This summary includes all organisational development and change management lessons taught by prof Kim De Meulenaere at the University of Antwerp. The lessons have been supplemented with information from the manual (in italics).
Organisational development
& change management
Class 1
What is organisational Development (OD)
“If you think there is consensus on what OD is, you haven’t been around long enough”
70 years ago Today: nonstop CHANGE
Stable jobs Ageing society
Stable industries Globalisation
Stable environments Labour shortage
Low-skilled, manufacturing work Technological development
Crises (war, covid, energy)
Globalization
Changes in preferences: work-life
balance, employee wellbeing, personal
growth, …
= All influence organisations and work.
= The organisation should CHANGE as well!
Organizations must create a healthy discomfort with the status quo.
To thrive, companies need to be in a never-ending state of transformation, perpetually
creating fundamental, enduring change.
OD looks at: how to make these changes successful, how to guide the employees and company
through the changes?
OD ≠ Change management
“All OD involves change management, but change management may not involve OD”
Change management Organization development
System focus Specific part of the system Entire system
All departments need to
collaborate.
Human aspect Economic, financial, technical Driven by humanistic values
focus Ensure that everyone is
No real human focus. aboard.
Planned change Programmatic Adaptive and flexible
All steps are known End goal is known, but along
beforehand. the way, the optimal path
needs to be figured out.
Change agent Expert in issue Process guide
Ex. merger expert for a merger. General knowledge about the
process of change, to guide the
, whole organisation.
Direction Top down In collaboration with
employees
Organizational effectiveness Financial Financial, sustainability, and
Higher profit = good change. employee satisfaction
All 3 should be present,
otherwise the change is not
successful.
Time horizon Short term Long term
Examples Introduce a new technology, Create learning networks
new leader, develop a new across departments, improve
service, company mergers & employee involvement, self-
acquisitions, … managing teams, adapt
business strategy to changed
environment, …
Definitions of OD
“A system-wide application and transfer of behavioural science knowledge to the planned
development, improvement, and reinforcement of the strategies, structures and processes that lead
to organization effectiveness” (Cummings et al., 2020)
Evidence-based decisions!
“Organization development is the process of increasing organizational effectiveness and facilitating
personal and organizational change through the use of interventions driven by social and behavioral
science knowledge” (Anderson, 2015)
“Organization development is a system-wide process of data collection, diagnosis, action planning,
intervention, and evaluation aimed at
(1) Enhancing congruence (alignment) among organizational structure, process, strategy,
people, and culture
(2) Developing new and creative organizational solutions
(3) Developing the organization’s self-renewing capacity
It occurs through the collaboration of organizational members working with a change agent using
behavioral science theory, research and technology”
(Michael Beer, 2015)
OD is about…
• Evolving, adapting, improving as an organization
• Through changes (‘interventions’) in structure, processes, culture, strategy
, • Changes: from individuals to teams to entire organizations
• Changes: flexible and adaptable
• Facilitating change through people involvement
• Based on behavioral science knowledge
Where does OD come from? (handbook paragraph 1.3 background)
5 movements that made OD as it is today:
1) Laboratory training/T-group (Kurt Lewin)
= a small, unstructured group, in which participants learn from their own interactions and
evolving group processes about such issues as interpersonal relations, personal growth,
leadership and group dynamics.
2) Action research/Survey feedback
Action research = a systematic and reflective inquiry process that is used to address specific
problems or issues within an organization or community. It involves a cyclical process of
planning, taking action, observing the results, and then reflecting on those results to inform
further action.
Survey feedback = a specific method within the broader context of action research. It involves
the use of surveys to collect data from individuals within an organization or group. The
collected data is then analysed and used to provide feedback and make improvements.
3) Normative approaches
o Likert’s participative management program
o Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid
4) Quality of work life
Favourable work conditions support employee satisfaction and productivity. Initially focused
on work design, afterwards expanded beyond work design.
5) Strategic change
, Globalization and increased environmental complexity larger-scaled change and more
intricate need of strategic planning of change: align organization design and strategy with
the environment.
Increased relevance of OD to the organization and its managers.
Diagnostic OD vs. dialogic OD: book p. 12-13
Why should I care?
You can’t hide for change!
o Currently 70% of change efforts fails!
You will be responsible for change! (who is the OD practitioner? Book p. 44-45)
Review questions:
1) “An OD project is successful if the organization’s profit has increased” We need the
financial aspect, but sustainability and employee satisfaction are crucial!
2) “All OD requires change management” True! The other way around, this statement
wouldn’t be true.
3) “All OD projects follow the same steps” True! See class 2: Entering & contracting
diagnosing planning & implementing change evaluating & institutionalizing change.
Class 2: Theories of planned change
Illustration case: book p. 29-31
*In this course: when we talk about change: we refer to change planned by organisation members
instead of caused by global, economic and technological development. to increase effectiveness
and capability to change itself.
Why pursue planned change? To solve problems, learn from experience, reframe shared perceptions,
adapt to external environmental changes, improve performance or to influence future changes.
Traditional approaches: different steps: change is preceded by data gathering to form a diagnosis for
which remedies will be sought. to optimize organisation to its ideal state.
Assumptions: apprehension of objective data is possible and this data can be used for implementing
beneficial change. ( challenged by post-modernist approaches)
Why do we need theories?
70% of the change efforts that organisations implement fail!
o There are so many points in time in the change process that things can go wrong:
change is a very long process with many different steps (wrong training, wrong
people leading change, get employees aboard, …)
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