Organization Development, Research Paper Example

Organization development (OD) is an internal driven process that aims to develop desired results of an organization in tandem to specific set goals and objectives.   As opposed to change management that is driven by external and market factors, organizational development is a process that aims to improve the internal functioning of a firm (Gary, 2006).  Development is the key area of emphasis in organizational development whereby resources are channeled towards improving existing working conditions through new learning approaches.  It encompasses other activities like conducting qualitative feedbacks on the performance of an organization’s employees and also managing conflict to avoid it becoming destructive to the organization.  Besides, OD utilizes knowledge on behavioral science to build relationships among individuals and groups through harnessing their potentials to make positive contribution as a system.

A case study in organization’s development involves Jive Software, a major software company based in Portland, Oregon that uses Oracle technology to provide powerful software solutions that help online users find others, work in collaboration with peers and experts and gain constant access to important information (Tallargo, 2003). The company had been experiencing massive growth and expansion in the past few years leading to loss of its cultural identity.  The management therefore wanted to achieve the massive growth but at the same time keep intact the core values that contributed to its massive growth.  The OD involved aligning the leadership of the firm around a new vision. This involved designing a system of interactive sessions at the company’s locations so as to communicate new effective directions that the organization needed to take.  Besides, the organization wanted to integrate all of its departments to work as one system that contributed to the overall success of the whole organization (p. 112).  This rose out of the realization from the sessions that most of the organization’s units were operating as separate parts creating a situation where there was a lack of common goals and brought co-ordination and communication problems. The organization had made a critical analysis of its departments and found out that there was a lack of cohesiveness and co-ordination in their functions.

Another area of focus was development with key focus areas being leadership development which involved working with supervisors and management to come up with effective leadership competencies necessary to work in the increasingly complex organization.  This involved developing programmes that incorporated trainings and coaching to address specific needs and expectations of the firm. Development further involved developing teams to promote better decision making and creativity brought about through team dynamics. This involved organizing team development workshops with an aim of developing the capacity of team members to have a better understanding of themselves and colleagues, develop effective communication strategies and develop better conflict resolution strategies through mediation. OD focusing on mediation is very important in that it prepares members to deal effectively with conflicts arising from working in teams and also in organizations with different hierarchical levels and departments (Holvino, 1996). The company used role analysis techniques to explore conflicts between different staff cadres and come up with the best approaches of preventing before they occur and mediating after the conflicts have occurred.  By incorporating better communication tools and processes, the firm was able to deal with structural factors that had previously contributed to conflicts.

References

Gary, N. (2006) Organization development, principles, process, performance. San Francisco: Berett-Koehler Publishers Inc.

Holvino, P. (1996) Reading organization development from the margins: Outsider within organization, New York: Bantam Books.

Tallarigo, R ( 2003) Best Practices in Organization Development and Change.  London: Kogan Page Ltd