In organizations, if we compare the power of different functions, we find significant variation. Though this varies from organization to organization depending upon its business, the power of HR is consistently low.
In FMCG Organizations, the marketing department is supreme; in engineering organizations, operations and manufacturing personnel exercise maximum power, while HR remains a background department.
If HR wants to emerge out of the shadows into the limelight, it needs to give OD a bear hug.
Beating about the bush in the name of OD is not really going to help. Let’s take a few examples.
A leading organization was expecting intense competition from a new competitor. It was worried that it is going to loose its Team Leaders to competition. So, it devised a “Leadership Training program” for them. The program was pitched as an OD Intervention. It was divided into three phases i.e., a competence development phase, a competence application phase and finally a competence assessment phase.
After the competence development phase, the internal organization facilitator changed. The external environment risk to the organization of loosing key team leaders also got reduced. The replacement facilitator did not take any interest in the subsequent 2 phases of the OD intervention. The mindset of “Training” predominated. Hence, the OD intervention fizzled out after the first phase.
It was convenient for everybody to forget about the “OD intervention”. Who wants to be held responsible for doing additional activities in addition to key result areas? There is enough to do anyway.
Unless there is a dedicated effort and internal facilitation in the organization, an OD intervention is bound to fail.
A hands-off laissez faire attitude with the predominant mindset of training administration is going to fail by a long shot.
Why is there any need for an OD intervention anyway? Is it worth all the trouble?
Any change whether at an individual, team or organizational level requires multiple initiatives and inputs.
Expecting a long last change to happen on the basis of one input, is unrealistic to say the least.
We also need to examine the distinction between stimulation and competence development. The predominance of feedback based program assessment has resulted in workshops becoming stimulant programs rather than competence development programs.
Hence, the obvious difficulty when the transition has to be made from training to OD.
The effectiveness of an OD program is not based on program feedback. It is based on organization change initiated and accomplished successfully. Workshop pranks and one act plays conducted by trainers during workshop resulting in rave feedback but no change suddenly find themselves in a precarious position in the field of OD.
Let’s take up another example. An organization wanted to build up Team Building competence among some of its key leaders.
So, the obvious approach was to do a training program on, “team building”. The facilitator evolved a framework of Team Building skills. The participants were quite happy with the Team Building framework and the skills learnt.
Then, nothing happened.
Did any of the skills learnt during the workshop get applied?
Don’t Know!!
Was there any change in the functioning and performance of the teams?
No idea!!
If we do not have answers to these vital questions, we may as well have been on a wild goose chase from the beginning.
Rather than conceptualizing and implementing short training solutions, if the organization had adopted the OD approach, they would be having answers to the above mentioned vital questions.
The OD intervention would consist of multiple initiatives rather than a single initiative. The OD plan would be something like the one mapped below:
Thus , the workshop is only one of the initiatives comprising the OD intervention.
The success/failure analysis during executive coaching yields valuable data regarding the level of change achieved.
Thus, the OD facilitator can easily project it as an achievement in terms of making a visible impact on personal and team effectiveness rather than an apology of an achievement in terms of program feedback.
The charm and challenge of OD is in the agenda of dealing with live rather than fictitious data. It however is a double edged sword. While, OD successes will shine like a star on the shoulders of OD practitioners, failures will make an OD practitioner bleed because of their high visibility level.
Thus, OD is not for the faint hearted HR practitioner. It is for the dedicated, the persistent and the believer.
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