Steps in Implementing Organizational Development Interventions

Organizational development is the process of making an organization more effective in achieving its desired goals. Additionally, the goal of organizational development interventions is to enhance the productivity, performance or behaviors via a set of organized individual and team activities. A change agent can implement interventions, or a client can employ them by following a process to evaluate the condition of the organization’s health.

Steps in Implementing Organizational Development Interventions:

1. Entry: – Change within a company is important when there is an issue. Management, or a group of individuals within the organization, search for a person who has enough skills to examine the problem or facilitate change.
2. Start-up: – The change agent gets into the organization’s environment. He works to describe issues surrounding the problem and tried to secure commitment across the organization to a change attempt.
3. Assessment and Feedback: – The change agent collects information about the situation and provides the same to decision makers as well as those having a stake in the change
4. Action Planning: – The change agent works jointly with management and other stake holders to formulate a by a step-by-step corrective-action plan.
5. Intervention: – The change agent helps in implementing the intervention.
6. Evaluation: – The change agent assists the management and other stakeholders to evaluate the organization’s change effort progress.
7. Adoption: – Members of the company acknowledge ownership of the change, accept responsibility for it, and the change takes place throughout the organization.
8. Separation: – The change agent prepares to leave the organization. As part of the process, the change agent works to disengage while making certain that development of organizational development intervention will proceed after his or her departure. This step is achievable since the knowledge and skills of the change agent are now with the entities in the organization.

Implementing Organizational Development Interventions

Organizational Development intervention strategy is designed only for scientific research and diagnosis of a problem. This action research helps to understand current system of an organization. Organizational development interventions are based on participation & involvement of organizational members. This participation additionally helps organizational development practitioner to implement organizational development interventions successfully.

Survey based feedback also gives valuable inputs to Organizational Development professional in applying Organizational development interventions.

The Organizational Development Intervention Strategy can be Summarized as below:

1. Diagnosis: The search for performance gaps is called as diagnosis.  These gaps help to know w here client’s performance is less than desired. For accurate diagnosis of the current scenario, there should be a trustworthy relationship between the consultant and client. As a result, this relationship helps in collaboration to find out real need of the change. Hence, for successful diagnosis it is necessary to link performance improvement strategies to achieve business goals.
2. Designing an organizational development intervention: Diagnosis leads to designing an Organizational Development intervention strategy that is problem based. Objectives of Organizational Development intervention strategy are   developed to have a direct link with business goals. Designing an Organizational Development intervention strategy represents the best solution, outlines specific outcomes, and role of each component in the entire process.  Designing also gives specific points to keep watch on for evaluation of the process.
3. Development of Organizational Development intervention strategy: Design is a blueprint of developing an Organizational Development strategy. The Organizational Development intervention strategy is designed and developed with the evaluation objectives. Hence, the development of Organizational Development intervention strategy is crucial step as it is directly related to desired outcomes.
4. Implementation of Organizational Development intervention strategy: Action takes place. There is evaluation of progress. The deployment needs high level of energy and creativity of participants. Participants need to have clear picture of change and their role at each step. Hence, meaningful feedback helps to reinforce accountability for process to be effective.
5. Evaluation: It can be studied by understanding impact after implementing Organizational Development strategy. This takes place by checking immediate feedback or learning through the process, or by evaluating performance. This is continuous process.

Examples of Implementation of Organizational Development Interventions in the Indian Scenario:

• Larsen and Toubro introduced organizational development as a separate/function and department for effective implementation of organizational development interventions.
• Wipro adopted for internal organizational restructuring to meet customer specific needs.
• ONGC relies on succession planning, employee participation and training. In addition, organizational remodeling and climate surveys are also a part of organizational development interventions.
• TCS has extensive organizational development interventions in the form of goal alignment, balanced scorecard and culture building intervention.
• Bharti Airtel focuses on coaching, mentoring and career planning as organizational development interventions.
• Aditya Birla group implements organizational development interventions like rotational job assignments, career planning, leadership development.
• Infosys has a broad base of organizational development interventions like Leadership development program, personal development initiatives, cross functional assignments, 360 degree feedback, psychometric testing (MBTI) for individual personality assessment.
• Tata Motors reorganized the organization through restructuring. In addition, training and flexible communication patterns were a part too.
• Sail introduced new modified performance management system as a part of change initiative.
• Bank of Baroda implemented reorganization at all regional and zonal levels.

The above organizational development intervention implementations are merely representative data. Additionally, there are many such initiatives by Indian organizations for individual, team and organizational effectiveness.

How to: Organizational Development

Promotion of organizational development interventions may be organization-wide or may even apply to a department of the organization depending upon the extent and intensity. Hence, interventions are confined only to a part of the organization due the changes in the external environment having a major effect on the working processes of that area.

The organization along with the change agent must carefully evaluate the level of change desired in the organization and then start working towards introducing and implementing the desired changes as per the steps prescribed and keeping in mind the requirements as well as capabilities of the Organization’s personnel.

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