A lot of organizations try to make a fundamental change in their effectiveness through OD interventions. However, such initiatives fail to make a lasting impact most of the time. Only some organizations continue to persist because of their faith and drive towards Organization development. This persistence tends to pay off.
OD interventions are not training programs which start and end suddenly.They require multiple initiatives over a period of time.
The OD intervention has a task of taking the organization from the current state of equilibrium to a new state of equilibrium. This requires considerable focus of effort and enormous energy. HR professionals over a period of time have become so facilitative in nature that the hands on approach has been forgotten. OD interventions need a hands on approach from the HR team.
A technology oriented company wanted to unleash innovation in operations. So, it assigned the role of ,”Innovation Driver” to one of the senior personnel in the HR team.The role consisted of identifying functional teams and personnel for spearheading innovations in their respective functions, organization of competence development and application programs, involvement in the selection of potent innovation ideas,triggering and tracking prototype development and roll out of innovations.
The impact of this hands on approach was,” Generation and implementation of innovations in double figures” in two months.
What does this tell us about an OD intervention?
An OD intervention can only succeed if there is a fulcrum in the organization, which is continuously triggering the multiple initiatives, which are required for its success. There is no room for skeptics in the OD process. The skeptics don’t do anything themselves and have a strong tendency to expect reservations continually. Fence sitters thwart the OD process.
A large number of organizations engage professional consultants for deploying OD interventions. Even in such cases, an internal facilitator for working in tandem with the external consultant is critical for the success of the OD intervention.
Can OD intervention failures happen, even when an internal consultant is designated?
Yes.
Let’s take up a case in order to reflect on the dynamics involved.
An organization wanted to enhance the effectiveness of its key personnel. For that purpose they designed an OD intervention which was targeted and competence development ,application and analysis of results.
Multiple initiatives were planned. The enaction of the plan was slow to take off. The initiatives were taken in fits and starts. The internal coordinator was frequently changed.
The result was that the OD intervention went into a limbo. Too much time elapsed without action. The intervention went into a state of suspended animation. This indicates that frequent changing of the internal consultant or the appointment of someone who does not fervently believe in the OD intervention is a prescription for failure.
Another block in the successful implementation of OD interventions is the predominance of the training perspective. Since, training has been around for a long time, the perspective has got so jammed in our thinking process that it creates blind spots, when an OD intervention is to be implemented.
It is about time that the phenomenon of organizing one or two day training program and judging them on the basis of the ubiquitous program feedback form was consigned to the the annals of training history. The approach is simplistic and does not have any lasting impact other than appreciation of the program contents. Designing of the intervention component as an integral part of the training design enhances the potency of the training impact. Since the actual impact never gets measured, the trainers get away with entertainment in the training program rather than competence development. A lot of learning happens through confrontation and feedback. There is very little scope of that in the current training paradigm, where the program feedback form rules the roost. Moreoever, competence development happens through application, very little of which is possible in a training program.
Taking the case of another organization which attempted an OD intervention. The first initiative did not succeed to the expected extent. The result was that the OD intervention was put on the backburner. In the practice of OD, not all initiatives are going to be full successful. OD initiatives which are successful in one organization ma fail in the other organization. Therefore, the OD plan must take the mini successes and the part failures into its stride. In the event of this not happening, most OD intervention would tend to fail. We are trying to change the equilibrium of a living entity here. There is a necessary requirement of making adjustments as the OD intervention progresses.
It seems that a lot of organizations have a romantic attitude towards OD interventions. The want to implement them in order to make a big splash on the organizational scene but they lack the persistence required in order to make them successful.
A professional organization wanted to impact the organizational effectiveness through a diagnostic survey built into a Team Building intervention. The TBI was enacted successfully, where interaction issues among team members in different functional teams were surfaced. On the basis of the organizational diagnostic survey, issues were raised and solutions found.
What happened to those solutions?
No one knows.
In case the solutions identified during such OD interventions are not implemented, they result in nothing but sarcasm thereby raising the bar for participation in the next OD exercise.
If such OD interventions have to be successful, all their components have to be mapped with laid out responsibility for each component. the action part of the OD intervention is equally important as compared to the problem identification and solution finding part. Without an resultant action, what is the point of doing the exercise in the first place. It tentamounts to poor utilization of funds available to the organization for such exercises.
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