Change management and organizational development

Curtis W. Cook, Phillip L. Hunsaker and Robert E. Coffey define change as “ the coping process of moving from the present state to the desired state that the individuals, groups and organizations undertake in response to dynamic internal and external factors.” There are a number of forces that are acting as stimulants for change.

According to Stephen P. Robbins, there are six specific forces, Nature of the Workforce, Technology, Economic Shocks, Competition, Social Trends, and World Politics. In every organization, employees differ in their attitude towards their work, expectations of remunerations and their interpersonal relations. Organizations are in a condition that they should change their human resource policies in order to magnetize a diverse workforce. Technology is changing jobs as well as the organizations, the substitution of computer results in wider span of control which harmonize the organizations.

Economic shocks have continued to impose changes in organizations. Heightened competition means that established organizations need to defend themselves against traditional competitors. Successful organizations will be the ones that can change in response to the competition. Social trends suggest changes to which organizations have to adjust.

Change Management Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on the individual level. A somewhat ambiguous term, change management has at least three different aspects, including: adapting to change, controlling change, and effecting change. In 1903, Henry Ford turned the American economy upside down with his moving-assembly-line approach to building automobiles, which offered high wages and drew young men from rural areas to the city. As an innovative change the moving assembly line at Highland Park was perhaps Ford Motor Company’s single greatest contribution to automotive manufacturing. To improve his manufacturing process, Henry Ford latched onto a concept that was, for manufacturing, instead of bringing the man to the work; the work must be brought to the man. After the success of the moving assembly line, Henry Ford had another transformative idea: in January 1914, he surprised the world by announcing that Ford Motor Company would pay $5 a day to its workers. After Ford’s announcement, thousands of prospective workers showed up at the Ford Motor Company employment office. Some of Ford’s greatest innovations came not in the cars themselves but in the processes for creating them.

Thus, by his imagination and a quest for innovation Henry Ford made many changes in his company apart from certain resistances. Therefore for every organization’s development there is a main concept behind it, that is change. There are many approaches to manage organizational change. One of the most popular models of change management is Action Research which is discussed below.

Action Research According to Stephen P. Robbins, Action Research is “ a change process based on the systematic collection of data and then selection of a change action based on the data indicates in the analysis.” Action Research is a five step process which includes, 1. Diagnosis – Here, the change agents tries to determine the causes for the organization’s problems. Information is collected by taking interview among the employees or searching the organizational records or by listening to employee concerns to diagnose the nature of the problem. 2. Analysis – In this stage, the change agents analyzes the data collected in the previous stage. Through this, the change agent is able to identify different kinds of problems.

The change agent observes the similarities and differences between the problems. Then the information is classified into three categories – the primary concerns, the problem areas and the possible resolving actions. 3. Feedback – As the feedback results form an important part in any process, the change agent here shares his observations from the analysis of the diagnosed data. Then the change agent seeks the active participation of the employees in developing action plans for bringing a desired change. 4. Action – Here in this stage the employees and the change agent work together to implement the changes which they considered as the solutions for the organization’s problems. 5. Evaluation – Finally, the change agent evaluates the effectiveness of the change actions taken by analyzing the outcome of those implemented changes. If the outcome is negative or not satisfied then the above steps are repeated. The process is continued until the satisfactory level is achieved.

Organizational Development (OD) Organizational Development (OD) can be described as the systematic process to change the culture, system and behavior of organization. It is a process that helps in solving organizational problems and achieving organizational objectives. Organizational Development works as important mechanism that helps in impressing the organization and its employee through planned and established system. It concentrates on people dimensions like norms, values, attitudes, relationships, organizational culture etc. as like in Ford Motors. Henry Ford’s personal motto of ” Help the Other Fellow” spilled over into his management style; he recognized that policies generous to his employees would result in happier workers and a better product. He claimed, however, not to believe in conventional charity; rather he preferred to provide opportunities for people to help themselves.

Organizational Development is the modern approach to management of change for human resources development. According to Wendell L. French and Cecil H. Bell, Organization Development is “ A long term effort, led and supported by top management, to improve an organization’s visioning, empowerment, learning, and problem solving processes, through an ongoing collaborative management of organization culture – with special emphasis on the culture of intact work teams and other team configurations – utilizing the consultant-facilitator role and the theory and technology of applied behavioral science, including action research.” There are many techniques and processes in Organization Development. One of that processes is Action Research which is discussed below.

Action Research Action Research is a process which serves as a model for most OD interventions. French and Bell describe Action Research as a ” process of systematically collecting research data about an ongoing system relative to some objective, goal, or need of that system; feeding these data back into the system; taking actions by altering selected variables within the system based both on the data and on hypotheses; and evaluating the results of actions by collecting more data.”

The steps in Action Research are 1. Entry. This phase consists of marketing, i. e. finding needs for change within an organization. Ford focused on making the manufacturing process more efficient so he could produce more cars and charge less for each so that everyone could own it. 2. Start-up and contracting. In this step, we identify critical success factors and the real issues, link into the organization’s culture and processes, and clarify roles for the consultant(s) and employees. This is also the time to deal with resistance within the organization. A formal or informal contract will define the change process. 3. Assessment and diagnosis. Here we collect data in order to find the opportunities and problems in the organization. 4. Feedback. This two-way process serves to tell those we found out, based on an analysis of the data.

Everyone who contributed information should have an opportunity to learn about the findings of the assessment process. This provides an opportunity for the organization’s people to become involved in the change process 5. Action planning. In this step we will distill recommendations from the assessment and feedback. An implementation plan will be developed that is based on the assessment data. We must plan for a participative decision-making process for the intervention. 6. Intervention. It is important to follow the action plan, yet remain flexible enough to modify the process as the organization changes and as new information emerges. 7. Evaluation. Successful OD must have made meaningful changes.

We need to have an evaluation procedure to verify this success, identify needs for new or continuing OD activities, and improve the OD process itself to help make future interventions more successful. 8. Adoption. After steps have been made to change the organization and plans have been formulated, we follow-up by implementing processes to insure that this remains an ongoing activity within the organization, that commitments for action have been obtained, and that they will be carried out. 9. Separation. We must recognize when it is more productive for the client and consultant to undertake other activities, and when continued consultation is counterproductive. We also should plan for future contacts, to monitor the success of this change and possibly to plan for future change activities.

Conclusion

Organizational Change Management techniques as well as Organization Development techniques have worked successfully in many organizations. In 100 plus years of existence Ford Motors introduced many changes in their policies and technology to stand as a master in automobile industry. As like Ford Motors there are many organizations used these techniques to develop their organization. Nearly every organization is in the critical condition to change and develop eventually in response to their external environment and influences. In this article Action Research is explained and other than this there are many techniques and processes that might work successfully in different conditions.