Organization Development:

Growth Focus

Session 6: TSHUMRES
Ateneo Graduate School of Business
Team Exercise
 Your organization manufactures golf carts
and sells them to country clubs, golf
courses and consumers. Your team is
faced with the task of assessing how
environmental changes will affect
individuals’ organizational power. Read
each of the five scenarios and then, for
each, identify the five members of the
organization whose power will increase
most in light of the environmental
condition.
Team Exercise
 Advertising expert (m)  New computer-aided
 CFO (f) manufacturing technologies
 Securities analyst (m) are going to be introduced
within 2 to 18 months
 Operations manager (f)  New government pollution
 Industrial engineer (m) standards are being
 Product designer (m) legislated by Congress
 PR expert (m)  Sales are way down; the
 Trainor (m) industry appears to be
shrinking
 Accountant/CPA (m)
 The company is planning to
 GM (m) go international in the next 1
 Marketing manager (f) to 1 ½ years
 Computer programmer (f)  Congress is about to pass
 Chemist (m) legislation that will push
 In-house counsel (m) equal employment
opportunity, especially in
 HR Manager (f) upper management
Team Exercise
 Class will be divided into teams of three to
four people each
 Teams should read each scenario and
identify the five members whose power will
increase most in light of the external
environmental condition mentioned
 After 20 to 30 minutes, reps will present
and justify conclusions to the class
Organization Development
According to Richard Beckhard (in his book, “Organization
Development: Strategies and Models”)

Organization Development 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 organization’s “processes,”
using behavioral-science knowledge.

http://www.odnetwork.org/aboutod/index.php
The Organization Life Cycle
Adizes’ Ten Stages:
1. Courtship
2. Infancy
3. Go-go
4. Adolescence
5. Prime
6. Stability
7. Aristocracy
8. Recrimination
9. Bureaucracy
10. Death

http://www.businessballs.com/adizeslifecycle.htm
http://www.accel-team.com/techniques/orgGrowth.html
How Do Organizations Grow?
 Strategy
 People
 Operations
Growth Strategies
 Integration (forward, backward,
horizontal)
 Market penetration
 Market development
 Product development
 Diversification (concentric,
conglomerate, horizontal)
Nature of Change
 Change is any alteration occurring in
the work environment that affects the
ways in which employees must act.
 May be planned or unplanned,
catastrophic or evolutionary, positive
or negative, strong or weak, slow or
rapid, and stimulated either internally
or externally.
The Hawthorne Effect
 The mere observation of a group –
or, the perception of being observed
and one’s interpretation of its
significance – tends to change the
group.
 When people are observed, or believe
that someone cares about them, they
act differently.
Why Do People Resist Change?
 Habit – why change when everything is
comfortable anyway?
 Security – change is scary, isn’t it?
 Economic factors – my pay may be affected
by these changes!
 Fear of the unknown – dunno what will
happen, don’t wanna find out
 Selective information processing – people
hear what they want to hear and edit out
information that does not fit into their view
of reality
Why Do People Resist Change?
 Structural inertia – there is always a
counter-balance to sustain stability
 Limited focus of change – small changes
tend to get eaten up by the larger system
 Group inertia - group norms actually work
against change
 Threat to expertise – changes in
organization patterns may threaten the
status or expertise of specialized groups
 Threat to established power relationships
 Threat to established resource allocations
Managing Organizational Change
 Lewin’s Three-Step Model

Unfreezing Movement Refreezing

Change efforts to Change process that Stabilizing a change

overcome the pressures transforms the intervention by balancing
of both individual organization from status driving and restraining
resistance and group quo to a desired end forces
conformity state

An Introduction to Organizational Behavior, 12e.

Robbins & Judge
Unfreezing the Status Quo

Restraining
Forces

Desired State

Status Quo

Driving Forces

Time
Kurt Lewin (1890 – 1947)
 Profoundly influenced not only change
theory but also group dynamics and
T-groups
 Pioneered action research – i.e.,
research leading to social action

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lewin.htm
Managing Organizational Change
 Kotter’s Eight-Step Plan
- Establish sense of urgency
- Form a coalition
- Create a new vision
- Communicate the vision to the
organization
- Empower others to act on the vision
by removing barriers to change
An Introduction to Organizational Behavior, 12e.
Robbins & Judge
Managing Organizational Change
- Plan for, create and reward short-
term “wins”
- Consolidate improvements, reassess
changes, and make necessary
adjustments in the new programs
- Reinforce the changes by
demonstrating the relationship
between new behaviors and
organizational success

An Introduction to Organizational Behavior, 12e.

Robbins & Judge
John Kotter
 Wrote about the 8-step plan in a
bestseller called “Leading Change”
 Change is more effective when people
are shown a truth that influences
their feelings, than if they are given
analysis to shift their thinking

http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=bio&facEmId=jkotter
Bringing About The Tipping
Point
 The Law of the Few – means that a few
well-placed people can be extremely
useful in shaping opinions
 The Stickiness Factor – contends that
there are specific ways of making a
message extremely memorable
 The Power of Context – specifies that
people are highly sensitive to
environmental cues
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Boston: Little,
Brown, 2000.
Overcoming Resistance to Change

 Educate! Communicate!
 Let them participate
 Build support and commitment
 Negotiate
 Manipulate
 Select people who can accept change
 Coerce
Overcoming Resistance to Change

 Educate! Communicate!
Contra factum non vale illatio. (Against
fact there is no argument.)
Communication can help in “selling”
change.
Overcoming Resistance to Change

 Let them participate

Bring people into the decision-
making process.
Overcoming Resistance to Change

 Build support and commitment

Use employee counseling, therapy,
training, or paid leaves to facilitate
adjustment.
Overcoming Resistance to Change

 Negotiate!
Exchange something of value in order
to lessen resistance.
Overcoming Resistance to Change

 Manipulate!
Twist or distort facts, withhold
undesirable information, create false
rumors
“Buy off” resisters by giving them a
key role in the change decision
Overcoming Resistance to Change

 Select people who can accept change

Choose only people with a positive
self-concept and high risk tolerance
Typical Stages in OD
Diagnosis

Eval and Data

Follow up Collection

OD
Intervent Data
Feedback
Action
Planning
OD Principles
Respect and Inclusion – equitably values the perspective
and opinions of everyone.
Collaboration – builds collaborative relationships between
the practitioner and the client while encouraging
collaboration throughout the client system.
Authenticity – strives for authenticity and congruence and
encourages these qualities in their clients
Self-awareness – commits to developing self-awareness
and interpersonal skills. OD practitioners engage in personal
and professional development through lifelong learning.
Empowerment –focuses efforts on helping everyone in the
client organization or community increase their autonomy
and empowerment to levels that make the workplace and/or
community satisfying and productive.
OD Techniques
 Sensitivity training
 Survey feedback
 Process consultation
 Team Building
 Intergroup development
 Appreciative Inquiry
Sensitivity Training
 Also known as encounter training or
T-Groups
 Focus is on changing behavior
through unstructured activities
 Facilitated by psychologist, free-
wheeling discussion creates venue for
participants to express ideas, beliefs
and attitudes
Survey Feedback
 Questionnaire-based approach
 Topics asked range from decision-
making processes, communication
styles, coordination between sections,
etc.
 Data are tabulated and become a
springboard for identifying problems
 Implications of survey findings are
identified
Process Consultation
 Outside consultant comes in and
jointly diagnoses process problems
with client
 Emphasis is on developing client skills
in identifying process improvements
so that there will be continuity when
consultant is gone
Team Building
 Uses high-interaction group activities
to increase trust and openness
among team members
 Focus is on developing coordinative
efforts of members, resulting in
better team performance
Intergroup Development
 Focus is on changing the attitudes,
stereotypes, and perceptions that
groups have of each other
 Example: cross-functional problem-
solving groups (each group meeting
independently at first, then findings
are shared)
Appreciative Inquiry
 Focuses on accentuating the positive
– what the organization already is
already doing well
 Four steps: a) discovery, b)
dreaming, c) design , d) destiny