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Lesson#22
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Designing Interventions
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Designing Interventions
An organization development intervention is a sequence of
activities, actions, and events intended to help
an organization improve its performance and effectiveness.
Intervention design, or action planning, derives
from careful diagnosis and is meant to resolve specific problems
and to improve particular areas of
organizational functioning identified in the diagnosis. OD
interventions vary from standardized programs
that have been developed and used in many organizations to
relatively unique programs tailored to a
specific organization or department.
What are effective interventions?
The term intervention refers to a set of sequenced planned
actions or events intended to help an
organization increase its effectiveness. Interventions purposely
disrupt the status quo; they are deliberate
attempts to change an organization or subunit toward a different
and more effective state. In OD, three
major criteria define an effective intervention: (1) the extent
to which it fits the needs of the organization;
(2) the degree to which it is based on causal knowledge of
intended outcomes; and (3) the extent to which it
transfers change-management competence to organization members.
The first criterion concerns the extent to which the
intervention is relevant to the organization and its
members. Effective interventions are based on valid information
about the organization’s functioning; they
provide organization members with opportunities to make free and
informed choices; and they gain
members’ internal commitment to those choices.
Valid information is the result of an accurate diagnosis of the
organization’s functioning. It must reflect
fairly what organization members perceive and feel about their
primary concerns and issues. Free and
informed choice suggests that members are actively involved in
making decisions about the changes that
will affect them.
It means that they can choose not to
participate and that interventions will not be imposed
on them. Internal commitment means that organization members
accept ownership of the intervention and
take responsibility for implementing it. If interventions are to
result in meaningful changes, management,
staff, and other relevant members must be committed to carrying
them out.
The second criterion of an effective intervention involves
knowledge of outcomes. Because interventions
are intended to produce specific results, they must be based on
valid knowledge that those outcomes
actually can be produced. Otherwise there is no scientific basis
for designing an effective OD intervention.
Unfortunately, and in contrast to other applied disciplines such
as medicine and engineering, knowledge of
intervention effects is in a rudimentary stage of development in
OD. Much of the evaluation research lacks
sufficient rigor to make strong causal inferences about the
success or failure of change programs.
Moreover, few attempts have been made to examine the comparative
effects of different OD techniques.
All of these factors make it difficult to know whether one
method is more effective than another.
Despite these problems, more attempts are being made to assess
systematically the strengths and
weaknesses of OD interventions and to compare the impact of
different techniques on organization
effectiveness.
The third criterion of an effective intervention involves the
extent to which it enhances the organization’s
capacity to manage change. The values underlying OD suggest that
organization members should be better
able to carry out planned change activities on their own
following an intervention. They should gain
knowledge and skill in managing change from active participation
in designing and implementing the
intervention. Competence in change management is essential in
today’s environment, where technological,
social, economic, arid political changes are rapid and
persistent.
How to design effective interventions:
Designing OD interventions requires paying careful attention to
the needs and dynamics of the change
situation and crafting a change program that will be consistent
with the previously described criteria of
effective interventions. Current knowledge of OD interventions
provides only general prescriptions for
change. There is scant precise information or research about how
to design interventions or how they can
be expected to interact with organizational conditions to
achieve specific results. Moreover, because the
ability to implement most OD interventions is highly dependent
on the skills and knowledge of the change
agent, the design of an intervention will depend to some extent
on the expertise of the practitioner.
Two major sets of contingencies that can affect intervention
success have been discussed in the OD
literature: those having to do with the change situation
(including the practitioner) and those related to the
target of change. Both kinds of contingencies need to be
considered in designing interventions.
Contingencies Related to the Change Situation:
Researchers have identified a number of contingencies present in
the change situation that can affect
intervention success. These include individual differences among
organization members (for example,
needs for autonomy), organizational factors (for example,
management style and technical uncertainty), and
dimensions of the change process itself (for example, degree of
top-management support). Unless these
factors are taken into account in designing an intervention, it
will have little impact on organizational
functioning or, worse, it may produce negative results. For
example, to resolve motivational problems
among blue-collar workers in an oil refinery it is important to
know whether interventions intended to
improve motivation (for example, job enrichment) will succeed
with the kinds of people who work there.
In many cases, knowledge of these contingencies results in
modifying or adjusting the change program to
fit the setting. In applying a reward-system intervention to an
organization, the changes might have to be
modified depending on whether the firm wants to reinforce
individual or team performance.
Although knowledge of contingencies is still at a rudimentary
stage of development in OD, researchers
have discovered several situational factors that can affect
intervention success. More generic contingencies
that apply to all OD interventions are presented below. They
include the following situational factors that
must be considered in designing any intervention: the
organization’s readiness for change, its change
capability, its cultural context, and the change agent’s skills
and abilities.
Readiness for Change:
Intervention success depends heavily on the organization being
ready for planned change. Indicators of
readiness for change include sensitivity to pressures for
change, dissatisfaction with the status quo,
availability of resources to support change, and commitment of
significant management time. When such
conditions are present, interventions can be designed to address
the organizational issues uncovered during
diagnosis. When readiness for change is low, however,
interventions need to focus first on increasing the
organization’s willingness to change.
Capability to Change:
Managing planned change requires particular knowledge and
skills, including the ability to motivate change,
to lead change, to develop political support, to manage the
transition, and to sustain momentum. If
organization members do not have these capabilities, then a
preliminary training intervention may be
needed before members can engage meaningfully in intervention
design.
Cultural Context:
The national culture within which the organization is embedded
can exert a powerful influence on
members’ reactions to change, so intervention design must
account for the cultural values and assumptions
held by organization members. Interventions may have to be
modified to fit the local culture, particularly
when OD practices developed in one culture are applied to
organizations in another culture. For example, a
team-building intervention designed for top managers at an
American firm may need to be modified when
applied to the company’s foreign subsidiaries.
Capabilities of the Change Agent:
Many failures in OD result when change agents apply
interventions beyond their competence. In designing
interventions, OD practitioners should assess their experience
and expertise against the requirements
needed to implement the intervention effectively. When a
mismatch is discovered, practitioners can explore
whether the intervention can be modified to fit their talents
better, whether another intervention more
suited to their skills can satisfy the organization’s needs, or
whether they should enlist the assistance of
another change agent who can guide the process more effectively.
The ethical guidelines under which OD
practitioners operate requires full disclosure of the
applicability of their knowledge and expertise to the
client situation. Practitioners are expected to intervene within
their capabilities or to recommend someone
more suited to the client’s needs.
Contingencies Related to the Target of Change:
OD interventions seek to change specific features or parts of
organizations. These targets of change are
the main focus of interventions, and researchers have identified
two key contingencies related to change
targets that can affect intervention success: the organizational
issues that the intervention is intended to
resolve and the level of organizational system at which the
intervention is expected to have a primary
impact.
Organizational Issues:
Organizations need to address certain issues to operate
effectively. Figure 9.1 lists these issues along with
the OD interventions that are intended to resolve them. It shows
the following four interrelated issues that
are key targets of OD interventions:
1.
Strategic
issues.
Organizations need to decide
what products or services they will provide and the
markets in which they will compete, as well as how to relate to
their environments and how to transform
themselves to keep pace with changing conditions. These
strategic issues are among the most critical facing
organizations in today’s changing and highly competitive
environments. OD methods aimed at these issues
are called strategic interventions. The methods are among the
most recent additions to OD and include
integrated strategic change, mergers and acquisitions,
trans-organizational development, and organization
learning.
2.
Technology and
structure issues.
Organizations must
decide how to divide work into departments
and then how to coordinate among those departments to support
strategic directions. They also must make
decisions about how to deliver products or services and how to
link people to tasks. OD methods for
dealing with these structural and technological issues are
called techno-structural interventions and include
OD activities relating to organization design, employee
involvement, and work design.
3.
Human resources
issues.
These issues are concerned
with attracting competent people to the
organization, setting goals for them, appraising and rewarding
their performance, and ensuring that they
develop their careers and manage stress. OD techniques aimed at
these issues are called human resources
management interventions.
4.
Human process
issues.
These issues have to do with
social processes occurring among organization
members, such as communication, decision making, leadership, and
group dynamics. OD methods
focusing on these kinds of issues are called human process
interventions; included among them are some of
the most common OD techniques, such as conflict resolution and
team building.
Figure 32. Types of OD Interventions and Organizational Issues
Consistent with system theory as discussed earlier, these
organizational issues are interrelated and need to
be integrated with each other. The double-headed arrows
connecting the different issues in Figure 32
represent the fits or linkages among them. Organizations need to
match answers to one set of questions
with answers to other sets of questions to achieve high levels
of effectiveness. For example, decisions about
gaining competitive advantage need to fit with choices about
organization structure, setting goals for and
rewarding people, communication, and problem solving.
The interventions discussed in the lectures are intended to
resolve these different concerns as shown in
Figure 32, particular OD interventions apply to specific issues.
Thus, intervention design must create
change methods appropriate to the organizational issues
identified in diagnosis. Moreover, because the
organizational issues are themselves linked together, OD
interventions similarly need to be integrated with
one another. For example, a goal-setting intervention that tries
to establish motivating goals may need to be
integrated with supporting interventions, such as a reward
system that links pay to goal achievement. The
key point is to think systemically. Interventions aimed at one
kind of organizational issue will invariably
have repercussions on other kinds of issues. Careful thinking
about how OD interventions affect the
different kinds of issues and how different change programs
might be integrated to bring about a broader
and more coherent impact on organizational functioning are
critical to effective intervention.
Organizational Levels:
In addition to facing interrelated issues, organizations
function at different levels— individual, group,
organization and trans-organization. Thus, organizational levels
are targets of change in OD. Table 8 lists
OD interventions in terms of the level of organization that they
primarily affect. For example, some
techno-structural interventions affect mainly individuals and
groups (for example, work design), whereas
others impact primarily the total organization (for example,
structural design).
It is important to emphasize that only the primary level
affected by the intervention is identified in Table 8.
Many OD interventions also have a secondary impact on the other
levels. For example, structural design
affects mainly the organization level but can have an indirect
effect on groups and individuals because it
sets the broad parameters for designing work groups and
individual jobs. Again, practitioners need to think
systemically. They must design interventions to apply to
specific organizational levels, address the
possibility of cross-level effects, and perhaps integrate
interventions affecting different levels to achieve
overall success. For example, an intervention to create
self-managed work teams may need to be linked to
organization-level changes in measurement and reward systems to
promote team-based work.
Overview of interventions:
The OD interventions, which will be discussed later, are briefly
described below. They represent the major
organizational change methods used in OD today.
Human Process Interventions:
These interventions focus on people within organizations and the
processes through which they
accomplish organizational goals. These processes include
communication, problem solving, group decision
making, and leadership. This type of intervention is deeply
rooted in the history of OD. It represents the
earliest change programs characterizing OD, including the
T-group and the organizational confrontation
meeting. Human process interventions derive mainly from the
disciplines of psychology and social
psychology and the applied fields of group dynamics and human
relations. Practitioners applying these
interventions generally value human fulfillment and expect that
organizational effectiveness follows from
improved functioning of people and organizational processes.
Table 8 Types of Interventions and Organization Levels
Organizational Levels Primary Organization Level Affected
Interventions Individual Group Organization
Human Process
T-group X X
Process consultation X
Third-party intervention X X
Organization confrontation meeting X X
Inter-group relations X X
Large-group interventions X
Techno-structural
Structural Design X
Work Design X X
Human Resources Management
Goal setting X X
Performance appraisal X X
Reward systems X X X
Managing workforce diversity X X
Employee wellness X
Strategic
Self-designing organizations X X
Human process interventions related to interpersonal
relationships and group dynamics include the
following four interventions:
1.
T-group.
This traditional change method provides
members with experiential learning about
group dynamics, leadership, and interpersonal relations. The
basic T-group brings ten to fifteen
strangers together with a professional trainer to examine the
social dynamics that emerge from
their interactions. Members gain feedback about the impact of
their own behaviors on each other
and learn about group dynamics.
2.
Process
consultation.
This intervention
focuses on interpersonal relations and social dynamics
occurring in work group. Typically, a process consultant helps
group members diagnose group
functioning and devise appropriate solutions to process
problems, such as dysfunctional conflict,
poor communication, and ineffective norms. The aim is to help
members gain the skills and
understanding necessary to identify and solve problems
themselves.
3.
Third-party
intervention.
This change method is a
form of process consultation aimed at
dysfunctional interpersonal relations in organizations.
Interpersonal conflict may derive from
substantive issues, such as disputes over work methods, or from
interpersonal issues, such as
miscommunication. The third-party intervener helps people
resolve conflicts through such
methods as problem solving, bargaining, and conciliation.
4.
Team building.
This intervention helps work groups
become more effective in accomplishing
tasks. Like process consultation, team building helps members
diagnose group processes and
devise solutions to problems. It goes beyond group processes,
however, to include examination of
the group’s task, member roles, and strategies for performing
tasks. The consultant also may
function as a resource person offering expertise related to the
group’s task.
Human process interventions that are more system-wide (than
those related to Interpersonal & Groups)
typically focus on the total organization or an entire
department, as well as on relations between groups.
These include the following four change programs:
1.
Organization
confrontation meeting.
This change
method mobilizes organization members to
identify problems, set action targets, and begin working on
problems. It is usually applied when
organizations are experiencing stress and when management needs
to organize resources for immediate
problem solving. The intervention generally includes various
groupings of employees in identifying and
solving problems.
2.
Inter-group
relations.
These interventions are
designed to improve interactions among different groups
or departments in organizations. The microcosm group
intervention involves a small group of people
whose backgrounds closely match the organizational problems
being addressed. This group addresses the
problem and develops means to solve it. The inter-group conflict
model typically involves a consultant
helping two groups understand the causes of their conflict and
choose appropriate solutions.
3.
Large-group
interventions.
These interventions
involve getting a broad variety of stakeholders into a
large meeting to clarify important values, to develop new ways
of working, to articulate a new vision for the
organization, or to solve pressing organizational problems. Such
meetings are powerful tools for creating
awareness of organizational problems and opportunities and for
specifying valued directions for future
action.
4.
Grid
organization development.
This
normative intervention specifies a particular way to manage an
organization. It is a packaged OD program that includes
standardized instruments for measuring
organizational practices and specific procedures for helping
organizations to achieve the prescribed
approach.
Techno-structural Interventions:
These interventions focus on an organization’s technology (for
example, task methods and job design) and
structure (for example, division of labor and hierarchy). These
change methods are receiving increasing
attention in OD, especially in light of current concerns about
productivity and organizational effectiveness.
They include approaches to employee involvement, as well as
methods for designing organizations, groups,
and jobs. Techno-structural intervention are rooted in the
disciplines of engineering, sociology, and
psychology and in the applied fields of socio-technical systems
and organization design, practitioners
generally stress both productivity and human fulfillment and
expect that organization effectiveness will
result from appropriate work designs and organization
structures.
In the coming lectures we will discuss the following three
techno-structural interventions concerned with
restructuring organizations:
1.
Structural
design.
This change process concerns
the organization’s division of labor—how to
specialize task performances. Interventions aimed at structural
design include moving from more
traditional ways of dividing the organizations overall work
(such as functional, self-contained-unit,
and matrix structures) to more integrative and flexible forms
(such as process-based and networkbased
structures). Diagnostic guidelines exist to determine which
structure is appropriate for
particular organizational environments, technologies, and
conditions.
2.
Downsizing.
This intervention reduces costs and
bureaucracy by decreasing the size of the
organization through personnel layouts, organization redesign
and outsourcing. Each of these
downsizing methods must be planned with a clear understanding of
the organizations strategy.
3.
Reengineering.
This recent intervention radically
redesigns the organization’s core work
processes to create tighter linkage and coordination among the
different tasks. This work-flow
integration results in faster, more responsive task performance.
Reengineering is often
accomplished with new information technology that permits
employees to control and coordinate
work processes more effectively. Reengineering often fails if it
ignores basic principles and
processes of OD.
Employee involvement (El). This broad category of interventions
is aimed at improving employee wellbeing
and organizational effectiveness. It generally attempts to move
knowledge, power, information, and
rewards downward in the organization. El includes parallel
structures (such as cooperative union—
management projects and quality circles), high-involvement
plants, and total quality management.
Work design. These change programs are concerned with designing
work for work groups and individual
jobs. The intervention includes engineering, motivational, and
socio-technical systems approaches that
produce traditionally designed jobs and work groups; enriched
jobs that provide employees with greater
task variety, autonomy, and feedback about results; and
self-managing teams that can govern their own task
behaviors with limited external control.
Human Resources Management Interventions:
These interventions would focus on personnel practices used to
integrate people into organizations. These
practices include career planning, reward systems, goal setting,
and performance appraisal—change
methods that traditionally have been associated with the
personnel function in organizations. In recent
years, interest has grown in integrating human resources
management with OD. Human resources
management interventions are rooted in the disciplines of
economics and labor relations and in the applied
personnel practices of wages and compensation employee selection
and placements performance appraisal,
and career development. Practitioners in this area typically
focus on the people in organizations believing
that organizational effectiveness results from improved
practices for integrating employees into
organizations.
Interventions concerning performance management include the
following change programs:
1.
Goal setting.
This change program involves setting
clear and challenging goals. It attempts to
improve organization effectiveness by establishing a better fit
between personal and organizational
objectives. Managers and subordinates periodically meet to plan
work, review accomplishments
and solve problems in achieving goals.
2.
Performance
appraisal.
This intervention is a
systematic process of jointly assessing work-related
achievements, strengths, and weaknesses. It is the primary human
resources management
intervention for providing performance feedback to individuals
and work groups. Performance
appraisal represents an important link between goal setting and
reward systems.
3.
Reward systems.
This intervention involves the design
of organizational rewards to improve
employee satisfaction and performance. It includes innovative
approaches to pay, promotions and
fringe benefits.
Three change methods associated with developing and assisting
organization members include:
1.
Career planning
and development.
This intervention
helps people choose organizations and
career paths and attain career objectives. It generally focuses
on managers and professional staff
and is seen as a way of improving the quality of their work
life.
2.
Managing
workforce diversity.
This change
program makes human resources practices more
responsive to a variety of individual needs. Important trends,
such as the increasing number of
women, ethnic minorities, and physically and mentally challenged
people in the workforce, require
a more flexible set of polices and practices.
3.
Employee
wellness.
These interventions include
employee assistance programs (EAPs) and stress
management. EAPs are counseling programs that help employees
deal with substance abuse and
mental health, marital, and financial problems that often are
associated with poor work
performance. Stress management programs help workers cope with
the negative consequences of
stress at work. They help managers reduce specific sources of
stress, such as role conflict and
ambiguity, and provide methods for reducing such stress symptoms
as hypertension and anxiety.
Strategic Interventions:
Interventions that link the internal functioning of the
organization to the larger environment and transform
the organization to keep pace with changing conditions are among
the newest additions to OD. They are
implemented organization wide and bring about a fit between
business strategy, structure, culture, and the
larger environment. The interventions derive from the
disciplines of strategic management, organization
theory, open—systems theory, and cultural anthropology.
Major interventions for managing organization and environment
relationships involve:
1.
Integrated
strategic change.
This comprehensive
OD intervention describes how planned
change can make a value-added contribution to strategic
management. It argues that business
strategies and organizational systems must be changed together
in response to external and internal
disruptions. A strategic change plan helps members manage the
transition between a current
strategy and organization design and the desired future
strategic orientation.
2.
Trans-organization development.
This
intervention helps organizations enter into alliances,
partnerships, and joint ventures to perform tasks or solve
problems that are too complex for single
organizations to resolve. It helps organizations recognize the
need for partnerships and develop
appropriate structures for implementing them.
3.
Merger and
acquisition integration.
This
intervention describes how OD practitioners can
assist two or more organizations to form a new entity.
Addressing key strategic, leadership, and
cultural issues prior to the legal and financial transaction
helps to smooth operational integration.
Interventions for transforming organizations include:
1.
Culture change.
This intervention helps organizations
develop cultures (behaviors, values,
believes, and norms) appropriate to their strategies and
environments. It focuses on developing a
strong organization culture to keep organization members pulling
in the same direction.
2.
Self-designing
organizations.
This change program
helps organizations gain the capacity to alter
them fundamentally. It is a highly participative process
involving multiple stakeholders in setting
strategic directions and designing and implementing appropriate
structures and processes.
Organizations learn how to design and implement their own
strategic changes.
3.
Organization
learning and knowledge management.
This intervention describes two
interrelated change processes: Organization Learning (OL), which
seeks to enhance an
organization’s capability to acquire and develop new knowledge,
and Knowledge Management
(KM), which focuses on how that knowledge can be organized and
used to improve organization
performance. These interventions move the organization beyond
solving existing problems so as
to become capable of continuous improvement.
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