Collecting Data on Organizational Change

Transcription

1 Question 1: What needs to be analyzed when organizing the information gathered during the diagnosis? Answer 1: Any diagnosis must tell you what is working and what is not. That is the first task in determining health and effectiveness. This effort must include a determination of the purpose and mission of the organization. Is the organization achieving what it wants, and is what it wants appropriate to its growth, longevity, and survival? The second factor may be less obvious. This factor has to do with evaluating the likelihood that the actions and outcomes identified are amenable to change. Asking, Is it working? and categorizing the answers into yes and no provides half of the equation. Asking, Can it change? gives a fuller picture. Question 2: How do the questions "Is it working?" and "Can it change?" interact? Answer 2: They create a helpful discussion tool the diagnostic square shown here. Is it working? YES Can the outcome or action change is it likely that this problem or practice is easy to change? YES Quadrant 2 These are things that need to be monitored and institutionalized or Can the outcome or action change is it likely that this problem or practice is easy to change? NO Quadrant 3 This is the area of effective work! 1

2 kept & promoted to build effectiveness. Quadrant 1 Quadrant 4 NO These are clearly This area targets and priorities requires a for change. strategy of cope and/or does things to affect readiness or conditions so you live with it or it moves to Quadrant 1. Over time there is a natural, clock-wise movement to the items on the chart. The targets generate change plans. (Quadrant 1) Things improve and move up to where they are effective, but they are very likely to slip back or are inconsistent. (Quadrant 2) With more effort or practice, and by establishing measures and rewards, these move into Quadrant 3 effective work. The organization locks them in because they work! Unfortunately, things change and the actions, procedures, and processes that are effective today become inefficient or less effective (they stop working or do not work well) ending up in Quadrant 4, the cope box. Like laws or rules that are no longer effective but can t be changed we get around them or limit their effect. Eventually, circumstances occur that allow change, or organizations do things to move them into Quadrant 1. Over time, the things that are unbearable do become targets for change bringing the organization back to square one and starting the process again. The trick for an OD practitioner is to help companies understand how to manage the cycle of change. The goal is to move quickly out of cope into targets and then up to a level where they are working or are effective. Keeping the actions effective requires reinforcing good outcomes, setting appropriate rewards, and providing measures or controls. Keeping them running well is the purpose of slowing down the natural rotation process, but this can never prevent these things from becoming ineffective and 2

3 ultimately landing back in the cope box. How well organizations move through this cycle is one measure of effectiveness, and it shows that the organization understands the issue of readiness for change. Question 3: What is examined when conducting a diagnosis at the organizational level? Answer 3: Using the open system model of input, throughput, and output means that the diagnosis needs to cover factors in the external environment (things that influence the inputs and how outputs are received). Some external forces which might be measured when generating diagnostic information are the availability of core inputs, the regulatory environment (its friendliness to or problems it causes to the way the company operates), and the number and abilities of competitors both within the industry segment and from other industries. Customers and other stakeholders are those who use the products or services of the company and those that invest or have a stake in the operations. What do they want? The internal factors tend to be clearer and more defined. Generally, they are grouped in categories: People-related issues Technology and process related issues Strategy and goal clarity issues Structure and infrastructure, the organization of the elements, and connections among them Information that is measured and tracked, its availability, how it is used The internal environment and culture and the unwritten and written norms that affect how all the other elements come into play. How the external and internal forces are aligned helps to create an understanding of effectiveness and its relationship to outputs such as productivity, satisfaction, profitability, product quality, and so on. Question 4: What would be evaluated when conducting a group level analysis? Answer 4: The environment in which the group works is the organization, so all of the organizational forces may affect your diagnosis of the group. In 3

4 addition, you need to evaluate the purpose for the group, its function, and the group s clarity relative to its tasks/goals. The task or tasks of the group, the resources (especially its composition and the skills or issues the members bring with them), the norms, and processes used to do the work, the structure of the team itself and how work is allocated to the members, how communication occurs, and decisions made are all factors to consider when considering effectiveness at the group level. Question 5: What is evaluated in an individual level diagnosis? Answer 5: There are two aspects at the individual level: one is the job required of the individual, and the second is everything that can affect it. Internal motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, resources, skills used or needed, information available, controls or direction provided, and support are all factors to consider. The work itself can be looked at through the lenses of task identity and clarity, task variety or complexity, autonomy, significance, and feedback/rewards. The output measures are the quality and quantity of work done. Quality may include the speed or timeliness of the work. Then, there are a host of intangible output factors ranging from worker satisfaction and self-esteem to loyalty and the cooperation given by the individual to others in the work group. Question 6: How do these factors interact across the levels? Answer 6: As you move top-down, the overall organization creates the context for evaluating the group. The strategy of the corporation, its purpose and structure, and its resources all create the boundaries within which group functioning can be defined (by goal clarity, task structure, composition, norms, and internal processes). The group, in turn, creates the context for understanding individual performance task variety, complexity, autonomy, significance, and feedback. As you move from the bottom to the top, the structure of the individual jobs and the character and motivation of the people involved are significant determinants to understanding why groups are or are not clear as to their tasks, composed as they are, function as they do, and have the norms or standards within which all these factors play. The functioning of the group can then tell us much about the organizational outcomes and how to better 4

5 align the design elements at this high or top level. Diagnosis is an iterative and repetitive process that needs to look top-down to figure out why individual outputs are what they are and bottom-up to determine what to change so the company elements are aligned to produce effective performance outputs. 5