Real World Application of OD Principles - Essay Example

A young entrepreneur, like me, would see this as the best opportunity to grow operations in the town and strive to become the major employer following automotive support industry’s departure. This task would not be an easy one, as it involves turning around the company, giving it a three-sixty degree change to position it for business growth and success. Development and change does not only need to take place in one department but at an organizational level. For any organizational development to occur there must be a set of sound and clearly specified principles or guidelines.

These principles perform the task of a compass to navigate the course of an organizational developmental project, making use of the right framework and bringing in to practice the perfect tools and technology. In absence of these clearly defined strategic and operating principles, decisions and choices related to the organizational development framework, tool and technology will miss the desired target. One will not be able to ensure the achievment of complete organisation development for sustainable efficient performance.

There will be no guarantee of achieving total organization development for sustainable high performance. Instead, one will be relying on luck. (OD Synergy, 2008) However, in order to incorporate organizational development principles in our practice, it is imperative to understand what organization development is. Organization Development (OD) is 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 organizations “processes,” using behavioral-science knowledge.

(Richard Beckhard, 1969) OD holds the key of an organization’s long-term success. It is easy to make money in the short run; however, making an organization that sustains even in hard times is not an easy task. OD takes into consideration the idea that if employees are given respect and importance, they will be more productive and organization as a whole would benefit. (Honorable Leadership, 2010) In order to capitalize on the given opportunity I, as CEO of Fortune Mart (chain of stores), need to efficiently apply Organization Development principles and guidelines and strategize accordingly.

First and foremost it is vital to ensure that employees are given respect and everyone’s opinion is given importance. My next step towards this would be ‘Empowerment’ of my current human resource. This would primarily be done to provide job security to employees in order to counter the threats they would face from the prevailing rise in unemployment that might bring down their efficiency and productivity. Therefore in order to motivate them, OD intervention must empower the people so that they operate flawlessly for high performance.

In the long run, this would result in a stable and loyal workforce. Third step would be to create a ‘Vision and Mission’ to drive the organization further. The basic purpose behind written vision, mission and short term objectives is to make sure that the employees’ aims and objectives are aligned with those of the organizations. Apart from that, vision and mission give the outsiders a picture of what the company is and what it aspires to be in the future. The next step in