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Block 1 Introduction

Unit 2 Foundations Of Organisational Development

1. Explain organisational development as an interactive and continuous process.

• Organisational development is not a one-time solution but an ongoing process of improving effectiveness through interventions over time.
• It involves managing and directing changes in an organisation’s culture and processes, which can take several years.
• It is an interactive process as it involves engagement and feedback between various stakeholders within the organisation.

2. Discuss the nature of organisational development.

1. Organisational development is an ongoing, interactive, and continuous process.
2. It's a process of development of the entire system, not just one part.
3. The objective of organisational development is to liberate individuals within the system, allowing them to participate and contribute to problem-solving.
4. It involves a shift from describing data for enforcement to using it for problem-solving, fostering a positive organizational climate.
5. Organisational development is an educational strategy that brings about planned change, ensures better implementation, minimizes errors, and produces positive outcomes.
6. It focuses on diagnosing real problems within organisations rather than hypothetical situations.
7. Organisational development practitioners are humanists who seek to establish a social and altruistic philosophy, aiming for better conflict resolution and increased understanding within the organisation.
8. Organisational development operates on open and adaptive systems concepts, recognising the interdependence of organisational design and managerial performance.
9. It is interdisciplinary, drawing on sociology, psychology, and theories of motivation, learning, and personality.

3. Discuss the characteristics of organisational development.

• Organisational development is an educational strategy attempting to bring about planned change.
• It focuses on real problems within organisations.
• Organisational development practitioners are humanistic, seeking to establish a social and altruistic philosophy.
• It is a dynamic process, requiring ongoing effort and adaptation.
• It is action-based, with interventions designed to address specific issues.
• Organisational development works on open and adaptive system concepts, recognising the interdependence of organisational design and managerial performance.

4. Discuss the role of an organisational development practitioner.

• Organisational development practitioners are humanists who seek to establish a social and altruistic philosophy.
• They aim for better conflict resolution, increased understanding, and more considerable leadership within an organisation.
• They promote a better organisational climate and provide a conducive environment for employees to develop their potential.
• They help managers in the organisation with the implementation of interventions.
• They facilitate change and innovation within the organisation.
• They assist in creating measurement methods and systems to monitor key success indicators.

5. Write a note on values.

• Humanistic values are important for organisations and provide opportunities for people to function as human beings, not just resources.
• These values aim to develop the full potential of each member, increase organisational effectiveness, and treat each human being as a person with complex needs.

6. Discuss organisational effectiveness.

• Organisational effectiveness can be achieved with the help of the organisational development process.
• An effective organisation is able to solve its own problems and focus its attention and resources on achieving key goals.
• It is able to attract and motivate effective employees, who then perform at high levels.
• An effective organisation has high performance and a high quality of work life.

7. Describe the process involved in the organisational development.

• The organisational development process is based on the action research model, which begins with an identified problem or need for change.
• It proceeds through assessment, planning of an intervention, implementing the intervention, gathering data to evaluate the intervention, and determining if satisfactory progress has been made or if there is need for further intervention.
• The process is cyclical and ends when the desired developmental result is obtained.
• A typical process includes steps such as initial diagnosis, data collection, data feedback, action planning and problem-solving, team building, intergroup development, and evaluation and follow up.

8. How process effects organisational development?

1. Organisational development is greatly facilitated by viewing it as an ongoing interactive process.
2. A process is an identifiable flow of interrelated events moving over time toward some goal or end.
3. It includes interventions in the client system, responses to interventions, and the dynamic, changing things in which people learn new skills or revise old ones.
4. In organisational development, how things are done is as important as what is done.
5. It is essential for problem-solving and for building future problem-solving capabilities.

9. State the similarity between diagnosis and problem identification.

• Diagnosis and problem identification are interconnected.
• Diagnosis is the process of understanding how the organisation is currently functioning and provides information necessary to design change interventions.
• Through diagnosis, comes the identification of problems, strengths, opportunities, and problem areas.

10. How process can be evaluated to see the organisational development?

• The results of organisational development programmes need to be evaluated so that suitable actions may be followed.
• Careful monitoring is required to get precise feedback regarding what is going on as soon as an organisational development programme starts.
• Systematic appraisal of change efforts and pre and post training behavioural patterns are quite effective.
• If the actions have desired effects, then the problems get solved.
• Sometimes some problems remain unsolved, and members have to initiate new action plans and intervention in step four to resolve the issue.

11. Who are the organisational development practitioners?

• Organisational development practitioners are those specialising in organisational development as a profession, either as internal or external consultants.
• They may also be people specialising in related fields such as reward systems, organisation design, total quality, information technology, and business strategy.
• They often share a common set of humanistic values, promoting open communication, employee involvement, and personal growth.
• Managers and employees who have become “change masters” and gained the expertise to introduce change and innovation into the organisation.

12. What is the role of organisational development practitioners?

• Organisational development practitioners offer professional services to organisation clients, including top managers, functional department heads, and staff groups.
• They facilitate change and innovation within the organisation.
• They help the client organisation identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as management issues.
• They work with the client in addressing problem opportunities.
• They help in creating measurement methods and systems to monitor key success indicators.
• They promote better organisational climate and provide better scope and conducive environment for the employees to develop their potentialities.

13. Elucidate the values that are important for organisational development.

• The values of organisational development include development of human potential, organisational effectiveness and health, exciting and challenging work, opportunity to influence work environment, and appreciation for unique and complex needs of individuals.
• Humanistic values are also important, providing opportunities for people to function as human beings rather than resources, opportunities for each member and the organisation to develop to their full potential, and treating each human being as a person with a complex set of needs.
• These values can improve performance and productivity of an organisation.

14. Explain how values and organisational development are related.

• The values of organisational development, if implemented, can be useful in yielding increased job satisfaction for those people whose needs the values meet.
• The values of organisational development do not represent solutions to an organisation's ills, but can support organisational change.
• Humanistic values provide opportunities for people to function as human beings rather than as resources, for each member of the organisation to develop to their full potential, and increase the effectiveness of the organisation in terms of all its goals.

15. Discuss the ways in which the values are effective.

• Values are effective in promoting personal growth, organisational effectiveness, and overall well-being.
• When implemented effectively, these values can lead to increased job satisfaction and a positive work environment.
• The values can also improve performance and productivity of an organisation.
• They contribute to positive organisational culture, which can affect the performance and satisfaction of the employees.

16. What are the important factors that contribute to organisational effectiveness.

• An organisation being able to solve its own problems and focus its attention and resources on achieving key goals is one factor.
• An effective organisation also has both high performance and a high quality of work life.
• The organisation’s performance needs to respond to the needs of external groups, such as stockholders, customers, suppliers, and government agencies.
• It is also important that the organisation is able to attract and motivate effective employees, who then perform at high levels.
• Organisational effectiveness is achieved when an organisation is able to fulfil its mission through a blend of sound management, strong governance, and a persistent rededication to achieving results.

Important Points

1. Organisational development as a continuous and interactive process.
2. Organisational development defines as an application of behaviour science. Organisational development applies behavioural science knowledge.
3. Empirical-rational strategy and a normative-reeducative strategy are approaches to change in OD.
4. System approach emphasises organisation phenomena and dynamics in their interaction. Organisational development works on open and adaptive system concepts.
5. Strong data is a scientific way to collect the information about organisation. The data collected scientifically is valuable.