OD INTERVENTIONS

Definition of Interventions
An intervention is a set of sequenced and
planned actions or events intended to help the
organization increase its effectiveness.
They are deliberate attempts to change an
organization or sub-unit towards a different and
more effective state.

Types of interventions
Human Process Interventions
Coaching
Training and Development
Process Consultation and Team
Building
Third-party Interventions (Conflict
Resolution)
Intergroup Relationships
Large-group Interventions
Structural Interventions
Self-managed teams.
Work redesign.
Management by objectives (MBO).
Quality circles.
Quality of work life projects (QWL).
Parallel learning structures
Physical settings.
Total quality management (TQM).
Reengineering.
Large-scale systems change.

HRM Interventions
Goal Setting
Performance Appraisal
Reward Systems
Career Planning and Development
Managing Work Force Diversity
Employee Stress and Wellness
Strategic Interventions
Mergers and Acquisitions
Alliances and Networks
Culture Change
Self-designing Organizations
Organization Learning and Knowledge
Management

Human Process Interventions

Interpersonal interventions in an OD program
are designed to enhance individual skills,
knowledge, and effectiveness, as well as to
increase the group dynamics.

What are T-Groups?

T-groups (T for training) are unstructured
small-group situations in which participants
learn from their own actions
T-groups focus on the what, how and why of
interpersonal communication.
T-groups are used by consultants to help
managers learn about the effects of their
behavior on others

Goals of T-groups
Increased understanding about ones own
behavior
Increased understanding about the behavior of
others
Better understanding of group process
Improvement in the ability to analyze ones own
behavior

Third Party Peace Making

Intermediaries (or "third parties") are people,
organizations, or nations who enter a conflict to
try to help the parties de-escalate or resolve it.

Coaching & Mentoring

The main reasons why organizations need coaching and
mentoring activities are as follows:
To maximize knowledge transfer
To increase the skill levels
For succession planning

Contd..
To maximize knowledge transfer
Coaching & Mentoring provides a learning
channel that effectively transfers knowledge
within the organization
Critical knowledge is maintained in the
organization
Contextual learning is evident

Contd.
To increase skill levels
The coaches and mentors can very effectively
transfer core skills
Customization of skills in relation to the core
activities of the business is retained
Cross training of staff can be achieved

Contd.
For succession planning
The ability for the organization to identify fast
track candidates and prepare them for new jobs is
enhanced by coaching & mentoring
Coaching & Mentoring can ensure continuity of
performance when key staff leave the organization
because core skills have been transferred

What does a mentor actually do?

Encourage
Convey sincere belief in protg ability to
succeed
Give advice
Give constructive feedback
Give formal and informal instruction (technical,
clinical, political)
Introduce to colleagues, etc.
Provide opportunities for protg to
demonstrate his/her skills

Contd.
Serve as career and lifestyle role model
Attend meetings, conferences, and other events
together
Provide observation experience
Exchange/discuss ideas
Challenge protg to and assist with career
planning and development; emphasis on
planning

What about mentees?

Potential to succeed
Willing to learn
Confident to try new things
Communicate well
Trust others
Ambitious
Values relationships
Sees relationship between personal and professional growth
Active learner
Focused
Learn from, but not have to please the mentor
Knows limits/ when to get help
Ethical
Takes initiative
Goal oriented
Organization/ time management skills

Large-group Interventions
These interventions involve getting abroad
variety of stakeholders into a large meeting to
clarify important values, to develop new
ways of working, to articulate a new vision for
the organization, or to solve pressing
organizational problems.

Structural interventions
This change process concerns the organizations
division of labor how to specialize task
performances. Diagnostic guidelines exist to
determine which structure is appropriate for
particular organizational environments,
technologies, and conditions.

Self-Managed Teams
Problems in implementation:
What to do with the first-line supervisors who are no
longer needed as supervisors.
Managers that are now one level above the teams will
likely oversee the activities of several teams, and their
roles will change to emphasize planning, expediting,
and coordinating.

They need considerable training to acquire skills

in group leadership and ability to delegate; skills
to have participative meetings, planning, quality
control, budgeting, etc.

Work Redesign
what job characteristics lead to the psychological
state that produces what they call high internal
work motivation.
Model suggested that organizations analyze jobs
using the four core job characteristics; then
redesign of group work: skill variety, task
significance, autonomy, feedback from job.

MBO and Appraisal

Management by objective (MBO) programs
evolve from a collaborative organization
diagnosis and are systems of joint target setting
and performance review designed to increase a
focus on objectives and to increase frequency of
problem solving discussions between
supervisors and subordinates and within work
teams.

Quality Circles
The concept is a form of group problem solving
and goal setting with a primary focus on
maintaining and enhancing product quality.
Extensively used in Japan.
Quality circles consist of a group of 7 10
employees from a unit; who have volunteered to
meet together regularly to analyze and make
proposals about product quality and other
problems.
Morale and job satisfaction among participants
were reported to have increased.
Quality circles contributes toward total quality
management.

Quality of Work Life (QWL)

Organizational improvement efforts.
Attempt to restructure multiple dimensions of the
organization.
To institute a mechanism which introduces and
sustains changes over time.

An increase in participation by employees

Parallel Learning Structures

Consists of a steering committee and a number
of working groups that:
Study what changes are needed in the
organization,
Make recommendations for improvement, and
Then monitor the resulting change efforts.

Physical Setting and OD

Physical settings are an important part of organization
culture that work groups should learn to diagnose and
manage, and about which top management needs input
in designing plants and buildings.
Sometime, physical setting were found to interfere with
effective group and organizational functioning.
Examples: A personnel director having a secretary share the same office;
resulting lack of privacy and typewriter noise, thus adversely affect the
productivity of the director.
Management encouraged group decision making, yet providing no space
for more than 6 people to meet at one time.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Also called continuous quality improvement.
A combination of a number of organization improvement
techniques and approaches, including the use of quality circles,
statistical quality control, statistical process control, self-managed
teams and task forces, and extensive use of employee participation.
Features that characterize TQM:

Primary emphasis on customers.

Daily operational use of the concept of internal customers.
Competitive benchmarking.
Continuous search for sources of defects with a goal of eliminating them entirely.
Participative management.
An emphasis on teams and teamwork.
A major emphasis on continuous learning.
Top management support on an ongoing basis.

Reengineering
Definition the fundamental rethinking and radical
redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic
improvements in critical, contemporary measures of
performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed.
Reengineering focuses on visualizing and streamlining
any or all business processes in the organization.
Reengineering seeks to make such processes more
efficient by combining, eliminating, or restructuring
activities without regard to present hierarchical or
control procedures.

Self-Design Strategy
It is a learning model to help organization develop the
build-in capacity to transform themselves to achieve
high performance in todays competitive and changing
environment.
Basic components:
An educational component consisting of readings, presentations,
visits to other companies, and attendance at conferences.
Clarification of the values that will guide the design process.
Diagnosis of the current state of the organization using the values
as template.
Changes are then designed and implemented in an interactive
manner.

Large-Scale Systems Change and

Organizational Transformation
Large-scale systems change; mean
organizational change that is massive in terms of
the number of organizational units involved, the
number of people affected, the number of
organizational subsystems altered, and/or the
depth of the cultural change involved.

Example: a major restructuring with objectives

including a reduction in hierarchical levels from 8 to 4.

Organizational transformation; second-order

change requires a multiplicity of interventions
and takes place over a fairly long period of time
(5-year plan).

Dos Of OD Interventions
Inform in advance of the nature of the
intervention and the nature of their involvement.
OD effort has to be connected to other parts of
the organization.
Directed by appropriate managers.
Based on accurate diagnosis .
Evaluation is the key to success.
Show employees how the OD effort relates to the
organization's goals and overriding mission.