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Lesson#15
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Diagnosing Organizations
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Diagnosing Organizations
All consultants advocate expert diagnosis and action-taking.
Engineers and behavioral scientists alike have
diagnoses of organizational conflict and prescription for
solving it.
Diagnosis
is medical jargon for the gap
between sickness and health. As biology exploded in the late 19th
century, the human body, like the
workplace, was divided into manageable components, too. Doctors
became the industrial engineers of the
human physique. Their claim of expertise was based on their
ability to factor in every relevant “variable”
and thus heal the sick.
It is no surprise that, applying to industrial science,
diagnosis is conceived as identifying and closing gaps
between how things are and how they should be, using all the
tools of science and technology.
Lewin added a new dimension to this model. He highlighted
processes unseen through 19th-century
eyes
because nobody had a conceptual lens powerful enough.
The concept he developed goes by the name of the “
task/process”
relationship –
the subtle chicken/egg
interplay between ends and means, methods and goals. A task is
something concrete, observable, and thingoriented.
It can be converted into criteria, measurements, targets, and
deadlines
.
A task – group dynamics
people were fond of saying – refers to what is to be done.
Process refers to how. It reflects perceptions, attitudes,
reasoning. Process diagnosticians ask, “Why aren’t
we making progress?” They don’t ask when, where, and how many
but why, how, and whether.
Task/process thinking can be likened to the famous visual
paradox of the Old Woman/Young Woman.
Do you see a young beauty with her head turned or an old woman
in profile?
Figure 18: Old woman/young girl
You can’t see both at once. By some mental gyration, you can
learn to shift between them.
Action, on the other hand, reflects pure process. We guide it
largely on automatic pilot, fueled by little
explosions of energy in the right brain – of creativity,
insight, synthesis – that can’t be quantified or
specified as “targets.”
Through trained observation, you can diagnose ingenious linkages
between task and process. When work
stops, for example, determine what is not being talked about –
the gap between word and deed, the all-toohuman
shortfall between aspiration and action. You must shift
attention the way a pilot scans instruments –
from compass to altimeter to air speed indicator – to keep task
and process synchronized. That requires
skills few of us learn in school.
Unfortunately, left-brain diagnostic thinking – perfected by
scientists for more than 100 years – leads
people to pay attention to the compass and to consider the
altimeter a frill. The diagnoser is assumed to
stand outside, impartial, “objective,” and aloof from what is
observed. If you add to this your propensity to
defer to authority – parents, boss, and experts – you have a
setup for disappointment. For the
authority/dependency relationship itself becomes a “process”
issue, especially when the person invested
with abilities lacks satisfactory “answers.”
Group dynamics’ great contribution to management was its
relentless gaze at the process as inseparable
from the task, the diagnoser inseparable from the diagnosis, a
leader’s effectiveness inseparable from
follower contributions.
What is Diagnosis?
Diagnosis is the process of understanding how the organization
is currently functioning, and it provides the
information necessary to design change interventions. It
generally follows from successful entry and
contracting, which set the stage for successful diagnosis. They
help OD practitioners and client members
jointly determine organizational issues to focus on, how to
collect and analyze data to understand them,
and how to work together to develop action steps from the
diagnosis.
Unfortunately, the term diagnosis can be misleading when applied
to organizations. It suggests a model of
organization change analogous to medicine: an organization
(patient) experiencing problems seeks help
from an OD practitioner (doctor); the practitioner examines the
organization, finds the causes of the
problems, and prescribes a solution. Diagnosis in organization
development, however, is much more
collaborative than such a medical perspective implies and does
not accept the implicit assumption that
something is wrong with the organization.
First, the values and ethical beliefs that underlie OD suggest
that both organization members and change
agents should be involved in discovering the determinants of
current organizational effectiveness. Similarly,
both should be involved actively in developing appropriate
interventions and implementing them. For
example, a manager might seek OD help to reduce absenteeism in
his or her department. The manager and
an OD consultant jointly might decide to diagnose the cause of
the problem by examining company
absenteeism records and by interviewing selected employees about
possible reasons for absenteeism.
Alternatively, they might examine employee loyalty and discover
the organizational elements that encourage
people to stay. Analysis of those data could uncover
determinants of absenteeism or loyalty in the
department, thus helping the manager and the practitioner to
develop an appropriate intervention to
address the issue. The choice about how to approach the issue of
absenteeism and the decisions about how
to address it are made jointly by the OD practitioner and the
manager.
Second, the medical model of diagnosis also implies that
something is wrong with the patient and that one
needs to uncover the cause of the illness. In those cases where
organizations do have specific problems,
diagnosis can be problem oriented, seeking reasons for the
problems. On the other hand, as suggested by
the absenteeism example above, the practitioner and the client
may choose to frame the issue positively.
Additionally, the client and OD practitioner may be looking for
ways to enhance the organization’s existing
functioning. Many managers involved with OD are not experiencing
specific organizational problems.
Here, diagnosis is development oriented. It assesses the current
functioning of the organization to discover
areas for future development. For example, a manager might be
interested in using OD to improve a
department that already seems to be functioning well. Diagnosis
might include an overall assessment of
both the task-performance capabilities of the department and the
impact of the department on its
individual members. This process seeks to uncover specific areas
for future development of the
department’s effectiveness.
In organization development, diagnosis is used more broadly than
a medical definition would suggest. It is
a collaborative process between organization members and the OD
consultant to collect pertinent
information, analyze it, and draw conclusions for action
planning and intervention. Diagnosis may be aimed
at uncovering the causes of specific problems; be focused on
understanding effective processes; or be
directed at assessing the overall functioning of the
organization or department to discover areas for future
development. Diagnosis provides a systematic understanding of
organizations so that appropriate
interventions may be developed for solving problems and
enhancing effectiveness.
Organizational diagnosis is a major practitioner skill. It
usually examines two broad areas.
The first area
comprises the various interacting sub-elements that make up the organization.
These include
the divisions, departments, products, and the relationships
between them. The diagnosis may also include a
comparison of the top middle, and lower levels of management in
the organization.
The second area
of
diagnosis concerns the organizational processes. These include communication
networks, team problem-solving, decision-making, leadership and
authority styles, goal-setting and planning
methods, and the management of conflict and competition.
The Process:
Diagnosis is a cyclical process that involves data gathering,
interpretations, and identification of problem
areas and possible action programs, as shown in Figure 19. The
first step is the preliminary identification of
possible problem areas. These preliminary attempts often bring
out symptoms as well as possible problem
areas.
The second step involves gathering data based on the preliminary
problem identified in the preceding step.
These data are categorized, analyzed and presented to the client
in a feedback session (steps 3 and 4). If it is
determined that enough data are available (step 5), the client
and practitioner jointly diagnose and identify
likely problem areas (step 6). At this point, the client’s level
of motivation to work on the problems is
determined (step 7). Based upon the diagnosis, the target
systems are identified and the change strategy is
designed (step 8). Finally (step 9), the results are monitored
to determine the degree of change that has
been attained versus the desired change goals.
Fig 19: The Diagnostic Process
The Performance Gap:
One method in the diagnostic process is to determine the
performance gap—-
the
difference between
what the organizations could do by virtue of its opportunity in
its environment and what it actually does.
This leads to an approach that may be termed gap analysis. In
this method, data are collected on the actual
state of the organization on a varying set of dimensions and
also on the ideal or desired state, that is,
“where the organization should be. As shown in Figure 20, the
gap, or discrepancy, between the actual state
and the ideal form a basis for diagnosis and the design of
interventions. The gap may be the result of
ineffective performance by internal units or may emerge because
of competitive changes or new
innovations. A performance gap may also occur when the
organization fails to adapt to changes in its
external environment.
Competent organizational diagnosis does not simply provide
information about the system; it is also helpful
in designing and introducing action alternatives for correcting
possible problems. The diagnosis affirms the
need for change and the benefits of possible changes in the
client system. Important problems are very
often hidden or obscure, whereas the more conspicuous and
obvious problems are relatively unimportant.
In such situations, dealing with the obvious may not be a very
effective way to manage change; this
underscores the importance of the diagnostic stage.
A performance gap may continue for some time before it is
recognized, in fact, it may never be recognized.
On the other hand, the awareness of a performance gap may
unfreeze the functions within the organization
that are most in need of change. When this happens, conditions
are present for altering the structure and
function of the organization by introducing OD interventions.
One OD practitioner suggests a self assessment version of gap
analysis using questionnaires to gather
information in four key areas:
1. The organization’s strengths.
2. What can be done to take advantage of the strengths?
3. The organization’s weaknesses.
4. What can be done to alleviate the weaknesses?
In organizational diagnosis, the practitioner is looking for
causality – that is, an implication that change in
one factor (such as compensation) will cause change in another
factor (productivity): a cause-effect
relationship. The client is often aware of the evidence of the
problem, such as declining sales, high
turnover, or loss of market share – the symptom of a problem. In
the diagnosis phase, the practitioner tries
to identify what factors are causing the problem, and therefore
what needs to be changed to fix it.
Fig 20: The Performance Gap
The process of identifying the organization’s strengths and
weaknesses often leads to
recognition of performance gaps and to change programs.
The Need for Diagnostic Models:
Entry and contracting processes can result in a need to
understand a whole system or some part, process,
or feature of the organization. To diagnose an organization, OD
practitioners and organization members
need to have an idea about what information to collect and
analyze. Choices about what to look for
invariably depend on how organizations are perceived. Such
perceptions can vary from intuitive hunches to
scientific explanations of how organizations function.
Conceptual frameworks that people use to
understand organizations are referred to as diagnostic models.
They describe the relationships among
different features of the organization, its context, and its
effectiveness. As a result, diagnostic models point
out what areas to examine and what questions to ask in assessing
how an organization is functioning.
However all models represent simplifications of reality and
therefore choose certain features as critical.
Focusing attention on those features, often to the exclusion of
others, can result in a biased diagnosis. For
example, a diagnostic model that relates team effectiveness to
the handling of interpersonal conflict would
lead an OD parishioner to ask questions about relationships
among members, decision-making processes,
and conflict resolution methods. Although relevant, those
questions ignore other group issues such as the
composition of skills and knowledge, the complexity of the tasks
performed by the group, and member
inter-dependencies. Thus, diagnostic models must be chosen
carefully to address the organization’s
presenting problems as well as to ensure comprehensiveness.
Potential diagnostic models are everywhere. Any collection of
concepts and relationships that attempts to
represent a system or explain its effectiveness can potentially
qualify as a diagnostic model. Major sources
of diagnostic models in OD are the thousands of articles and
books that discuss, describe, and analyze how
organizations function. They provide information about how and
why certain organizational systems,
processes, or functions are effective. The studies often concern
a specific facet of organizational behavior,
such as employee stress, leadership, motivation, problem
solving, group dynamics, job design, and career
development they also can involve the larger organization and
its con text, including the environment,
strategy, structure, and culture. Diagnostic models can be
derived from that information by noting the
dimensions or variables that are associated with organizational
effectiveness.
Another source of diagnostic models is OD practitioners’
experience in organizations. That field
knowledge is a wealth of practical information about how
organizations operate. Unfortunately only a small
part of that vast experience has been translated into diagnostic
models that represent the professional
judgments of people with years of experience in organizational
diagnosis. The models generally link
diagnosis with specific organizational processes, such as group
problem solving, employee motivation, or
communication between managers and employees. The models list
specific questions for diagnosing such
processes.
Let’s look at a general framework for diagnosing organizations.
The framework describes the systems
perspective prevalent in OD today and integrates several of the
more popular diagnostic models. The
systems model provides a useful starting point for diagnosing
organizations or departments.
Open-Systems Model:
This section introduces systems theory, a set of concepts and
relationships describing the properties and
behaviors of things called systems - organizations, groups, and
people, for example. Systems are viewed as
unitary wholes composed of parts or subsystems; the system
serves to integrate the parts into a functioning
unit. For example, organization systems are composed of
departments such as sales, operations, and
finance. The organization serves to coordinate behaviors of its
departments so that they function together
in service of a goal or strategy. The general diagnostic model
based on systems theory that underlies most
of OD is called the open -systems model.
Organization as Open Systems:
Systems can vary in how open they are to their outside
environments. Open systems, such as organizations
and people, exchange information and resources with their
environments. They cannot completely control
their own behavior and are influenced in part by external
forces. Organizations, for example, are affected
by such environmental conditions as the availability of raw
material, customer demands, and government
regulations. Understanding how these external forces affect the
organization can help explain some of its
internal behavior.
Open systems display a hierarchical ordering. Each higher level
of system comprises lower-level systems:
systems at the level of society comprise organizations;
organizations comprise groups (departments); and
groups comprise individuals. Although systems at different
levels vary in many ways—in size and
complexity, for example—they have a number of common
characteristics by virtue of being open systems,
and those properties can be applied to systems at any level. The
following key properties of open systems
are described below: inputs, transformations, and outputs;
boundaries; feedback; equifinality; and
alignment.
Case: The Old Family Bank
The Old Family Bank is a large bank in a southeastern city. As a
part of a comprehensive internal
management study, H. Day, the data-processing vice-president,
examined the turnover, absenteeism, and
productivity figures of all the bank’s work groups. The results
Day obtained offered no real surprises except
in the case of the check-sorting and data-processing
departments.
The study
The study revealed that, in general, the departments displaying
high turnover and absenteeism rates had low
production figures, and those with low turnover and absenteeism
were highly productive. When the checksorting
and data-processing figures were analyzed, Day discovered that
two departments were tied for the
lead for the lowest turnover and absenteeism figures. What was
surprising was the check-sorting
department ranked first as the most productive unit, whereas the
electronic data-processing department
ranked last.
This inconsistency was further complicated by the fact that the
working conditions for check-sorting
employees are very undesirable. They work in a large open room
that is hot in the summer and cold in the
winter. They work alone and operate high-speed check-sorting
machines requesting a high degree of
accuracy and concentration. There is little chance for
interaction because they take rotating coffee breaks.
The computer room is air-conditioned, with a stable temperature
year around: it has perfect lighting and is
quiet and comfortable. Both groups are known to be highly
cohesive, and the workers in each department
function well with one another. This observation was reinforced
by the study’s finding of the low levels of
turnover and absenteeism.
The Interview Data
In an effort to understand this phenomenon, Day decided to
interview the members of both departments
in order to gain some insight into the dynamics of each group’s
behavior. Day discovered that the checksorting
department displayed a great deal of loyalty to the company.
Most of the group members are
unskilled or semiskilled workers; although they have no
organized union, they all felt that the company had
made special efforts to keep their wages and benefits in line
with unionized operations. They knew that
their work required team effort and were committed to high
performance.
A quite different situation existed in the data-processing
department. Although the workers liked their
fellow employees, there was a uniform feeling among this highly
skilled group that management put more
emphasis on production than on staff units. They felt that the
operating departments had gotten better pay
raises, and that the wag gap did not reflect the skill
differences between employees. As a result, a large
percentage of the group’s members displayed little loyalty to
the company, even though they were very
close to one another.
Case Analysis Form
Name: ____________________________________________
I. Problems
A. Macro
1. ____________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________
B. Micro
1. _____________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________
II. Causes
1. _____________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________
III. Systems affected
1. Structural ____________________________________________
2. Psychosocial __________________________________________.
3. Technical ______________________________________________
4. Managerial _____________________________________________
5. Goals and values __________________________________________
IV. Alternatives
1. _________________________________________________________
2. _________________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________________
V. Recommendations
1. _________________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________________
3. __________________________________________________________
Case Solution: The Old Family Bank
I. Problems
A. Macro
1. The lack of loyalty to the entire bank could affect the
effectiveness (and profitability) of the bank.
2. The bank may have a poor process for setting pay policies.
B. Micro
1. Though the personnel in the data-processing department have a
strong team, they are not
loyal to the larger organization.
2. Data-processing personnel believe that management does not
appreciate them, their skills, and
contributions.
3. Data-processing personnel may be underpaid when compared to
similar workers in other
companies.
II. Causes
1. The skilled workers in the data-processing department do not
recognize all of the factors that may
affect pay and rewards.
2. The data-processing personnel possibly has access to more
company-wide information by virtue
of the type of work their department does than do personnel in
other departments. Consequently, they get
a portion of the data without understanding how managers make
decisions based upon that data.
III. Systems affected
The attitude of the data-processing personnel to the bank likely
affects the entire bank’s
operations.
IV. Alternatives
1. H. Day gathers more data to confirm/disprove initial
diagnosis.
2. Use a diagnosis model such as force-field analysis to better
understand the problem. Working
through the model may bring to light ways to change the
situation in the data-processing
department.
3. Day checks on regional employment data to determine if
data-processing personnel are being paid
competitively with similar workers in other companies. Adjust
pay if warranted by the data.
4. Meet with the department and explain the bank’s procedures
and rationale for how pay levels are
set.
V. Recommendations
All of the alternatives listed above can be undertaken by Day.
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