ORGANISATION DEVELOPMENT

Chapter-1
Organization Development (OD)

Introduction of OD
Meaning:

Organization development can be defined as a technique for bringing change in the organization rather than focusing attention on individuals. Organization development is a systematic process for applying behavioral sciences principles and practices in organization to increase individual and organizational effectiveness.

Definitions of OD

According to Cummings and Worley, "Organization

development is a system-wide application of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of organizational strategies, structures, and processes for improving an organization's effectiveness."

Definitions of OD

According to Beckhard, Organization Development

is an effort planned, organization-wide, and managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization's 'processes,' using behavioral-science knowledge.

Characteristics of OD
1. It is an educational strategy for bringing planned

changes. 2. It is related to real problems of the organization. 3. Laboratory training methods based on experienced behavior are primarily used to bring change. 4. Change agent applying OD technique for change is external to the forms of consultants.

Characteristics of OD
5. There is a close working relationship between

change agents and the people who are being changed. The relationships involve mutual trust, joint goals and means, and means, and mutual influence. 6. The change agents share a social philosophy about human values. They are humanists seeking to get a humanistic philosophy in organizations.

Conclusion
This strategy addresses the training needs required

for the change. The people are trained accordingly with more emphasis on human relations. This is used for more general and lasting aim of developing the organization's own training function rather than accomplishing an immediate discrete change. The aim is to achieve in the organization a pervasive sense of continuous development and heightened receptivity and readiness for change.

History of OD
In the late 1960s organizational development was

implemented in organizations via consultants, but was relatively unknown as a theory of practice and had no common definition among its practitioners. Richard Beckhard, an authority on organizational development and change management, defined organizational development as "an effort, planned, organization-wide, and managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization's processes, using behavioral-science knowledge" (Beckhard 1969).

The Laboratory Training Stem

A T-group or training group is a form of group where

participants themselves learn about themselves through their interaction with each other. They use feedback, problem solving, and role play to gain insights into themselves, others, and groups. It was pioneered in the mid 1940s by Moreno's protg Kurt Lewin and his colleagues as a method of learning about human behavior in what became The National Training Laboratories (now NTL Institute) that was created by the Office of Naval Research and the National Education Association in Bethel, Maine, in 1947. First conceived as a research technique with a goal to change the standards, attitudes and behavior of individuals, the T-group evolved into educational and treatment schemes for non-psychiatric people.

Chris Argyris
In 1957, Chris Argyris was one of the first to conduct

team building sessions with CEO and top executives team. Two of Argyriss early clients were IBM and Exxon. Argyris was later to make contribution to the theory and research on laboratory training, OD and organizational learning. One of his several books on OD, Intervention Theory and Method, stand as classic in the field.

Douglas McGregor
Beginning about 1957, Douglas McGregor was one of

the first behavioral scientists to address the transfer problem and to talk systematically about and to help implement the application of T-group skills in complex organization. John Paul Jones, Who had come up through industrial relations in collaboration with McGregor and established small internal consulting group. Joness organization was later called an organization development group.

Richard Beckard
Richard Beckard worked with McGregor at General

Mills in 1959 or 1960, in an attempt to facilitate A total organization culture change program which today might be called quality of life or OD. Beckard development one of the first major non degree training program in OD, NTLs program for specialists in Organizational Training and Development(PSOTD). The first was an intensive four-week session held in summer of 1967 at Bethel.

THE SURVEY RESEARCH AND FEEDBACK STEM

The SRC ( Survey Research Centre) was founded in

1946 after Renis Likert. Likert held a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia and his dissertation. He conducted research on leadership, motivation, moral and productivity. In 1948 after helping to develop and direct the Survey research center, Likert became the director of a new institute for social research , which included both the SRC and Research Center for group Dynamics.

THE ACTION RESEARCH STEM

In the 1940s John Collier, Kurt Lewin, and William

Whyte discovered that research needed to be closely linked to action if organizational members were to use it to manage change. Action research has two results: 1) organizational members use research on themselves to guide action and change, while 2) researchers were able to study the process to gain new information.

ACTION RESEARCH STEM

Two noted action research studies was the work of

Lewin and his students at the Hardwood Manufacturing Company (Marrow, Bowers & Seashore, 1967) and Lester Coch and John French's classic research on overcoming resistance to change (Coch & French, 1948).

THE SOCIOTECHNICAL AND SOCIOLINICAL STEM

A fourth stem in the history of OD is the evolution of

socioclinical and sociotechnical approaches to helping groups and organizations. In 1960 14 individuals from India visited U.S. and studied in NTL. In 1971 by Francis Menezes proposal, a two day conference fro establishing an association of TGroup facilitators was held in Pune. As a result the Indian society for Applied Behavioral Science (ISABS) was established in 1972.

W.R.Bion, Rickman and others

Bion, Rickman and others had been involved with

the six week Northfield Experiment at a military hospital near Birmingham during world War-II. In this experiment each soldier was required to join a group that performed some task such as handicraft or map reading as well as discussed feelings, interpersonal relations and administrative and managerial problems. Insights from this experiment carried over into Bions theory of group behavior.

SECOND GENERATION OD
Practitioners and researchers are giving considerable

attention to emerging concepts, interventions and areas of application that might be called second generation OD. Second generation has a focus on organizational transformation.

SECOND GENERATION OD
More and more practitioner and scholars are talking

about organization transformation. Amir Levy and Uri Merry give one of the most complete exploration of this topic in their book, Organization Transformation. Beckard and Pritchard contrast incremental change strategies and fundamental change strategies.

SECOND GENERATION OD
Argyris has focused on the defensive routines of

organizational members or master programs in their heads that tell them how to deal with embarrassment and threat. The interest had accelerated due to converging pressures on organization to improve quality, to become more flexible, to reduce layers of management and to enhance employee morale.

SECOND GENERATION OD
Laboratory training methods have proved highly

useful in training team members in effective membership and leadership behavior and in training supervisors and managers in the arts of delegation and empowerment. Many organization use team building approaches to help self managed teams and cross functional teams get started. Interest in TQM Interest in Visioning and Future Search

Extent of Application
Applications have varied, with the total organization

involved in many instance, but with only some divisions or plants in others. OD approaches have become an ongoing way of managing with little program visibility and under different terminology. Applications can be made , for example, in public schools, colleges, medical schools, social welfare agencies ,police department, professional associations at local, country ,state and national levels.

Extent of Application
The OD Network began in 1964 and by 1998 had a

membership of about 34,000 and 46 regional networks. Although most Network members reside in the united States , in 1998 the Network included 184 international members, the majority from Canada. 31 countries were represented in addition to the united States. The first doctoral program devoted to training OD specialists was founded by Herbert Shepard in 1960 at Case Institute of Technology.

Conclusion
OD emerged from applied behavioral sciences and

has four major stems: 1) Invention of T-group and innovations in applications of Laboratory training insights to complex organizations. 2) invention of survey feedback technology. 3) Emergence of action research 4) Evolution of the Tavistock sociolinical approaches.