Facilitating Organisation Development
What
is organisation development?
Organisation development is a planned process
of change. This leads to a more creative response of an organisation to its
environment.
Progress is faster when an independent outsider
enables trust and sharing so people are more open and direct.
One
example from my experience
|
Principle |
Practice |
|
A client manager has a need |
The manager noted that customer service on a complex product was
consistently poor and needed improving |
|
Valid data is collected from those who know what is going on |
Key managers in the nine departments involved were interviewed in
confidence |
|
The data is fed back and discussed openly |
All the managers met to listen to each other,
look at the whole picture and work out what it means |
|
The group decides the action they will be take to make improvements |
The group decided to stop blaming each other for poor customer service
and to work together to improve it. |
|
The group makes the improvements and evaluates the results |
They set up monitoring procedures and involved their staff in creating
improvements. All now took responsibility. One year after the start of the
work, customer service had radically improved. Also, relationships between
the Departments had improved 'permanently' |
Summary
Organisation Development is an educational
approach. Each successful experience with it increases the capacity of the
organisation to resolve other issues in the future. It also develops
individuals.
You can use it to solve management problems such as high turnover, low motivation, change programmes that are not working, cost reduction, reducing unnecessary work, productivity improvement and relocation. When used skilfully it will lead to increased commitment of staff and managers.
If you would like to discuss this further, or meet, please call Nick Heap on +44 (0)1707 886553 or email info@nickheap.co.uk