What is Organizational Development?

Organizational Development

Organization development (OD), as a practice, involves an ongoing, systematic process of implementing effective organizational change. Organizational Development applies community values and employs them to develop corporate loyalty, health, engagement, and coordination. OD is interdisciplinary in nature and draws on sociology, psychology, particularly industrial and organizational psychology, and theories of motivation, learning, and personality.

Core values

Underlying Organizational Development are human values employed to build corporate loyalty, health, engagement, and coordination:

1. Reach Full Potential – creating an environment so every organization team member, as well as the organization itself, is primed to develop to their full potential.
2. Supportive Environment – provide a workplace atmosphere so team members can function as human beings rather than as a resource in the productive process.
3. Coordination – building coordination and efficiency to increase the effectiveness of the organization in terms of meeting all its goals.
4. Building a Company of Immortals – create a corporate ecosystem which supports including team members who are smarter and more capable than the management
5. Interest and Energy – make it accessible and possible to do exciting and challenging work.
6. Work/Life Balance – providing systems that influence team members to relate to their work, colleagues, organization, and home life in healthy growth full ways.
7. Humanity – treating every human being as a person with a complex set of needs, all of which are important to their work and their life.

5 Stages of Corporate Organization Development

What are the five stages of organizational development?

• Introductions, Agreement, and Trust. Authenticity, presence and empathy are vital elements to begin the process. This stage builds the foundation for all future interactions and clear guidelines and boundaries must be understood by all and agreed to.
• Awareness, Understanding, and Discovery. Finding the relational difficulties and operational breakdowns. Through discovery, working through these impasses building toward full disclosure and participant understanding and empathy. Mending challenging dynamics.
• Analysis and Feedback. Facilitator will layout the issues and challenges and will give feedback and strategies to ameliorate and improve corporate team cohesion.
• Planning Interventions and Action. Develop a plan to implement new systems and interactions to enhance and support a healthier more productive team environment.
• Evaluation and Closure. Closure meetings are the most important part of the process. Change isn’t something that happens at one particular moment.  Healthy change occurs over time. Closure meetings set the canvas for what happens after the facilitated process and can be the difference between accomplishing huge change and building a company of immortals that will exponentially grow and slaughter the competition.  

Objectives

The objectives of Organizational Development (OD) are:

1. to increase the level of inter-personal trust among employees
2. to increase employees’ level of satisfaction and commitment
3. to confront problems instead of neglecting them
4. to effectively manage conflict
5. to increase cooperation and collaboration among employees
6. to increase organizational problem-solving
7. to put in place processes that will help improve the ongoing operation of an organization on a continuous basis

The objectives of organizational development will vary from one situation to another. OD programs are tailored to meet the requirements of each particular business and environment. But broadly speaking, all organizational development programs try to achieve the following objectives:

1. making individuals in the organization aware of the vision of the organization. Organizational development helps in making employees align with the vision of the organization
2. encouraging employees to solve problems instead of avoiding them
3. strengthening inter-personal trust, cooperation, and communication for the successful achievement of organizational goals
4. encouraging every individual to participate in the process of planning, thus making them feel responsible for the implementation of the plan
5. creating a work atmosphere in which employees are encouraged to work and participate enthusiastically
6. replacing formal lines of authority with personal knowledge and skill
7. preparing members to align with changes and to break stereotypes
8. creating an environment of trust so that employees willingly accept change

Organization development provides managers with a vehicle for introducing change systematically by applying a broad selection of management techniques. This, in turn, leads to greater personal, group, and organizational effectiveness.