vary along two key dimensions: coordination of members' efforts and regulation of their task behaviors. The coordination dimension involves the degree to which group tasks are structured to promote effective interaction among group members. Coordination is important in groups performing interdependent tasks, such as surgical teams and problem-solving groups. It is relatively unimportant, however, in groups composed of members who perform independent tasks, such as a group of telephone operators or salespeople. The regulation dimension involves the degree to which members can control their own task behaviors and be relatively free from external controls such as supervision, plans, and programs. Self-regulation generally occurs when members can decide on such issues as task assignments, work methods, production goals, and membership.

🔑 Definition — Task structure: How the group's work is designed, varying along coordination of members' efforts and regulation of their task behaviors. 🔑 Definition — Self-regulation: The degree to which members can control their own task behaviors and be relatively free from external controls.

Composition concerns the membership of groups. Members can differ on a number of dimensions having relevance to group behavior. Demographic variables, such as age, education, experience, and skills and abilities, can affect how people behave and relate to each other in groups. Demographics can determine whether the group is composed of people having task-relevant skills and knowledge, including interpersonal skills. People's internal needs also can influence group behaviors. Individual differences in social needs can determine whether group membership is likely to be satisfying or stressful.

Group functioning is the underlying basis of group life. How members relate to each other is important in work groups because the quality of relationships can affect task performance. In some groups, for example, interpersonal competition and conflict among members result in their providing little support and help for each other. Conversely, groups may become too concerned about sharing good feelings and support and spend too little time on task performance. Group functioning involves task-related activities, such as giving and seeking information and elaborating, coordinating, and evaluating activities; and the group-maintenance function, which is directed toward holding the group together as a cohesive team and includes encouraging, harmonizing, compromising, setting standards, and observing.

🔑 Definition — Group functioning: The underlying basis of group life, including task-related activities and group-maintenance functions.

Performance norms are member beliefs about how the group should perform its task and include acceptable levels of performance. Norms derive from interactions among members and serve as guides to group behavior. Once members agree on performance norms, either implicitly or explicitly, then members routinely perform tasks according to those norms. For example, members of problem-solving groups often decide early in the life of the group that decisions will be made through voting; voting then becomes a routine part of group task behavior.

🔑 Definition — Performance norms: Member beliefs about how the group should perform its task, including acceptable levels of performance.

Outputs

Group effectiveness has two dimensions: performance and quality of work life. Performance is measured in terms of the group's ability to control or reduce costs, increase productivity, or improve quality. This is a "hard" measure of effectiveness. In addition, effectiveness is indicated by the group member's quality of work life. It concerns work satisfaction, team cohesion, and organizational commitment.

🔑 Definition — Group effectiveness: Measured by performance (ability to control costs, increase productivity, or improve quality) and quality of work life (work satisfaction, team cohesion, and organizational commitment).

Fits

The diagnostic model shows that group design components must fit inputs if groups are to be effective. Research suggests three key fits:

1. Group design should be congruent with the larger organization design. Organization structures with low differentiation and high integration should have work groups composed of highly skilled and experienced members performing highly interdependent tasks. Organizations with differentiated structures and formalized human resources and information systems should spawn groups that have clear, quantitative goals and support standardized behaviors.

2. When the organization's technology results in interdependent tasks, coordination among members should be promoted by task structures, composition, performance norms, and group functioning. Conversely, when technology permits independent tasks, the design components should promote individual task performance. For example, when coordination is needed, task structure might physically locate related tasks together; composition might include members with similar interpersonal skills and social needs; performance norms would support task-relevant interactions; and healthy interpersonal relationships would be developed.

3. When the technology is relatively uncertain and requires high amounts of information processing and decision making, group design components should promote self-regulation. Members should have the necessary freedom, information, and skills to assign members to tasks, decide on production methods, and set performance goals. When technology is relatively certain, group designs should promote standardization of behavior, and groups should be externally controlled by supervisors, schedules, and plans.

Application: Top-Management Team at Ortiv Glass Corporation

The Ortiv Glass Corporation produces and markets plate glass. The multiplant company has been involved in OD for several years and supports participative management practices. Its organization design is relatively organic, and manufacturing plants are given freedom to develop their own designs and approaches to participative management. A problem-solving group was created from the top-management team at its newest plant.

The team consisted of the plant manager and managers of five functional departments: engineering (maintenance), administration, human resources, production, and quality control. Members were selected for good technical skills, managerial experience, and a desire to solve problems collaboratively. The team had been working together for only about five months.

The team met formally for two hours each week to share information and deal with plant-wide issues. Members described meetings as informative but often chaotic. Meetings started late as members straggled in; latecomers offered excuses about more pressing problems. Meetings were often interrupted by "urgent" phone messages. The group had problems arriving at clear decisions; discussions rambled, members postponed resolution of problems, creating a backlog of unresolved issues. When decisions were made, members often failed to follow through, and there was confusion about what had been agreed upon. Everyone expressed dissatisfaction.

Relationships were cordial yet strained, especially when dealing with complex issues where members had varying opinions. Although the plant manager publicly stated he wanted to hear all sides, he often interrupted discussion or changed the topic when members openly disagreed. This was typically followed by an awkward silence. When a solution was not forthcoming, members either moved on or informally voted, letting majority rule decide. Members rarely discussed the need to move on or vote; rather, these behaviors emerged informally over time.

🔑 Definition — Organic organization design: A flexible, decentralized structure that promotes participative management and innovation.

Analysis of the Ortiv Case

The key issue in diagnosing group inputs is the design of the larger organization. Ortiv's design is relatively differentiated, promoting flexible and innovative behaviors. The team meetings are devoted to problems affecting all functional departments, suggesting high interdependence among functions and a relatively high amount of uncertainty in the technology or work process.

Diagnosis of the team's design components reveals:

1. Goal clarity: Goals seem relatively clear (to solve problems), but there is no clear agreement on specific problems to be addressed.
2. Task structure: Face-to-face weekly meetings facilitate coordination, and the structure provides members with freedom to regulate their task behaviors.
3. Composition: Members have task-relevant skills and experience, and they are interested in solving problems collaboratively.
4. Performance norms: Norms include: coming late is okay, interrupting meetings with phone messages is okay, leaving meetings to respond to calls is okay, holding meetings longer than two hours is okay, not openly disagreeing is expected, voting on decisions is okay, being cordial is expected, postponing solutions is okay, and not following through on agreements is okay.
5. Group functioning: Interpersonal relations are not healthy; members do not confront differences openly; the plant manager intervenes when conflicts emerge.

The key difficulty is a mismatch between the team's performance norms and interpersonal relations and the demands of the problem-solving task. Complex, interdependent problems require performance norms that support sharing of diverse and often conflicting kinds of information. The norms must encourage members to generate novel solutions and assess the relevance of problem-solving strategies. In this example, the team's performance norms fail to support complex problem solving—rather, they promote a superficial, haphazard, and externally disrupted approach. Diagnosis suggests the need for group interventions aimed at improving performance norms and developing healthy interpersonal relations.

⭐ Key Takeaways

This lecture provides a comprehensive diagnostic framework for groups, focusing on the five design components (goal clarity, task structure, composition, functioning, and performance norms) and how they must fit with organizational inputs to achieve effectiveness. The critical insight from the Ortiv Glass case is that groups with unclear goals, dysfunctional norms, and unhealthy interpersonal relations will fail at complex problem-solving tasks, even when members have excellent technical skills. Students must remember that group diagnosis requires analyzing both the formal design components and the informal norms and relationships that actually drive behavior. The three key fits (congruence with organization design, coordination fit for interdependent tasks, and self-regulation fit for uncertain technology) are essential for predicting group effectiveness.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the five design components of group-level diagnosis, and how does each affect group effectiveness?
2. Explain the two dimensions of task structure (coordination and regulation) and provide examples of when each is important.
3. What is the difference between task-related activities and group-maintenance functions in group functioning?
4. In the Ortiv Glass case, what specific performance norms were contributing to the team's ineffectiveness?
5. What are the three key fits between inputs and group design components, and why is each important?

📘 Lecture 19 — Diagnosing Groups and Jobs

📖 Overview: This lecture presents a comprehensive model for diagnosing organizational systems at the individual job level, exploring how jobs are designed and evaluated within their organizational and group contexts. Understanding job diagnosis is essential for improving employee performance, satisfaction, and overall organizational effectiveness.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture covers the comprehensive model for diagnosing individual-level jobs, including three major inputs affecting job design (organization design, group design, and personal characteristics of job holders). It examines five key job design dimensions: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback about results. Finally, it discusses the critical fits between job design and both organizational/group contexts and individual employee characteristics.

📝 Lecture Summary

Individual-Level Diagnosis

The lowest level of organizational diagnosis is the individual job or position. An organization consists of numerous groups; a group, in turn, is composed of several individual jobs. This section discusses the inputs, design components, and relational fits for diagnosing jobs. The model shown in Figure 25(C) is similar to other popular job diagnostic frameworks, such as Hackman and Oldham's job diagnostic survey and Herzberg's job enrichment model.

💡 Why this matters: Understanding individual-level diagnosis allows organizations to identify problems at their most fundamental level — the individual worker's experience — before scaling up to group or organizational issues.

Inputs

Three major inputs affect job design: organization design, group design, and the personal characteristics of job holders.

Organization design is concerned with the larger organization within which the individual job is the smallest unit. Technology, structure, measurement systems, human resources systems, and culture can have a powerful impact on the way jobs are designed and on people's experiences in jobs. For example, company reward systems can orient employees to particular job behaviors and influence whether people see job performance as fairly rewarded. In general, technology characterized by relatively uncertain tasks and low interdependency is likely to support job designs allowing employees flexibility and discretion in performing tasks. Conversely, low-uncertainty work systems are likely to promote standardized job designs requiring routinized task behaviors.

🔑 Definition — Organization design: The larger organizational context within which individual jobs exist, including technology, structure, measurement systems, human resources systems, and culture that impact job design.

Group design concerns the larger group or department containing the individual job. Like organization design, group design is an essential part of the job context. Group task structure, goal clarity, composition, performance norms, and group functioning serve as inputs to job design. They typically have a more immediate impact on jobs than do the larger, organization-design components. For example, group task structure can determine how individual jobs are grouped together — as in groups requiring coordination among jobs or in ones comprising collections of independent jobs. Group composition can influence the kinds of people who are available to fill jobs. Group performance norms can affect the kinds of job designs that are considered acceptable, including the level of job holders' performances. Goal clarity helps members to prioritize work, and group functioning can affect how powerfully the group influences job behaviors. When members maintain close relationships and the group is cohesive, group norms are more likely to be enforced and followed.

Personal characteristics of individuals occupying jobs include their age, education, experience, and skills and abilities. All of these can affect job performance as well as how people react to job designs. Individual needs and expectations can also affect employee job responses. For example, individual differences in growth need — the need for self-direction, learning, and personal accomplishment — can determine how much people are motivated and satisfied by jobs with high levels of skill variety, autonomy, and feedback about results. Similarly, work motivation can be influenced by people's expectations that they can perform a job well and that good job performance will result in valued outcomes.

🔑 Definition — Growth need: An individual's need for self-direction, learning, and personal accomplishment that influences how motivated and satisfied they are by enriched jobs.

Design Components

Figure 25(C) shows that individual jobs have five key dimensions: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback about results.

Skill variety identifies the degree to which a job requires a range of activities and abilities to perform the work. Assembly-line jobs, for example, generally have limited skill variety because employees perform a small number of repetitive activities. Most professional jobs, on the other hand, include a great deal of skill variety because people engage in diverse activities and employ several different skills in performing their work.

Task identity measures the degree to which a job requires the completion of a relatively whole, identifiable piece of work. Skilled craftspeople, such as tool-and-die makers and carpenters, generally have jobs with high levels of task identity. They are able to see a job through from beginning to end. Assembly-line jobs involve only a limited piece of work and score low on task identity.

Task significance identifies the degree to which a job has a significant impact on other people's lives. Custodial jobs in a hospital are likely to have more task significance than similar jobs in a toy factory because hospital custodians are likely to see their jobs as affecting someone else's health and welfare.

Autonomy indicates the degree to which a job provides freedom and discretion in scheduling the work and determining work methods. Assembly-line jobs generally have little autonomy: the work pace is scheduled, and people perform programmed tasks. College teaching positions have more autonomy: professors usually can determine how a course is taught, even though they may have limited say over class scheduling.

Feedback about results involves the degree to which a job provides employees with direct and clear information about the effectiveness of task performance. Assembly-line jobs often provide high levels of feedback about results, whereas college professors must often contend with indirect and ambiguous feedback about how they are performing in the classroom.

Those five job dimensions can be combined into an overall measure of job enrichment. Enriched jobs have high levels of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback about results. They provide opportunities for self-direction, learning, and personal accomplishment at work. Many people find enriched jobs internally motivating and satisfying.

🔑 Definition — Job enrichment: The overall measure of a job's quality based on high levels of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback about results, providing opportunities for self-direction, learning, and personal accomplishment.

📐 Formula: Enriched Job = High Skill Variety + High Task Identity + High Task Significance + High Autonomy + High Feedback

Fits

The diagnostic model in Figure 25(C) suggests that job design must fit job inputs to produce effective job outputs, such as high quality and quantity of individual performance, low absenteeism, and high job satisfaction. Research reveals the following fits between job inputs and job design:

1. Job design should be congruent with the larger organization and group designs within which the job is embedded. Both the organization and the group serve as a powerful context for individual jobs or positions. They tend to support and reinforce particular job designs. Highly differentiated and integrated organizations and groups that permit members to self-regulate their behavior fit enriched jobs. These larger organizations and groups promote autonomy, flexibility, and innovation at the individual job level. Conversely, bureaucratic organizations and groups relying on external controls are congruent with job designs scoring low on the five key dimensions. Both organizations and groups reinforce standardized, routine jobs. As suggested earlier, congruence across different levels of organization design promotes integration of the organization, group, and job levels. Whenever the levels do not fit each other, conflict is likely to emerge.

2. Job design should fit the personal characteristics of the jobholders if they are to perform effectively and derive satisfaction from work. Generally, enriched jobs fit people with strong growth needs. These people derive satisfaction and accomplishment from performing jobs involving skill variety, autonomy, and feedback about results. Enriched jobs also fit people possessing moderate to high levels of task-relevant skills, abilities, and knowledge. Enriched jobs generally require complex information processing and decision making; people must have comparable skills and abilities to perform effectively. Jobs scoring low on the five job dimensions generally fit people with rudimentary skills and abilities and with low growth needs. Simpler, more routinized jobs requiring limited skills and experience fit better with people who place a low value on opportunities for self-direction and learning. In addition, because people can grow through education, training, and experience, job design must be monitored and adjusted from time to time.

💡 Why this matters: These fit requirements explain why simply enriching or simplifying jobs without considering the organizational context and employee characteristics often leads to failure — the design must match both the system and the person.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The five key job dimensions — skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback about results — form the foundation for diagnosing individual jobs and creating enriched work. Successful job design requires congruence at two levels: job design must fit the larger organization and group context, and it must fit the personal characteristics of jobholders, particularly their growth needs and skill levels. Bureaucratic organizations support standardized jobs, while flexible organizations support enriched jobs. Growth need strength determines how employees respond to enriched versus simplified jobs. Mismatches between job design and either organizational context or employee characteristics lead to conflict, low performance, and dissatisfaction.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the three major inputs that affect job design at the individual level?
2. List and define all five key job dimensions in the individual-level diagnostic model.
3. How does group design typically differ from organization design in its impact on individual jobs?
4. What two types of organizational designs are congruent with enriched versus standardized jobs?
5. Why must job design be monitored and adjusted over time in relation to personal characteristics?

📘 Lecture 20 — Collecting and Analyzing Diagnostic Information

📖 Overview: This lecture examines the critical dimensions consultants must consider when collecting and analyzing diagnostic information in organization development. It details the diagnostic relationship, the data-collection process, and four major methods for gathering data—questionnaires, interviews, observations, and unobtrusive measures—explaining how each method contributes to valid organizational diagnosis and effective change interventions.

🗂️ Topics Covered

This lecture covers seven key dimensions to consider in diagnosis including timing, participation, confidentiality, variable selection, and data gathering as part of long-range strategy. It then explains the diagnostic relationship and contracting process, followed by the data-collection process including defining objectives and selecting key factors. The lecture concludes with comprehensive coverage of four data-collection methods: questionnaires, interviews, observations, and unobtrusive measures, including their advantages and potential problems.

📝 Lecture Summary

Dimensions to Consider in Diagnosis

Seven important dimensions guide the consultant's diagnostic activities. Timing is significant—collecting data when organizational participants are not prepared wastes time and resources. Extent of participation ranges from unilateral to participative problem identification, with underlying assumptions favoring participative diagnosis. Confidentiality involves deciding between individual-anonymous versus group surfacing of data; early stages with low trust may call for anonymous interviews reported as themes. Pre-selection vs. emergent selection of variables determines whether standardized instruments (like surveys tapping leadership, climate, and satisfaction) or open-ended questions are used. The extent to which data gathering is part of a long-range strategy versus isolated events is crucial—diagnostic activities should follow the action research model where diagnosis leads to action which leads to further diagnosis. Activities prompted by whim may produce resentment and resistance. The nature of the target population affects acceptability of diagnosis and what interdependencies can be examined. Finally, the type of technique—questionnaire versus interview, individual versus group—has important ramifications; interviews can build trust while questionnaires cannot.

🔑 Definition — Action Research Model: A model where diagnostic activities lead to action programs that in turn call for further diagnostic activities, creating a continuous cycle of improvement.

The Diagnostic Relationship

Organization development is vitally dependent on organization diagnosis: the process of collecting information that will be shared with the client to jointly assess organizational functioning and determine the best change intervention. The quality of information gathered is critical.

Establishing a diagnostic contract is similar to forming a legal contract—it clarifies expectations and specifies relationship conditions. Eight key questions form the substance of the diagnostic contract:

1. Who am I? — Introduces the OD practitioner to organization members
2. Why am I here, and what am I doing? — Defines goals of diagnosis and how activities fit into the overall developmental strategy
3. Who do I work for? — Clarifies who hired the consultant; having those directly involved helps build trust
4. What do I want from you, and why? — Specifies time and effort required; involvement should be voluntary
5. How will I protect your confidentiality? — Addresses concerns about who sees responses and in what form; practitioners can ensure confidentiality or state that full participation requires open information sharing
6. Who will have access to the data? — Clarifies whether respondents and others will see results
7. What's in it for you? — Delineates benefits members can expect, including the feedback process
8. Can I be trusted? — The diagnostic relationship ultimately rests on trust; requires active listening and open discussion

Careful attention to the diagnostic relationship promotes three goals: obtaining valid information, rallying energy for constructive change, and developing the collaborative relationship necessary for effecting organizational change.

💡 Why this matters: The diagnostic relationship directly affects data quality. If members do not trust the consultant, they will not provide honest information, making the entire OD effort fail.

The Data-Collection Process

The data-collection process involves an investigation, a body of data, and some form of processing information. Data (from Latin dare, "to give") refers to unstructured, unformed facts—an aggregation of signs, signals, clues, facts, statistics, opinions, assumptions, and speculations. Information (from Latin informare, "to give form to") refers to data that have form and structure. A common problem is organizations being data-rich but information-poor.

The Definition of Objectives: The first step is defining the objectives of the change program. Usually, preliminary data gathering clarifies problem conditions before large-scale collection. This is accomplished through interviews with key members to understand the current situation versus the ideal.

The Selection of Key Factors: The practitioner and client identify central variables (turnover, communication breakdown, isolated management). The traditional approach focused on narrow issues like pay and supervision; the modern trend gauges the organization's culture and values more broadly. Organizations generate "hard" data internally—production reports, budgets, turnover ratios, sales per square foot, sales or profit per employee—which can be compared with competitors and industry averages. Additional data may examine:

• Degree of dependence between operating teams
• Quantity and quality of information exchange
• Degree to which vision, mission, and goals are shared
• Norms, attitudes, and motivations of members
• Effects of power and status distribution

The Selection of a Data-Gathering Method: The third step is selecting a method—there is no one best way; selection depends on the nature of the problem. Data should be acquired systematically to allow quantitative or qualitative comparison.

Methods for Collecting Data

The four major techniques are questionnaires, interviews, observations, and unobtrusive measures. No single method can fully measure important variables because each has strengths and weaknesses. We recommend using more than one method; if data from different methods are consistent, variables are likely being measured validly.

Questionnaires: These contain fixed-response queries and can be administered to large numbers simultaneously. They can be analyzed quickly using computers, permitting quantitative comparison. Questionnaires can be standardized (based on explicit models, containing predetermined questions refined over time) or customized (tailored to a particular client). Examples of standardized instruments include the Survey of Organizations, Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire, Weisbord's Organizational Diagnostic Questionnaire, Dyer's Team Development Survey, and Hackman and Oldham's Job Diagnostic Survey.

Drawbacks include: responses limited to questions asked (no probing), impersonality (may discourage honesty), and response bias (tendency to give socially acceptable answers).

Interviews: The most widely used data-gathering technique in OD. Interviews are more direct, personal, and flexible than surveys. Two key advantages: they are flexible and can be used in many situations; they provide two-way communication.

Interviews can be:

• Directed – specific questions formulated in advance for uniformity; questions can be open-ended (free, unconstrained responses, difficult to quantify) or closed (yes/no or brief responses, easily quantifiable)
• Non-directed – direction chosen by the respondent; open-ended questions are more appropriate
• Structured – derived from a conceptual model guiding questions; and Unstructured – general questions about organizational functioning
• Group interviews – save time and allow building on others' responses, but group settings may inhibit free responses
• Focus groups or sensing meetings – unstructured meetings with 10–15 employees representing cross-sections; economical way to obtain interview data

Drawbacks include: time required for conducting and analyzing; interviewer and respondent biases; difficulty ensuring comparability across respondents.

Observations: Direct observation of organizational behaviors in functional settings. Can range from complete participant observation (practitioner becomes group member) to detached observation (observer is clearly not part of the group, may use film or videotape).

Advantages: free from self-report biases; involve real-time data (present behavior, not recollections); adaptive (consultant can modify what to observe).

Problems include: difficulties interpreting meaning; need for coding schemes (expensive, time-consuming, may introduce bias); sampling issues (who, when, where, and what events to observe); observer bias and subjectivity.

Unobtrusive Measures: Data not collected directly from respondents but from secondary sources: company records, archives, absenteeism records, grievances, production reports, financial performance, meeting minutes, correspondence. These provide a relatively objective view of organizational functioning, free from respondent and consultant biases. They tend to be quantified and reported at periodic intervals, permitting statistical analysis.

Major problems: data may not be in usable form; built-in biases from changes in accounting procedures or recording methods can affect records independently of actual organizational functioning. Despite drawbacks, unobtrusive data serve as a valuable adjunct to other diagnostic measures.

💡 Why this matters: Using multiple data collection methods provides triangulation—if questionnaire, interview, and observation data all point to the same conclusion, the diagnosis is much more trustworthy than relying on any single method alone.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The lecture establishes that effective OD diagnosis requires careful attention to seven dimensions (timing, participation, confidentiality, variable selection, long-range strategy, target population, and technique type) and that establishing a diagnostic contract through eight key questions is essential for building trust and obtaining valid data. The data-collection process must define objectives, select key factors, and choose appropriate methods. No single data-collection method is sufficient—questionnaires, interviews, observations, and unobtrusive measures each have distinct advantages and problems, making a multi-method approach essential for valid diagnosis. The ultimate goal is to transform raw data into meaningful information that organization members can use to identify problems and develop effective interventions.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the seven dimensions consultants must consider when collecting and analyzing diagnostic information?
2. What are the eight questions that form the substance of the diagnostic contract, and why is each important?
3. What is the difference between "data" and "information" as defined in this lecture, and why is the distinction important for OD?
4. Compare and contrast the four major data-collection methods—what are the major advantages and potential problems of each?
5. Why is it recommended to use more than one data-collection method when gathering diagnostic information?

📘 Lecture 21 — Collecting and Analyzing Diagnostic Information (A Comparison of Different Methods of Data Collection)

📖 Overview: This lecture provides a comprehensive comparison of different data collection methods used in Organization Development (OD), including questionnaires, interviews, observations, and unobtrusive measures. It explains the critical role of sampling, the implementation and analysis of data, and the crucial process of feeding back diagnostic information to the client organization. Understanding these methods and their trade-offs is essential for effective organizational diagnosis and change.

🗂️ Topics Covered

This lecture covers a comparison of different methods of data collection, the issue of sampling in OD, the implementation of data collection programs, techniques for analyzing data (both qualitative and quantitative), evaluating the effectiveness of data collection, and the critical process of feeding back diagnostic information to the client organization to ensure data ownership and action.

📝 Lecture Summary

A Comparison of Different Methods of Data Collection

This section compares four main data collection methods: Questionnaires, Interviews, Observations, and Unobtrusive measures. Each method has major advantages and potential problems. Questionnaires allow for quantified, easily summarized responses from large samples at low cost but suffer from non-empathy and predetermined questions. Interviews are adaptive, provide rich data, and build rapport but are expensive and prone to interviewer bias. Observations collect real-time data on actual behavior rather than reports but face coding difficulties and observer bias. Unobtrusive measures are non-reactive and have high face validity but face access and validity concerns.

Sampling

Sampling is not an issue when data is collected from all members, but becomes critical when data is collected from selected members, behaviors, or records, especially for organization-level issues. A sample must adequately represent the total population. Sampling design involves two issues: sample size and sample selection. Sample size depends on population size, desired confidence, and available resources. The larger and more complex the population, the more data is needed. The most common approach is a simple random sample, where each member has an equal chance of selection. For complex populations, a stratified sample may be more appropriate, where the population is divided into subpopulations and random samples are taken from each.

The Implementation of Data Collection

Data collection begins with deciding who to obtain data from and how many respondents. One-to-one interviews are the most common method (used by 87% of practitioners), followed by observation, group interviews, questionnaires, and documents. Practitioners typically rely on a variety of methods. The actual data-collection program includes designing, printing, distributing, and collecting the instrument. Outside data-collection agents are more effective than internal personnel, as respondents feel more secure. Confidentiality is a critical issue. A pilot study or beta test is recommended to correct possible problems before large-scale collection.

💡 Why this matters: Choosing the right collection method and ensuring confidentiality directly impacts the quality and honesty of the data gathered.

The Analysis of Data

Data analysis techniques range from simple to sophisticated. Key questions must be considered before selecting a method: How will data be analyzed? Will it be statistical? Will it be processed by hand or computer? How will it be coded? The analysis may include comparisons of different divisions or management levels, requiring proper coding of surveys or interviews.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Data Collection

A systematic data-collection program must establish criteria for data quantity and quality. The sample must be large enough for generalization, and data accuracy (degree to which data deviates from truth) is important. There is a trade-off between data quantity/accuracy and cost/time.

The Validity of the Data: This is the most important question: Are we measuring what we intend to measure? OD programs often deal with subjective parameters like attitudes and values.

The Time to Collect Data: Data collection usually takes longer than planned.

The Cost of Data Collection: A large-scale interviewing program is expensive. Practitioners must determine the minimum number of interviews needed for a reliable measure (diminishing returns).

The Organization Culture and Norms: The practitioner must choose techniques best suited to the organization's culture, considering whether people are open or resistant.

The Hawthorne Effect in Data Collecting: The Hawthorne effect is the effect the observer has on the subject, where the act of investigating may influence the behavior of those being investigated.

💡 Why this matters: Effective data collection provides hard data that can be compared with intuitive problem awareness, enabling change efforts to focus on specific problems.

Techniques for Analyzing Data

Data analysis techniques fall into two classes: qualitative and quantitative.

Qualitative Tools: Content Analysis: A technique for assessing qualitative data, especially interview data, that summarizes comments into meaningful categories. It reduces hundreds of comments into a few themes. The process involves three steps: (1) reading responses to gain familiarity and identify recurring answers; (2) generating themes that capture recurring comments; (3) placing each response into one of the categories.

Force-Field Analysis: Derived from Kurt Lewin’s three-step model of change, this method organizes information into two categories: forces for change and forces for maintaining the status quo. The first step is to list all forces promoting change and those resisting it. Then, the strength of each force is determined (ranked or rated). According to Lewin, efforts to change should focus on reducing the forces maintaining the status quo, as this is likely to result in change with less tension or conflict.

Figure 27 illustrates a force-field analysis of a work group, showing strong forces for change (supervisor pressure, competition) and against change (group norms, well-learned skills).

🔑 Definition — Performance Gap: The difference between the current performance level and a desired, more acceptable level. 📌 Example: In a hospital with a 6% daily absentee rate, the general manager identified a 3% rate as acceptable, creating a performance gap. A brainstorming session listed restraining and driving forces for absenteeism. Strategies could include decreasing restraining forces, increasing driving forces (especially those that don't put pressure on people), or adding new driving forces (e.g., a promotion policy tied to absenteeism).

Quantitative Tools: Common quantitative tools include means, standard deviations, frequency distributions, scattergrams, correlation coefficients, and difference tests.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Frequency Distributions: A mean is the average score, and a standard deviation represents the spread or variability of responses. A frequency distribution is a graphical method showing the number of times a particular response was given. The mean can be misleading; a high standard deviation indicates considerable disagreement.

📌 Example: Table 5 shows means and standard deviations for six rewards. Challenging work (mean=4.6) and respect from peers (mean=4.4) are most valued. Pay and praise from supervisor both have a mean of 4.0, but different standard deviations (0.71 vs. 1.55). The frequency distribution (Table 6) reveals that while responses for pay are clustered at the high end, responses for praise fall into two distinct groups (25 low/very low, 75 high/very high), indicating disagreement.

Scattergrams and Correlation Coefficients: A scattergram visually displays the relationship between two variables. Three basic patterns exist: positive relationship (x increases, y increases), negative relationship (x increases, y decreases), and no relationship (shotgun pattern). The correlation coefficient summarizes the scattergram data, ranging from +1.0 (perfect positive) to -1.0 (perfect negative), with 0 meaning no relationship.

📌 Example: Table 7 and Figure 29 show data on change orders and conflicts between manufacturing and engineering departments. The scattergram shows a strong positive relationship, suggesting change orders contribute to conflict.

Difference Tests: These tests compare a sample group against a standard or norm, or determine whether two samples are significantly different from each other. They can also be used to determine whether a group has changed over time by comparing scores at two points. The larger the difference score (t-score or z-score), the more likely a real difference exists.

Feeding Back Diagnostic Information

Feeding back diagnostic information is perhaps the most important step. The OD practitioner organizes and presents data to the client. A key objective is to ensure the client has ownership of the data. The success of data feedback depends on its ability to arouse organizational action and direct energy toward problem solving.

Determining the Content of the Feedback: Nine properties of effective feedback data include: Relevant, Understandable, Descriptive, Verifiable, Timely, Limited, Significant, Comparative, and Unfinalized.

Characteristics of the Feedback Process: Feedback meetings provide a forum for discussion. People may come with anxiety, fear, and hope. The most important objective is to ensure ownership, which is the opposite of resistance to change. Ownership is facilitated by five features: (1) Motivation to work with the data; (2) Structure for the meeting; (3) Appropriate attendance; (4) Appropriate power; and (5) Process help from an OD practitioner.

⭐ Key Takeaways

The lecture distinguishes four primary data collection methods—questionnaires, interviews, observations, and unobtrusive measures—each with specific trade-offs between cost, depth, and potential bias. Sampling is critical when data is collected from a subset of a population, requiring careful consideration of sample size and selection method (random vs. stratified). Data analysis involves both qualitative tools (content analysis and force-field analysis) and quantitative tools (means, standard deviations, frequency distributions, scattergrams, correlation coefficients, and difference tests). The most critical step is feeding back diagnostic information to the client, ensuring the data is relevant, understandable, and owned by organization members through well-structured feedback meetings. The ultimate goal is to use diagnostic data to arouse organizational action and direct energy toward specific, meaningful problem solving.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the four main data collection methods compared in this lecture, and what is one major advantage and one major potential problem for each?
2. When does sampling become an issue in OD, and what are the two primary issues that must be addressed in sampling design?
3. Describe the three steps involved in conducting a content analysis for qualitative interview data.
4. In force-field analysis, according to Kurt Lewin, what should change efforts focus on, and why is this approach preferred?
5. What are the nine properties of effective feedback data content, and what is the single most important objective of the feedback process?

📘 Lecture 22 — Designing Interventions

📖 Overview: This lecture introduces the fundamental concepts of Organization Development (OD) interventions, which are sequenced activities designed to help organizations improve performance and effectiveness. It covers the three critical criteria for effective interventions, the contingencies that affect intervention success, and provides a comprehensive overview of the major intervention types including human process, techno-structural, human resources management, and strategic interventions.

🗂️ Topics Covered

The lecture begins by defining what constitutes an effective intervention and the three criteria for effectiveness: fit with organizational needs, causal knowledge of outcomes, and transfer of change-management competence. It then explores how to design interventions by considering contingencies related to the change situation (readiness, capability, cultural context, and change agent skills) and contingencies related to the target of change (organizational issues and levels). The lecture concludes with a detailed overview of four major categories of OD interventions: human process, techno-structural, human resources management, and strategic interventions, along with specific examples within each category.

📝 Lecture Summary

Designing Interventions

An organization development intervention is a sequence of activities, actions, and events intended to help an organization improve its performance and effectiveness. Intervention design, or action planning, derives from careful diagnosis and is meant to resolve specific problems and to improve particular areas of organizational functioning identified in the diagnosis. OD interventions vary from standardized programs that have been developed and used in many organizations to relatively unique programs tailored to a specific organization or department.

What are effective interventions?

The term intervention refers to a set of sequenced planned actions or events intended to help an organization increase its effectiveness. Interventions purposely disrupt the status quo; they are deliberate attempts to change an organization or subunit toward a different and more effective state. In OD, three major criteria define an effective intervention: (1) the extent to which it fits the needs of the organization; (2) the degree to which it is based on causal knowledge of intended outcomes; and (3) the extent to which it transfers change-management competence to organization members.

The first criterion concerns the extent to which the intervention is relevant to the organization and its members. Effective interventions are based on valid information about the organization's functioning; they provide organization members with opportunities to make free and informed choices; and they gain members' internal commitment to those choices. Valid information is the result of an accurate diagnosis of the organization's functioning. It must reflect fairly what organization members perceive and feel about their primary concerns and issues. Free and informed choice suggests that members are actively involved in making decisions about the changes that will affect them. It means that they can choose not to participate and that interventions will not be imposed on them. Internal commitment means that organization members accept ownership of the intervention and take responsibility for implementing it.

The second criterion of an effective intervention involves knowledge of outcomes. Because interventions are intended to produce specific results, they must be based on valid knowledge that those outcomes actually can be produced. Unfortunately, and in contrast to other applied disciplines such as medicine and engineering, knowledge of intervention effects is in a rudimentary stage of development in OD. Much of the evaluation research lacks sufficient rigor to make strong causal inferences about the success or failure of change programs. Moreover, few attempts have been made to examine the comparative effects of different OD techniques.

The third criterion of an effective intervention involves the extent to which it enhances the organization's capacity to manage change. The values underlying OD suggest that organization members should be better able to carry out planned change activities on their own following an intervention. They should gain knowledge and skill in managing change from active participation in designing and implementing the intervention. Competence in change management is essential in today's environment, where technological, social, economic, and political changes are rapid and persistent.

💡 Why this matters: These three criteria provide a practical framework for evaluating whether any OD intervention is likely to succeed. Without valid information, free choice, and internal commitment, even well-designed interventions will fail because members will not embrace the changes.

How to design effective interventions

Designing OD interventions requires paying careful attention to the needs and dynamics of the change situation and crafting a change program that will be consistent with the previously described criteria of effective interventions. Current knowledge of OD interventions provides only general prescriptions for change. Two major sets of contingencies that can affect intervention success have been discussed in the OD literature: those having to do with the change situation (including the practitioner) and those related to the target of change.

Contingencies Related to the Change Situation

Researchers have identified a number of contingencies present in the change situation that can affect intervention success. These include individual differences among organization members (for example, needs for autonomy), organizational factors (for example, management style and technical uncertainty), and dimensions of the change process itself (for example, degree of top-management support). More generic contingencies that apply to all OD interventions include the following situational factors: the organization's readiness for change, its change capability, its cultural context, and the change agent's skills and abilities.

Readiness for Change: Intervention success depends heavily on the organization being ready for planned change. Indicators of readiness for change include sensitivity to pressures for change, dissatisfaction with the status quo, availability of resources to support change, and commitment of significant management time. When readiness for change is low, interventions need to focus first on increasing the organization's willingness to change.

Capability to Change: Managing planned change requires particular knowledge and skills, including the ability to motivate change, to lead change, to develop political support, to manage the transition, and to sustain momentum. If organization members do not have these capabilities, then a preliminary training intervention may be needed before members can engage meaningfully in intervention design.

Cultural Context: The national culture within which the organization is embedded can exert a powerful influence on members' reactions to change, so intervention design must account for the cultural values and assumptions held by organization members. Interventions may have to be modified to fit the local culture, particularly when OD practices developed in one culture are applied to organizations in another culture.

Capabilities of the Change Agent: Many failures in OD result when change agents apply interventions beyond their competence. In designing interventions, OD practitioners should assess their experience and expertise against the requirements needed to implement the intervention effectively. The ethical guidelines under which OD practitioners operate requires full disclosure of the applicability of their knowledge and expertise to the client situation.

Contingencies Related to the Target of Change

OD interventions seek to change specific features or parts of organizations. These targets of change are the main focus of interventions, and researchers have identified two key contingencies related to change targets that can affect intervention success: the organizational issues that the intervention is intended to resolve and the level of organizational system at which the intervention is expected to have a primary impact.

Organizational Issues: Organizations need to address certain issues to operate effectively. Figure 32 shows the following four interrelated issues that are key targets of OD interventions:

1. Strategic issues: Organizations need to decide what products or services they will provide and the markets in which they will compete, as well as how to relate to their environments and how to transform themselves to keep pace with changing conditions. OD methods aimed at these issues are called strategic interventions and include integrated strategic change, mergers and acquisitions, trans-organizational development, and organization learning.

2. Technology and structure issues: Organizations must decide how to divide work into departments and then how to coordinate among those departments to support strategic directions. OD methods for dealing with these structural and technological issues are called techno-structural interventions and include OD activities relating to organization design, employee involvement, and work design.

3. Human resources issues: These issues are concerned with attracting competent people to the organization, setting goals for them, appraising and rewarding their performance, and ensuring that they develop their careers and manage stress. OD techniques aimed at these issues are called human resources management interventions.

4. Human process issues: These issues have to do with social processes occurring among organization members, such as communication, decision making, leadership, and group dynamics. OD methods focusing on these kinds of issues are called human process interventions; included among them are some of the most common OD techniques, such as conflict resolution and team building.

Consistent with systems theory, these organizational issues are interrelated and need to be integrated with each other. The double-headed arrows connecting the different issues in Figure 32 represent the fits or linkages among them. Organizations need to match answers to one set of questions with answers to other sets of questions to achieve high levels of effectiveness. The key point is to think systemically — interventions aimed at one kind of organizational issue will invariably have repercussions on other kinds of issues.

Organizational Levels: In addition to facing interrelated issues, organizations function at different levels — individual, group, organization, and trans-organization. Thus, organizational levels are targets of change in OD. Table 8 lists OD interventions in terms of the level of organization that they primarily affect. For example, some techno-structural interventions affect mainly individuals and groups (for example, work design), whereas others impact primarily the total organization (for example, structural design). Many OD interventions also have a secondary impact on the other levels.

🔑 Definition — Intervention: A set of sequenced planned actions or events intended to help an organization increase its effectiveness.

🔑 Definition — Valid information: Information that results from an accurate diagnosis of the organization's functioning and reflects fairly what organization members perceive and feel about their primary concerns and issues.

🔑 Definition — Free and informed choice: The condition where members are actively involved in making decisions about changes that will affect them, including the option to not participate.

🔑 Definition — Internal commitment: When organization members accept ownership of the intervention and take responsibility for implementing it.

🔑 Definition — Contingencies: Factors in the change situation or related to the target of change that can affect intervention success and must be considered in designing interventions.

Overview of interventions

The OD interventions are briefly described below. They represent the major organizational change methods used in OD today.

Human Process Interventions

These interventions focus on people within organizations and the processes through which they accomplish organizational goals. These processes include communication, problem solving, group decision making, and leadership. This type of intervention is deeply rooted in the history of OD. It represents the earliest change programs characterizing OD, including the T-group and the organizational confrontation meeting. Human process interventions derive mainly from the disciplines of psychology and social psychology and the applied fields of group dynamics and human relations.

Human process interventions related to interpersonal relationships and group dynamics include the following four interventions:

1. T-group: This traditional change method provides members with experiential learning about group dynamics, leadership, and interpersonal relations. The basic T-group brings ten to fifteen strangers together with a professional trainer to examine the social dynamics that emerge from their interactions. Members gain feedback about the impact of their own behaviors on each other and learn about group dynamics.

2. Process consultation: This intervention focuses on interpersonal relations and social dynamics occurring in work groups. Typically, a process consultant helps group members diagnose group functioning and devise appropriate solutions to process problems, such as dysfunctional conflict, poor communication, and ineffective norms. The aim is to help members gain the skills and understanding necessary to identify and solve problems themselves.

3. Third-party intervention: This change method is a form of process consultation aimed at dysfunctional interpersonal relations in organizations. Interpersonal conflict may derive from substantive issues, such as disputes over work methods, or from interpersonal issues, such as miscommunication. The third-party intervener helps people resolve conflicts through such methods as problem solving, bargaining, and conciliation.

4. Team building: This intervention helps work groups become more effective in accomplishing tasks. Like process consultation, team building helps members diagnose group processes and devise solutions to problems. It goes beyond group processes, however, to include examination of the group's task, member roles, and strategies for performing tasks.

Human process interventions that are more system-wide typically focus on the total organization or an entire department, as well as on relations between groups. These include the following four change programs:

1. Organization confrontation meeting: This change method mobilizes organization members to identify problems, set action targets, and begin working on problems. It is usually applied when organizations are experiencing stress and when management needs to organize resources for immediate problem solving.

2. Inter-group relations: These interventions are designed to improve interactions among different groups or departments in organizations. The microcosm group intervention involves a small group of people whose backgrounds closely match the organizational problems being addressed. The inter-group conflict model typically involves a consultant helping two groups understand the causes of their conflict and choose appropriate solutions.

3. Large-group interventions: These interventions involve getting a broad variety of stakeholders into a large meeting to clarify important values, to develop new ways of working, to articulate a new vision for the organization, or to solve pressing organizational problems.

4. Grid organization development: This normative intervention specifies a particular way to manage an organization. It is a packaged OD program that includes standardized instruments for measuring organizational practices and specific procedures for helping organizations to achieve the prescribed approach.

Techno-structural Interventions

These interventions focus on an organization's technology (for example, task methods and job design) and structure (for example, division of labor and hierarchy). These change methods are receiving increasing attention in OD, especially in light of current concerns about productivity and organizational effectiveness. They include approaches to employee involvement, as well as methods for designing organizations, groups, and jobs. Techno-structural interventions are rooted in the disciplines of engineering, sociology, and psychology and in the applied fields of socio-technical systems and organization design.

The following three techno-structural interventions are concerned with restructuring organizations:

1. Structural design: This change process concerns the organization's division of labor — how to specialize task performances. Interventions aimed at structural design include moving from more traditional ways of dividing the organization's overall work (such as functional, self-contained-unit, and matrix structures) to more integrative and flexible forms (such as process-based and network-based structures).

2. Downsizing: This intervention reduces costs and bureaucracy by decreasing the size of the organization through personnel layoffs, organization redesign, and outsourcing. Each of these downsizing methods must be planned with a clear understanding of the organization's strategy.

3. Reengineering: This recent intervention radically redesigns the organization's core work processes to create tighter linkage and coordination among the different tasks. This work-flow integration results in faster, more responsive task performance. Reengineering is often accomplished with new information technology that permits employees to control and coordinate work processes more effectively.

Employee involvement (EI): This broad category of interventions is aimed at improving employee well-being and organizational effectiveness. It generally attempts to move knowledge, power, information, and rewards downward in the organization. EI includes parallel structures (such as cooperative union-management projects and quality circles), high-involvement plants, and total quality management.

Work design: These change programs are concerned with designing work for work groups and individual jobs. The intervention includes engineering, motivational, and socio-technical systems approaches that produce traditionally designed jobs and work groups; enriched jobs that provide employees with greater task variety, autonomy, and feedback about results; and self-managing teams that can govern their own task behaviors with limited external control.

Human Resources Management Interventions

These interventions focus on personnel practices used to integrate people into organizations. These practices include career planning, reward systems, goal setting, and performance appraisal — change methods that traditionally have been associated with the personnel function in organizations. Human resources management interventions are rooted in the disciplines of economics and labor relations and in the applied personnel practices of wages and compensation, employee selection and placement, performance appraisal, and career development.

Interventions concerning performance management include the following change programs:

1. Goal setting: This change program involves setting clear and challenging goals. It attempts to improve organization effectiveness by establishing a better fit between personal and organizational objectives. Managers and subordinates periodically meet to plan work, review accomplishments, and solve problems in achieving goals.

2. Performance appraisal: This intervention is a systematic process of jointly assessing work-related achievements, strengths, and weaknesses. It is the primary human resources management intervention for providing performance feedback to individuals and work groups. Performance appraisal represents an important link between goal setting and reward systems.

3. Reward systems: This intervention involves the design of organizational rewards to improve employee satisfaction and performance. It includes innovative approaches to pay, promotions, and fringe benefits.

Three change methods associated with developing and assisting organization members include:

1. Career planning and development: This intervention helps people choose organizations and career paths and attain career objectives. It generally focuses on managers and professional staff and is seen as a way of improving the quality of their work life.

2. Managing workforce diversity: This change program makes human resources practices more responsive to a variety of individual needs. Important trends, such as the increasing number of women, ethnic minorities, and physically and mentally challenged people in the workforce, require a more flexible set of policies and practices.

3. Employee wellness: These interventions include employee assistance programs (EAPs) and stress management. EAPs are counseling programs that help employees deal with substance abuse, mental health, marital, and financial problems that often are associated with poor work performance. Stress management programs help workers cope with the negative consequences of stress at work.

Strategic Interventions

Interventions that link the internal functioning of the organization to the larger environment and transform the organization to keep pace with changing conditions are among the newest additions to OD. They are implemented organization-wide and bring about a fit between business strategy, structure, culture, and the larger environment. The interventions derive from the disciplines of strategic management, organization theory, open-systems theory, and cultural anthropology.

Major interventions for managing organization and environment relationships involve:

1. Integrated strategic change: This comprehensive OD intervention describes how planned change can make a value-added contribution to strategic management. It argues that business strategies and organizational systems must be changed together in response to external and internal disruptions.

2. Trans-organization development: This intervention helps organizations enter into alliances, partnerships, and joint ventures to perform tasks or solve problems that are too complex for single organizations to resolve.

3. Merger and acquisition integration: This intervention describes how OD practitioners can assist two or more organizations to form a new entity. Addressing key strategic, leadership, and cultural issues prior to the legal and financial transaction helps to smooth operational integration.

Interventions for transforming organizations include:

1. Culture change: This intervention helps organizations develop cultures (behaviors, values, beliefs, and norms) appropriate to their strategies and environments. It focuses on developing a strong organization culture to keep organization members pulling in the same direction.

2. Self-designing organizations: This change program helps organizations gain the capacity to alter themselves fundamentally. It is a highly participative process involving multiple stakeholders in setting strategic directions and designing and implementing appropriate structures and processes.

3. Organization learning and knowledge management: This intervention describes two interrelated change processes: Organization Learning (OL), which seeks to enhance an organization's capability to acquire and develop new knowledge, and Knowledge Management (KM), which focuses on how that knowledge can be organized and used to improve organization performance.

📐 Formula: Intervention Effectiveness = Valid Information + Free & Informed Choice + Internal Commitment → Organizational Change

📌 Example: A team-building intervention designed for top managers at an American firm may need to be modified when applied to the company's foreign subsidiaries, because the cultural context (contingency related to change situation) requires adjustments to fit local values and assumptions about hierarchy and communication.

⭐ Key Takeaways

Effective OD interventions must meet three critical criteria: they must fit the organization's needs (based on valid information, free choice, and internal commitment), be grounded in causal knowledge of intended outcomes, and transfer change-management competence to organization members. When designing interventions, practitioners must consider contingencies related to the change situation (readiness, capability, cultural context, and their own skills) and contingencies related to the target of change (organizational issues and levels). The four major categories of OD interventions — human process, techno-structural, human resources management, and strategic — each address specific organizational issues and operate at different levels, but must be integrated systemically because organizational issues are interrelated. A key principle is to think systemically: interventions at one level or addressing one issue will affect other levels and issues, requiring careful integration of multiple change programs.

🧠 Quick Revision Questions

1. What are the three major criteria that define an effective OD intervention, and what does each criterion require in practice?

2. List the four contingencies related to the change situation that must be considered when designing any OD intervention.

3. What are the four interrelated organizational issues that serve as key targets of OD interventions, and what type of intervention corresponds to each issue?

4. Name the four human process interventions that focus on interpersonal relationships and group dynamics, and briefly describe what each one does.

5. What is the difference between Organization Learning (OL) and Knowledge Management (KM) as described in strategic interventions?