OD INTERVENTIONS INTERVENTIONS
WHAT ARE OD INTERVENTIONS
The term “intervention” refers to a set of sequenced sequenced planned actions or events events intended intended to help an organization increase its its effectiveness. effectiveness. Interventions Interventions purposely purposely disrupt disrupt the status status quo; they are deliberate attempts to change an organization organization or or subunit subunit toward a different 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 which it is based on causal knowledge of intended intended outcomes; and (3) the extent to which it transfers change change management management competence to organization members. 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 oppor- tunities to make free and informed choices; and they gain members’ internal commit- ment ment to those those choices. The second criterion of an effective intervention involves knowledge of outcomes. outcomes. Because interventions are intended to produce specific results, they must be based on valid knowledge that those outcomes actually can be produced. Otherwise there is no scientific basis for designing an effective OD intervention. 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 fol- lowing an intervention, organization members should be better able to carry out planned change activities on their own.
WHAT QUALIFIES TO BE AN OD INTERVENTION
1. It should be planned (unplanned activities and problem solving efforts are not OD). 2. It follows a sequential process. Burke (1982) presented eight steps of entry; start up, diagnosis or assessment and feedback, action planning, interventions, evaluation including an assessment of change and improvements, adoption and separation or disengagement. 3. It should be long term. Short term interventions, one time activities and specific time bound tasks or problem solving experiences by themselves are not not OD.
4. It should aim at the whole organization. The organization may be sub unit within the unit but the whole of it must be dealt with. Tinkering with small unit of a unit cannot be considered as OD. Can improvements in
4. It should aim at the whole organization. The organization may be sub unit within the unit but the whole of it must be dealt with. Tinkering with small unit of a unit cannot be considered as OD. Can improvements in delegation by the top management through a task force be considered OD? The answer is No. the same may be considered as OD if it is initiated by a specialist 5. Should start form the top. This ensures seriousness and implementation. 6. Should be based on Behavioural science knowledge. Should be collaborative effort between the organization and the facilitator (external or internal) 7. Aim at improvements in the organization which means change, effectiveness, vision any one or more aspects of the organization functioning
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. Two major sets of contingencies that can affect intervention success are: those having to do with the change situation (including the practitioner) and those related to the target of change. Both kinds of contingencies need to be considered in designing interventions.
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 t op-management support).
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 such conditions are present, interventions can be designed to address the organizational issues uncovered during diagnosis.
Capability to Change An organization’s change capability is a function of the change- related knowledge and skills present in the organization, the resources and systems devoted to change, and the organization’s experience with
change. First, managing planned change requires particular knowledge and skills (as outlined in Chapter 10), including the ability to motivate change, to lead change, to develop political support, and to sustain Second, change requires infrastructure the transition. and project
change. First, managing planned change requires particular knowledge and skills (as outlined in Chapter 10), including the ability to motivate change, to lead change, to develop political support, and to sustain momentum. Second, change requires an infrastructure to support the transition. Program and project management offices, consulting resources, and shared models of the change process are necessary to oversee execution. Finally, an organiza- tion must have experience with and learnings from change to have a change capability.
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.
Contingencies Related to the Target of Change OD interventions seek to change specific features or parts of organizations. These tar- gets 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.
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. These strategic issues are among the most critical ones facing organizations in today’s changing and highly competitive environments. OD methods aimed at these issues are called strategic interventions. 2. Technological and structural issues. Organizations must decide how to divide work into departments and then how to coordinate among those departments to support strategic directions. They also must make decisions about how to deliver products or services and how to link people to tasks. 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.
Types of OD
Interventions
and Organizational Issues
Types of OD
Interventions
and Organizational Issues
STRATEGIC CHANGE INTERVENTIONS
Transformational Change Continuous Change Transorganizational Change
STRATEGIC ISSUES What functions, products, services, markets How to gain competitive advantage How to relate to environment What values will guide organizational functioning
TECHNOSTRUCTURAL INTERVENTIONS
Restructuring Organizations
TECHNOLOGY/ STRUCTURE ISSUES
HUMAN RESOURCES ISSUES
How to divide labor
How to attract competent people
How to coordinate departments
How to set goals and reward people
Employee Involvement Work Design
How to produce products or services
How to plan and develop people's careers
How to design work
HUMAN PROCESS ISSUES How to communicate How to solve problems How to make decisions How to interact How to lead
HUMAN PROCESS INTERVENTIONS
Interpersonal and Group Process Approaches
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT INTERVENTIONS
Performanc e Manageme nt
Developing Talent Managing Workforce Diversity and Wellness
Interpersonal and Group Process Approaches Organization Process Approaches
OVERVIEW OF INTERVENTIONS
Human Process Interventions This type of intervention is deeply rooted in the history of OD and represents the earliest change programs characterizing OD. Human process interventions derive mainly from the disciplines of psychology and social psychology and the applied fields of group dynamics and human relations. 1. 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. 2. 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. 3. 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. 4. 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. The intervention generally includes various groupings of employees in identifying and solving problems. 5. Intergroup 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. This group addresses the problem and develops means to solve it. The intergroup conflict model typically involves a consultant helping two groups understand the causes of their conflict and choose appropriate solutions.
6. 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. Such meetings are powerful tools for creating
6. 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. Such meetings are powerful tools for creating awareness of organizational problems and opportunities and f or specifying valued directions for future action.
Technostructural Interventions These are interventions focusing on an organization’s technology (for example, task methods and job design) and structure (for example, division of labour and hierarchy). They include approaches to employee involvement, as well as methods for designing organizations, groups, and jobs. Technostructural interventions are rooted in the disciplines of engineering, sociology, and psychology
1. Structural design. This change process concerns the organization’s division of labour — 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, customer-centric, and network-based structures). Diagnostic guidelines exist to determine which structure is appropriate for particular organizational environments, technologies, and conditions. 2. Downsizing. This intervention reduces costs and bureaucracy by decreasing the size of the organization through personnel layoffs, organization redesign, and out- sourcing. Each of these downsizing methods must be planned with a clear under- standing 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 workflow 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.
Human Resources Management Interventions These practices include career planning, reward systems, goal setting, and performance appraisal — change methods that traditionally have been associated with the human resources function in organizations. In recent years, interest has grown in integrating human resources management with OD. Human resources management interventions are rooted in labour relations and in the applied practices of compensation and benefits, employee selection and placement, performance appraisal, and career development. Interventions concerning performance management, including the following change programs:
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Integrated strategic change Organization design Culture ch an ge
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Integrated strategic change Organization design Culture ch an ge Self-designing organizations Organization learning and knowledge Management Built to change Merger and acquisition integration Strategic alliance interventions Network Interventions
CASE STUDY- 1 A PSU IN INDIA
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CASE STUDY- 1 A PSU IN INDIA
French & Bell have defined OD to be the applied behavioural science discipline dedicated to improving organizations and the people in them through the use of theory and practice of planned change. They have said that Basically OD is a process for teaching people how to solve problems, take advantage of opportunities, and learn how to do that better and better over time. OD focuses on issues related to human side of the organizations by finding ways to increase the effectiveness of individuals, teams and the organization & human and social processes. Driven by these basics of OD, a leading Public Sector Undertaking of India, (having an employee’s strength of approx 33,000) embarked upon the Organization Development program in the year 2005 with the help of an eminent consultant. It started off with the Action Research Model (French & Bell, page 100 ), involving Data Collection; Analysis of the data ( with the help of a consultant ); Action Planning on the basis of analysis of the data . Subsequent steps taken were as below
-A company-wide climate survey was conducted to obtain the data which could throw up the areas/actions for OD interventions. - Data, thus obtained, was used to make an action plan. The action plan, termed as HRD framework, was presented to the Board of Directors. After approval of the action plan by Board of Directors, Change Agents were earmarked, one for each location/division. Selection of the change agents was done, keeping the recommendation of the consultant in mind, that, since OD was a people’s program, the change agents should necessarily be line managers who have demonstrated to possess good people skills. The change agents were given extensive training on behavioural skills (most of which are termed as soft skills in present day parlance ) - The change agents were made responsible for implementation of HRD framework. They were placed administratively under Chief of HR at each location, the underlying concept being that once the HRD framework had been implemented and institutionalized, the Chief of HR would be its custodian for its assimilation with the regular HR practices and policies. The OD action plan (HRD Framework) & its implementation
Role Analysis has been a rather more acceptable strategy in India. RA has been described as one of the team building techniques and has been adequately explained by French & Bell (page 166-168) .The two authors have also acknowledged the work of Prof Ishwar Dayal of India, with regard to RA. In simple words, Role Analysis (RA) implies analyzing the role of a person/position in the organization. Job description is something akin to RA, the subtle difference being that RA deals with total role of a person ( including competencies ) whereas JD is a mere description of the job ( may not clearly focus on competencies). The enclosed HRD Framework shows the different derivatives (sub systems) of Role Analysis along with their linkages, pursued by the organization under discussion. It will be prudent here to mention that many of these RA derivatives (sub-systems) were already in vogue in the organization, but not so effectively linked as t hey became after the OD interventions. As on today, RA and all its subsystems have been institutionalized and the organization is now preparing for next phase of OD Interventions.
CASE STUDY- 2 TCS
In the years 1998-99, TCS had grown into the largest Indian software company with revenues of over Rs. 1600 crores and racing towards achieving its vision of being global top ten. As pioneers in the industry, TCS’s strengths included on time delivery, premier position in the industry in terms of revenues, focus on training programs, quality initiatives, use of good technical tools and procedures and encouragement of individual excellence in performance. However, TCS was also, at that point in time, grappling with a few areas of concern with regard to its operational paradigm. Mounting revenue pressures: The pressure to retain its strong premier position led the organization to tend towards short-term revenues, and relatively lesser efforts were being put into medium and long-term markets and activities (such as products and building up knowledge). Selectivity in projects: There was a tangible tension at TCS, between generating revenues and organizing strategically, on basis of technology and business areas, impacting selectivity in projects accepted. Efforts on Experimentation & Innovation: The management at TCS felt that by and large, employees tended to go straight by the book. Though Dr. De Bono’s techniques were introduced and employees trained on these techniques to encourage innovation, there was a need to scale up on perceived rewards for experimentation. Rewards and Recognitions: The reward structure at TCS was, at this point in time, primarily focused on individual performance and we were yet to explore the institutionalization of team based rewards at the organizational level. Inter group co-ordination & knowledge sharing: Sharing of knowledge was very centre-oriented, and although, informally, best practices spread by interaction and word of mouth, we were yet to evolve a formal system which would capture these for ease of replication across projects. Branding and PR: Image building endeavours were not yet an area of focus and, in a subtle way, this affected the sense of pride of employees. Among educational institutions, this meant greater difficulty in terms of attracting quality talent, which further aggravated stress among the few key performers in the organization. By the year 2002, management felt the conscious need to bring in changes in our approach to the aforementioned areas, in order to align more closely with the customer, business and market requirements at an organizational level.
PROPEL – The Intervention: Culture Building at TCS
PROPEL was introduced as a revolutionary intervention with the dual objectives of facilitating the exchange of ideas and helping in immediate problem solving, while also encouraging bonding and self-development among and within teams. PROPEL was introduced as a platform and a tool to help bring about this change, in consonance with the TCS belief of “Let us make it a joy for all our stakeholders”. Promoting continuous improvement at a cross-
functional level was one of the envisaged objectives. Change management was enabled through alignment with growth strategy; by creating platforms for dialogue on the current and emerging experience of the organization.
Professional Excellence: How do I become a role model and a friend?
Role Enhancement: How do I take up new responsibilities and set new directions?
Owning TCS Culture: Personal Growth:
How do I influence culture?
How do I walk the the journey of self discovery and growth?
Employee Involvement: How do I enable continuous improvement?
Learning: How do I enable Team learning?
This was brought about through the following stages: 1. Initiation: The Spiral dynamics framework was used to map the relationship in terms of its evolution. Tools were administered to a group of Project Managers to identify the gaps between where the team is (current state) and where it should be (desired state) and the steps to be taken to bridge this gap. 2. Awareness sessions & Workshops: Overviews on Spiral Dynamics and its application to achieve team alignment was shared with the team. In Jan 2005, a workshop was organized with the team to discuss the findings based on the analysis of data. 3. Gap analysis: This was done to enhance understanding of the different roles for each job position, identify the ones suitable for the different job positions and come up with action items to address the themes agreed upon. As a next step, each member had to identify the gaps based on the role selected. For e.g.: The below roles were identified for a team member job position: •
Self-developer
•
Team Player
•
Craftsperson
4. Implementing improvement plan: Follow-up meetings were held at 6-8 week intervals to monitor progress made as well as to identify areas of improvement using Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. The Team Alignment tool was created in September 2005 with an aim of cascading the team alignment concept to the team member level in a shorter span of time. 5. Next steps: The team now has a 30, 60, 90 day implementation plan for the same. Incorporation of the three high priority action items arising from the team alignment exercise, as goals in the team was contemplated. Additionally a PROPEL camp was planned, to agree upon the steps to be taken to close the action items for each of the roles.
Post OD scenario
Organizational Development interventions have been instrumental in terms of enhancing value to the customer & employee at Tata Consultancy Services. PROPEL as an organization wide intervention, encouraged sharing of ownership and empowerment to change, as also the sharing of success stories and best practices across the organization. Valuing of employees was institutionalized through establishing processes that enable and enhance individual performance, and lead to empowered project teams. Issue based mentoring was facilitated, with camps and confluences as enabling frameworks. While confluences invested in personal transformation for the employee, camps invested in improving the workspace. Through Scenario building, a collective transformation of dreams and concerns into response capabilities was envisaged. Continuous scanning of environment for opportunities and threats was proactively looked at, to collectively map the business domain of TCS. Goal alignment through cascading of Balanced Score Card concept could be achieved organization wide. There was continuous investment in learning, and an active sharing of knowledge with the aim to convert learning into action. Further, the focus shifted to adding knowledge through delighting every customer.
The earlier tendency of self-sacrificing hard work was replaced by a shift of focus to teamwork and valuing of the employee. The OD intervention at TCS helped push self imposed boundaries and limitations through challenging organizational boundaries and limitations constantly.
In a nutshell, the OD interventions at TCS have helped build a culture of fostering systems thinking & creating forums for dialogue, while encouraging leadership at all levels. For the organization at large, OD helped to reiterate the merits of valuing enquiry, expressing differences, and constantly generating new knowledge.
