What is organizational development?

Organizational development is a critical and science-based process that helps

organizations build their capacity to change and achieve greater effectiveness by
developing, improving, and reinforcing strategies, structures, and processes.

There are a few elements in this definition (adapted from Cummings & Worley,
2009) that stand out.

 Critical and science-based process. OD is an evidence-based and structured

process. It is not about trying something out and seeing what happens. It is
about using scientific findings as input and creating a structured and
controlled process in which assumptions are tested. Lastly, it is about
testing if the outcomes reflect the intention of the intervention.
 Build capacity to change and achieve greater effectiveness. Organizational
development is aimed at organizational effectiveness. It, therefore, has a
number of (business) outcomes. These can differ between organizations,
but usually, they do include financial performance, customer satisfaction,
organizational member engagement, and an increased capacity to adapt
and renew the organization. These are not always clear-cut. Sometimes it is
about building a competitive advantage, in whichever way that is defined.
We will explore these outcomes later in this article
 Developing, improving, and reinforcing strategies, structures, and
processes. The last part of our definition states that organizational
development applies to changes in strategy, structure, and/or processes.
This implies a system-approach, where we focus on an entire organizational
system. This can include the full organization, one or more locations, or a
single department.

Organizational design has become more crucial over time. Today’s world is
characterized by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA). This
VUCA world requires new agility from organizations, and organizational
development is the means to that end.

Globalization leads to a much greater interconnectedness and opens up

organizations to world-wide opportunities and threats. 
The goals of organizational development
We already briefly touched on the goals of organizational development. The goals
differ per organization. Goals can include increasing profits, profit margins,
market share, moral and/or cultural values, and the general adaptability (or
agility) of the organization.

If there would be one central goal, it would be increasing the organization’s

competitiveness.

Competitiveness is the idea that every organization has unique resources and
competencies that help the firms to win in the marketplace. This can be the
people (a business leader like Elon Musk, or the Google team), an innovative
product (SpaceX), superior service (Four Seasons Hotels), or culture (Zappos). It
can also be how reactive the organization is to changing market demands. If
you’re the first to capitalize on an opportunity, for instance, it may solidify your
revenue in the next five years. 

The goal of OD is to develop these aspects, as they can help a business win in the
marketplace.

This means that organizational development differs from the incidental change
process. OD focuses on building the organization’s ability to assess its current
functioning and tweak it to achieve its goals. It is, therefore, a continuous process,
whereas change processes are often temporarily.

This also emphasizes the relevance of OD. In this VUCA world, change is becoming
a constant factor. OD is an integral approach to ensuring this constant change. 

18 examples of OD interventions/OD Techniques

Organizational development is not easy. It is a fairly technical field, and so are the
interventions. 18 examples of OD interventions is listed , also called
organizational development techniques, that are listed by Cummings and Worley
(2009). This is far from an exhaustive list.

Human Process Interventions

Human process interventions are change programs that relate to interpersonal

relations, group, and organizational dynamics. These are some of the earliest and
best-known interventions used in OD.
1. Individual interventions. These interventions are targeted to the individual,
often aimed at improving communication with others. The individual is coached
on behaviors that are counter-productive.

2. Group interventions. These interventions are aimed at the process, content, or

structure of the group. Process relates to the group’s internal processes. Content
relates to what the group works on. Structure relates to recurring methods it uses
to reach tasks and deal with external issues. All of these can be improved.

3. Third-party interventions. Third-party interventions are often used when there

are conflicts. Not all conflicts are bad, but bad conflicts should be resolved
quickly. The third-party intervention helps to control and resolve the conflict.
Oftentimes, the third party is the OD consultant.

4. Team building. Team building is the best-known OD intervention. It refers to a

range of activities that help groups improve the way they accomplish tasks.

5. Organizational confrontation meeting. The confrontation meeting is aimed at

identifying problems, setting priorities and action targets, and begin working on
identified problems organization-wide.

6. Intergroup relations interventions. These interventions are aimed at

diagnosing and understanding intergroup relations. Similarly, problems are
identified, priorities and action targets set, before working on the identified
problems.

7. Large-group interventions. These interventions are somewhere between the

two above. The aim is to bring a large number of organization members and other
stakeholders together to identify and organize members together to identify and
resolve organization-wide problems, to design new approaches to structuring and
managing the firm, or to propose future directions of the organization. They are
often referred to as “open space meetings”, “world cafes”, “future searches”, and
“Appreciative Inquiry Summits”.

Technostructural Interventions

Technostructural interventions refer to change programs aimed at the technology

and structure of the organization. These are becoming increasingly relevant to
today’s rapidly changing markets and technological landscape.
8. Organizational (structural) design. The functional structure of the organization
is key to how it will function. We all know the classical hierarchical organizational
chart. This is referred to as the functional structure. Other structures are
divisional, matrix, process, customer-centric, and network structure. Key activities
in organizational design are reengineering and downsizing. This involves
rethinking the way work is done, preparing the organization, and restructuring it
around the new business processes.

9. Total quality management. Total quality management is also known as

continuous process improvement, lean, and six-sigma. It grew out of a
manufacturing emphasis on quality control and represents a long-term effort to
orient all of an organization’s activities around the concept of quality.

10. Work design. Work is done to achieve an outcome. Jobs can be aligned to
achieve the most efficient way to achieve this outcome, or alternatively, the
employee’s needs and satisfaction can be put front and center. Depending on
which approach is chosen, different skills are needed. Designing work in a way
that leads to optimum productivity is called work design. 

11. Job enrichment. Job enrichment is part of work design. The goal here is to
create a job that is interesting and challenging for the person doing it. Examples
of factors to be taken into account are skill variety, task identity, autonomy, and
feedback.
A Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) is part of work design, an Organizational
Development Intervention (image based on Cummings & Worley, 2009)

Human Resource Management Interventions

These are organizational development techniques that focus on the way the
individual is managed. Many of these are used by the HR department as well.

12. Performance management. Good performance management includes

techniques such as goal setting, performance appraisal, and reward systems.
13. Developing talent. This includes talent management practices like coaching &
mentoring, career planning, development interventions, and management and
leadership development

14. Diversity interventions. Diversity is a source of innovation. This includes age,

gender, race, sexual orientation, disabilities, and culture and value orientation.
These interventions are aimed at increasing diversity.

15. Wellness interventions. Employee wellness interventions include stress

management programs, and employee assistance programs. They address social
trends and aim for a healthy work-life balance.

Strategic Change Interventions

These organizational development techniques focus on the change processes that

shake the organization to its core. The OD department plays a crucial part in
executing on this change.

16. Transformational change. This is a change process that involves changing the
basic character of the organization, including how it is structured and the way it
operates.

17. Continuous change. Continuous change is an intervention that enables

organizations to change themselves continually. A popular example is the learning
organization. 

18. Transorganizational change. Transorganizational change involves change

interventions that move beyond a single organization. This includes mergers,
allying, acquisitions, and strategic networking.

As I mentioned, this is not an exhaustive list. Techniques like financial planning,

long-range forecasting, integrating technology, manpower planning, and
designing appraisal systems can be added, as well as many, many more.
How Human Resources and OD relate

As you’ve seen in the list of organizational development interventions above,

there are many OD interventions that relate to Human Resource Management.
Policies like performance management, goal setting, appraisal, and talent
management practices are all essential to effective organizational development.

Another commonality is that both HRM and OD start at the business strategy –
the mission, values, and vision of the organization. Both then go on to define the
activities needed to implement that strategy in their respective fields. In addition,
many early people analytics initiatives originate from the OD department.  

However, where HRM focuses specifically on people practices, OD takes a more

holistic approach. Using tools like organizational design, individual and group
interventions, work design, and more traditional people interventions, OD can
operate at all levels of the organization. These are organizational, group, and
individual. However, the focus is always on strategic themes, whereas HR is often
a lot more operational.

Sometimes, OD functions are located in the HR function, but not always.

Sometimes it’s part of a services department, corporate strategy, or internal
consulting. OD techniques are also frequently used by external strategy
consultants, who use these tools in change management projects.

What’s clear is that the OD techniques we listed above, are very powerful and
that anyone in HR that masters them, will be more effective in their job and can
make a real impact on their business.

The organizational development process

The organizational development processes can be divided into seven steps.

this process is not unlike the people analytics cycle – where a problem is
detected, data gathered, analyzed, presented, and new policies implemented.

1. Entering and contracting

The first step starts when a manager or administrator spots an opportunity for
improvement. There are different events that can trigger this, including external
changes, internal conflicts, complaining customers, loss of profit, a lack of
innovation, or high absence or employee turnover. These events are usually
symptoms of a deeper problem. 

The first stage is about scoping the problem. This is usually done through a
meeting between the manager and the OD members. In the case of external OD
consultants, this stage is more formal.

2. Diagnostics

In the second phase, diagnostics, the OD practitioner tries to understand a

system’s current functioning. They collect information needed to accurately
interpret the problem, through surveys, interviews, or by looking at currently
available data and try to find the root cause.

According to Cummings & Worley (2009), effective diagnosis provides the

systematic knowledge of the organization needed to design appropriate
interventions.

There are different models used to run these diagnoses. Below you see three IPO
models, with a clear input, a (change) process, and an output. They help to
structure different design components of the organizations (note the
resemblance to Galbraith’s star model). This model clearly shows different design
components that play a role at different organizational levels (i.e. organizational,
group, and individual)
Three comprehensive models for diagnosing organizational systems in OD (Image
by Cummings & Worley, 2009)

3. Data collection and analyzing

In the third phase, data is collected and analyzed. Data collection instruments
include existing data from work systems, questionnaires, interviews,
observations, and ‘fly on the wall’ methods.
Data collection is often time-consuming and critical for the success of a project.
Important factors to keep in mind are confidentiality, anonymity, a clear purpose,
observer-expectancy bias, and a Hawthorne effect. 

Observer bias is the tendency to see what we expect to see. The Hawthorne
effect refers to the famous Hawthorne studies where subjects behaved differently
purely because they were being observed.

Another effect to keep in mind is a regression to the mean. This refers to the
phenomenon that arises when there’s an extreme situation, or outlier, that
returns to its normal state. So a consultant would be brought in when things are
really bad, with the situation getting less bad simply because time passes by. In
this situation, the situation is less likely to go from really bad to even worse, than
from really bad to just bad – hence regression to the mean.

4. Feedback

In this phase, it is key for the OD consultant to give information back to the client
in a way that’s understandable and action-driven.

Information needs to be relevant, understandable, descriptive, verifiable, timely,

limited, significant, comparative, and spur action. Techniques like storytelling and
visualization can be used to do this in an effective way.

5. Designing interventions

After providing the client with feedback, an intervention needs to be created. This
intervention should fit the needs of the organization and should be based on
causal knowledge of outcomes. In addition, the organization needs to be able to
absorb the changes effectively.

A major part of the change process is defining success criteria for change. Only
when these criteria are well-defined, progress can be measured.

6. Leading and managing change

The next phase is about executing the change intervention. Estimations put the
failure rate of change between 50-70%. Even though this is not entirely true, no
one can doubt that change is hard. 
Effective change management revolves around motivating change, creating a
vision, developing support, managing the transition, and sustaining momentum.
Well-known change models include John Kotter’s eight steps to transforming your
organization.

7. Evaluation and institutionalization of change

Once a system has been implemented, opportunities for improvement start to
show. Implementing these will lead to a better user and employee experience. 

These incremental changes characterize the rapid evolution of technology.

Change is becoming a constant factor, which means that it is near impossible to
just implement technology and be done with it. Systems evolve and this requires
a constant implementation.

Lastly, effective interventions measure their own success and are created in a way
that enables comparison between the state of affairs before and after.