Images of Organisation - Assignment Example

OD Case study Report Organization development is the process of improving organizations. An OD strategy may be defined as the overall plan that isformulated to integrate and relate all the different activities an organization may engage in over a period of time in order to achieve the objectives of organizational transformation.(Harvey and Brown, 2001). This process seeks to implement large scale changes in the orientation of an organization to its environment, vision, goals and strategies. “An organizational transformation usually results in new paradigms or models for organizing and performing work. The overall goal of organizational transformation is to simultaneously improve organizational effectiveness and individual well being.” (French, Bell and Zawacki, 2000:pvii). A team based approach to organizational development involves the creation of working groups who will be responsible for creating segments of finished work and improving the manner in which the members of the team interact with each other in order to ensure that the team activity goals and objectives are achieved. The team building process that is being recommended by the Consultant in this instance, is a six step process. During team building, new working models are developed to improve organizational effectiveness to cope successfully with changes in the environment. As pointed out by Senior and Fleming(2006), organizational systems operate in three kinds of environment – the temporal, external and internal environments. It is only through the interaction of these elements that the triggers of change can be activated in order to successfully bring about organizational changes. Based upon the reading of the case study, it does not appear that the managers fully understand all the aspects involved in team building. They did not possess a good of what is involved in the process at the outset. While improving interactions between members is one aspect of team building, a more accurate description of team building would be the development of independent teams who work in regular sessions to engage in problem solving. (Moxon, 1997:30). Hence, the managers do not appear to have correctly understood the nature of team building. Thirdly, in order to successfully bring about organizational changes, there must be interaction between the internal and external environments. The managers appear to be ignoring this fundamental driver of change when they are keen to carry out the team building themselves, as a purely internal process without much input from external sources. The objective of organizational transformation is the development of new paradigms, which may not successfully materialize if changes in thinking and interacting patterns of teams are not jogged or stimulated by outside elements. 2. The middle managers propose that since they understand what is involved in the team building process, they be allowed to conduct the sessions themselves by selecting a leader from among themselves, who is well liked. The goal of any organizational transformation is the achievement of organizational efficiency. But leaders who attempt to institute such widespread changes may face challenges in gaining acceptance for a new vision that is instituted, as well as the often drastic changes that may accompany such a move.(Harvey and Brown, 2001). To some extent, employees may be more receptive and less resistant to such changes when it is instituted by the managers they are already familiar with. Another advantage of allowing one of the managers to assume the role of a leader in team building would be his or her level of familiarity with the other team members; this would allow them to deal with and interact more easily with team members. Forming and building a team may sometimes be an unpredictable and surprising exercise, were decisions are made on the basis of emotions such as admiration, respect and fierce loyalty. An insider like one of the managers may thus be able to generate such loyalty and flexibility to change among employees more easily than an outsider could. The disadvantage associated with letting the managers undertake the team building is the lack of a fresh, outside third party perspective. Using third parties in team building sessions helps by (a) providing a loose structure for the team building sessions and (b) functioning as a catalyst or facilitator for discussions among members of the team, so that they are able to clarify the issues and resolve them for themselves.(Moxon, 1997:30). Using an outside party also aids in the process of review of existing organizational processes because it provides a perspective which may not be immediately apparent to those individuals who are already within the organization. Another disadvantage with using managers is that they appear to view team building solely as a training workshop where relations between members are to be improved. According to them, all that is required is a good feel for human nature. This is not likely to provide the interaction between external and internal elements required to deal effectively with changes in the environment, neither is it likely to optimize the problem solving process because the existing view and perspective of problems may be limited, much like a frog in a well which is unable to view its position in the context of the world outside. 3. There is a distinct advantage in using external consultants for the team building process. As stated above, using a Consultant allows for the incorporation of a fresh, outside perspective, so that existing problems can be viewed in a new light. French, Bell and Zawacki (2000) have argued that there is a distinction between organizational development and management practice. Approaches which lend themselves well to the managerial function are regulatory and control mechanisms within the firm, such as quality controls and business process reengineering. But organizational development according to French, Bell and Zawacki (2000), deals with the process of engineering organizational change across technology, structure of organization, tasks and people in such a way that three is a greater focus on the human and social implications of these elements on organizational function. Organizations are viewed as social systems and organizational development is the process of promoting the growth of these systems. These goals may best be achieved by consultants who are outside the system are therefore able to see what is fundamentally wrong within the social system. The boundaries of organizational systems are essentially permeable because there is a great deal of interaction with the environment, hence using a consultant allows for the interaction of the external and internal elements as Senior and Fleming (2006) have suggested. There are also some limitations however, that must be pointed out with using consultants. Senior and Fleming have also pointed out the views of experts, suggesting that viewing organizations as complex systems, it may be difficult, if not impossible to understand organizations and the people within them from the point of view of an objective outsider. (Senior and Fleming, 2006:7). Another limitation that has been pointed out by French, Bell and Zawacki (2000) is that organizational development is often confused with organizational culture. As a result, outside consultants tend to view culture as the main entry point into the management of organizations. But the unfortunate widespread adoption of this cultural approach may have undermined the flexibility of the organizational development process to use other metaphors in understanding and managing the process of change within organizations.(Morgan, 1997). Using consultants in this instance may therefore result in the application of a limited cultural approach, while also limiting the information that could be available from the inside perspective that managers have of the organizational process and the people within it. 4. In this instance, the corporate personnel director has directed to hire a Consultant to manage the process of organizational development. This appears to be the correct decision. At the outset, it must be acknowledged that it is possible the consultant may adopt the cultural approach as outlined above, thereby limiting the scope for the application of other metaphors to understand the process of change. But the advantages that may be gained in this instance by using a consultant are much greater. Firstly, there is always resistance within an organization to the process of change and the radical measures that must be instituted in organizational development. When the person instituting such changes is one of the managers, it appears very likely that the focus of the ire and resistance of organizational members will be directed towards him or her and this could jeopardize the position of the individual within the organization and the existing cordial relations with other members that may exist. When an outside person institutes the changes however, there is less scope for personal animosity and in practice, the process of change may be easier to implement, especially if employees are told that they must comply. Furthermore, managers will not have a widespread and objective view of organizational problems while a consultant brings an impersonal and objective perspective that is based upon general organizational knowledge rather than that limited to the organization in question. A consultant, as an outside can help the managers to view aspects they may not have considered before and functions as a catalyst to get people thinking differently and outside-the-box where problems are concerned, so that the team building process can produce innovative solutions. Another important aspect is that the Consultant, being an outsider who is hired for a specific duration of time, will not be exposed to any long term implications of the changes. A manager within the firm who serves as the one instituting changes, will have to stay on with the organization for a long period of time. He or she therefore, may take the recommended changes personally and become too personally invested in it, so that the objective, impartial perspective becomes hard to retain. Since the manager is also functioning within the organization, it is inevitable that his or her personal prejudices and biases will form a component of the recommendations for changes that are instituted. The view of these managers is also limited, precisely due to the position within the organization, hence the solutions that are development may also lack a comprehensive and well rounded approach. In this case, the managers also appear to feel that all that is necessary is an understanding of human nature and do not appear to have sufficient grasp of all the implications of team building. On the basis of all these factors, it appears that hiring the consultant is the right approach in this case. References: * Harvey, D. and Brown, D. R. (2001). “An Experiential Approach to Organisation Development”, Prentice Hall. * French, W. L., Bell, C. H. and Zawacki, R. A. (2000). “Organisation Development and Transformation”, Prentice Hall: International Student Editions. * Morgan, G. (1997). “Images of Organisation”, Sage Publications * Moxon, Peter. (1997). “Building a better team”, Gower Publishing Limited. Read More