Notes from a workshop interview with Dr David Jamieson: An Inquiry into Organizational Development (CTU Workshop Oct 11, 2008)
What is Organizational Development?
A philosophy about organizations, leadership and change. Also a collection of methods to help orgs manage change effectively that takes into account the human factors
Tracing the OD roots.
· Started in the 1940s as a social and organizational change movement. Didn’t start with orgs, rather in social groups, communities. This is where the value base came from.
· Has always been interdisciplinary, right from the beginning
· Features an application-based orientation, that originated in the work of Kurt Lewin, who took sociology to the field to make real changes. He brought rigor to the.
· Lewin’s graduate student formed a core of OD thinkers and practitioners. Social change and social justice were their motivations (overcoming racism and inequality, for example)
· Inquiry took them to look at working conditions within organizations, usually motivated to solve business problems like high turnover or absenteeism.
· People seen as part of the machine, rapidly expanding industrialization, generated 2d and 3d order effects in the work force. Early OD work took on those kinds of problems, seemed to develop into a counter force to the Tayloristic mode of production.
· These operational roots stayed with the field as values: humanism, culture, human factors engineering.
· Never was a formal science; has always been about the application of behavioral science. Application of sociology and psychology to rigorous field work.
· Early leadership studies (1940 and 50s) into participative/democratic principles (such as Follett, Lewin, Lippitt, Likert)
· Also connected with the Human Relations Movement (Mayo, Roethlisberger and Dickson, Homans). Concluded that the social group membership and physical working conditions make a difference in productivity.
· Group Dynamics/Laboratory Training (Bradford, Gibb, Benne, Cartwright and Zander, Bennis, Shepard, Schein). Featured the T-group model for group behavioral learning. Developed understanding and operation of group dynamics.
· Action Research and survey methods (Lewin, Trist, Cherns, Raia, Nadler). Introduced the idea of usinng data and analysis to feedback to clients to drive change processes.
· Changing Views of the Person (Rogers, Maslow, Argyris, McGregor). Development of an alternative of the Theory X approach. The attitude of how people should be treated and how they are and can be motivated began to change. Argyris examined the relationship between the individual and the organization, describing the individual as a valuable member.
· Organization Environments, Structures and Systems (Burns and Stalker, Lawrence and Lorsch, Trist and Bamforth, Katz and Kahn). Beginning of an understanding of organizations as systems. Began to consider the environment as part of the organizational context and the relationship between organizational structure and its interplay with the environment. Socio-technical systems theory brought respect to the idea that work systems had a mechanical and a human component. This equipped OD practitioners with a theoretical framework to examine organizations (as open systems).
· Definition(s) (from Jamieson’s chapter in Cummins’ book):
o A field of practice…community of practitioners
o A process of planned interventions using behavioral science principles to change a system and improve its effectiveness, conducted in accordance with the values of humanism, participation, choice and development so that the organization and its members learn and develop.
Discuss distinguishing characteristics:
· Behavioral science and technology
o Psychology, sociology. Anthropology and economics
· Values Base: humanism, participation, choice, development. An active part of the work. Not value neutral; use the values to help envision an endstate. Has an advocacy flavor to it.
· Process of client-centric interventions:
o Capacity, readiness (of the client to accommodate & adapt; where are they in the lifecycle)
o Breadth, depth, complexity (all issues of scoping)
o Customization
· Active process management
o Design an intended OD process path (“planning of change”) a designed series of interventions
o Continuous data: diagnostic and evaluative
o Design and execute in sequential rounds (iterative)
o Intended effects/unintended consequences
o Emerging conditions (environment, client, etc)
· Client/Consultant Relationship Management
o Core consultant behaviors (including coach, teach, mentor)
o Core client behaviors (including client decision making)
o “Self as instrument” (know thyself, since you are part of the system)
· Multiple Desired Outcomes
o Individual development (knowledge, skills, behavior, mindset, potential)
o Organizational improvement (performance, capacity, culture)
What makes OD different?
· Increased capacity in the client
· Individual development & potential
· Specific values base
· Behavioral science in organization systems
· Client-consultant relationship in change
· Action research orientation
· On-going data and client capabilities guide the design
· Active process management