Unit 1: Introduction to OD and its foundations

Organisational change is the alteration of an organisation's structure, technology, processes, people or culture.

Distinguishing characteristics of planned change

• Deliberate and goal-directed, not a reaction to events.
• Based on diagnosis of the whole system.
• Involves the people affected; uses a change agent.
• Long-term and continuous, with evaluation and institutionalisation.

• External: competition, technology, government regulation, economic conditions, customer expectations, globalisation, social trends.
• Internal: new leadership, low performance, employee dissatisfaction, growth, new strategy.

The systems model views the organisation as interrelated subsystems (people, structure, technology, tasks, culture); a change in one affects the others. Lewin's force field analysis: any situation is held in balance by driving forces (pushing for change) and restraining forces (resisting it). Change happens by strengthening drivers or, more effectively, weakening restraints.

• Kotter's eight-step model: create urgency, build a guiding coalition, form a vision, communicate it, empower action, generate short-term wins, consolidate gains, anchor changes in culture.
• Positive model (appreciative inquiry): discover what works best and build on it — discovery, dream, design, destiny.

Chin and Benne's strategies:

• Empirical-rational: people change when shown it is in their interest.
• Normative-re-educative: change norms and values through involvement and learning — the strategy most used in OD.
• Power-coercive: change imposed through authority and sanctions.

Organisation development is a long-range effort to improve an organisation's problem-solving and renewal processes through a collaborative management of culture, with the help of a change agent and behavioural science (French and Bell). Features: planned, long-term, system-wide, based on behavioural science, collaborative, uses action research and a change agent, and focuses on culture and processes. Objectives: improve effectiveness, build trust and openness, improve problem-solving, increase collaboration and help people and the organisation grow.

• Target of OD: the whole organisation or its subsystems — individuals, teams, intergroup relations and the total system.

Roots: laboratory training (T-groups) from Kurt Lewin and the National Training Laboratories (1940s); survey research and feedback (University of Michigan); action research (Lewin); and later sociotechnical systems (Tavistock Institute) and quality-of-work-life movements.

• Values: respect for people, trust and support, power equalisation, confrontation of problems, participation.
• About individuals: people want to grow and develop; most can contribute more than the organisation allows.
• About groups: the work group is highly important to people; leaders cannot perform all leadership functions; suppressed feelings hurt problem-solving.
• About organisations: win–lose strategies are often counterproductive; the needs of people and the organisation can be met together; collaboration produces better results than competition.

• An organisation is an open system that takes inputs from the environment, transforms them and returns outputs, with feedback.

• Implications for OD: a change in one part affects others; equifinality — many paths lead to the same result; diagnose the whole system, not isolated symptoms.

• Participation: involving people in decisions that affect them increases commitment, quality of decisions and acceptance of change.
• Empowerment: giving people authority, information, skills and resources to act — it builds ownership and self-efficacy.
• Teams and teamwork: teams are the basic building blocks of OD; effective teams have clear goals, defined roles, open communication, trust and shared leadership. OD uses teams both as targets and as vehicles of change.