OD Interventions

OD interventions as “set of structured activities in which selected organisational

units (target groups or individuals) engage with a task or a sequence of tasks
where the task goals are directly related or indirectly to organisational
improvement.

Human process intervention

Human process intervention is a process that focus on employees to

understanding the own behavior and others behaviour for the purpose of
improving the benefits through problem solving, decision making to accomplish
the organizational goals within an organization and it includes process
consultation, team building and sensitivity training etc.

Intervention Techniques

Coaching

Coaching in a business environment is a training method in which a more

experienced or skilled individual provides an employee with advice and
guidance intended to help develop the individual's skills, performance and
career. Coaching is a highly individualized process that depends on both the
nature of the client and the coach's knowledge, skills and abilities.

Training and development

Training and Development is a subsystem of an organization which emphasize

on the improvement of the performance of individuals and groups. Training is
an educational process which involves the sharpening of skills, concepts,
changing of attitude and gaining more knowledge to enhance the performance
of the employees. Good & efficient training of employees helps in their skills &
knowledge development, which eventually helps a company improve.

Training is about knowing where you are in the present and after some time
where will you reach with your abilities. By training, people can learn new
information, new methodology and refresh their existing knowledge and skills.
Due to this there is much improvement and adds up the effectiveness at work.
The motive behind giving the training is to create an impact that lasts beyond
the end time of the training itself and employee gets updated with the new
phenomenon. Training can be offered as skill development for individuals and
groups.

Process Consultation

PC represents a method of intervening in an ongoing system.A hired consultant

take charge of making improvements in the existing system.the basic content of
process consultation is that the consultant works with individuals and groups to
help them learn about human and social processes and learn to solve problems
that stem from process events.there can be so many problems related to
productions,communication,motivation,technology and so on.

Business Process Reengineering

Business Process Reengineering involves the radical redesign of core business

processes to achieve dramatic improvements in productivity, cycle times and
quality. In Business Process Reengineering, companies start with a blank sheet
of paper and rethink existing processes to deliver more value to the customer.

Third Party Interventions

Here a change agent tries to overcome various types of misunderstandings,

which occur between various groups with the help of improved communication
among the groups.

Human Resources Management Interventions

It focuses on interventions used to develop, integrate, and support people in

organizations. These practices include career planning, reward systems, goal
setting, and performance appraisal— change methods that traditionally have
been associated with the human resources function in organizations.
1. Goal setting. This change program involves setting clear and challenging
goals. It attempts to improve organization effectiveness by establishing a better
fit between personal and organizational objectives. Managers and subordinates
periodically meet to plan work, review accomplishments, and solve problems in
achieving goals.

2. Performance appraisal. This intervention is a systematic process of jointly

assessing work-related achievements, strengths, and weaknesses. It is the
primary human resources management intervention for providing performance
 feedback to individuals and work groups. Performance appraisal represents an
important link between goal setting and reward systems.

3. Reward systems. This intervention involves the design of organizational

rewards to improve employee satisfaction and performance. It includes
innovative approaches to pay, promotions, and fringe benefits.
4. Career planning and development. This intervention helps people choose
organizations and career paths and attain career objectives. It generally focuses
on managers and professional staff and is seen as a way of improving the
quality of their work life.

5. Wellness and work life balance. These interventions include employee

assistance programs (EAPs) and stress management. EAPs are counselling
programs that help employees deal with substance abuse and mental health,
marital, and financial problems that often are associated with poor work
performance. Stress management programs help workers cope with the negative
consequences of stress at work. They help managers reduce specific sources of
stress, such as role conflict and ambiguity, and provide methods for reducing
such stress symptoms as hypertension and anxiety.

ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

Organizational Learning is a process to enable organizations to better use the

knowledge of their members to make business decisions. In a conventional
organization, decisions are often based on management perspective without
taking into account the other members of the organization.

Organizational learning is a buzzword used to describe the process of transferring

knowledge within an organization. As your business gains experience, it should
improve over time. You, your team, and your organization should be creating a
broad base of knowledge during this time, covering any and all topics that could
improve the way you do business. For example, you should learn more about
your ideal customer, or create more efficient processes for running your business.

In general, the experts talk about four different types of knowledge that exist and
grow within an organization. They divide them up into “communities” of
learning.

 Individual
 Group
 Organizational
 Inter-organizational

Individual Learning
Obviously, this is the smallest learning community– a community of just one.
When an individual worker learns new skills or ideas, productivity and
performance generally improve. In order to maximize the benefit of this
individual learning to the organization, the worker who learns the new skill must
share it with co-workers. Otherwise, that skill leaves with the worker. If the
employee moves on to another job, the knowledge moves on with them, and the
organization is stuck in place.

Group Learning
Groups, or teams of employees, can also learn new skills together. When people
spend the majority of their time working on a team with specific co-workers,
those teams tend to coordinate in such a way that they learn as a group. The
group members develop something that psychologists call “social psychological
awareness.” This means that each person perceives themselves as a part of the
group, and one group member’s actions affect the group as a whole.

A good example is a team of surgeons. You’ve probably seen hospital dramas

where a team of doctors work on a patient together. Everyone contributes ideas
and solutions, they work on the surgery together, and they either save or lose the
patient as a team. If one of the doctors has experience with a particular medical
problem, then they bring it into the surgery so the team now has that experience,
not just that one doctor.

Organizational Learning
Technically, all four of these communities of learning contribute to the
organization as a whole. But this one type gets its own special designation.

So what are we talking about here? Well, organizational learning is the

organization’s process of gaining knowledge related to its function and using that
knowledge to adapt to a changing environment and increase efficiency.

Inter-organizational Learning
This is the broadest type of organizational learning, and it’s most common in
franchises or large businesses with multiple locations. For example, a franchise
might learn how to operate their store by studying the franchise business model.
Why Is Organizational Learning Important to Your Company?

This Business Environment Is Changing Faster Than Ever. The Twenty-First

Century Brought With It Exciting New Technology, Changing The Way People
Operate.
At no time in history has the business environment changed faster than it’s
changing right now. The twenty-first century brought with it exciting new
technology, changing the way people operate. We rarely shop, drive, cook, learn,
or communicate without some sort of digital assist anymore. If you want your
business to stay appealing to your customers, you have to adapt to their new ways
of doing things.

And not only have these new technologies changed the ways in which people do
business, but the technologies themselves are constantly changing. So are the
norms surrounding the use of those technologies.

Look at social media, for example. There was once a time when a business didn’t
need an online presence at all. Then for a while, a simple website and email
address were enough to be cutting edge. Then you needed social media accounts
on Facebook and Twitter.

Next, it was important to share updates with your followers multiple times a day.
Eventually, it wasn’t enough to tweet updates about your business, you had to ask
engaging, personal questions of your followers and share your own stories as
well.

A few years ago, experts warned against discussing politics or any polarizing
issues online. Today, big companies get attention by taking a stand on issues or
even making fun of politicians.

The bottom line is your organization needs to continually learn in order to adapt
to a changing environment. It’s not enough for individuals within your
organization to learn new skills. The organization as a whole needs to learn and
adapt for long term success.

How Can Managers Promote Organizational Learning?

There are a number of steps managers can take to promote organizational
learning.
Create knowledge
The first step toward learning is creating, or taking in, knowledge and
information. Managers should constantly seek to uncover new knowledge about
their business, customers, and environment. They can do this by conducting
surveys, performing market analyses, networking with colleagues in their
industry, and studying competitors.

Retain the knowledge

Once managers have created, or obtained the knowledge, they need a system for
retaining it within the organization. It should be recorded or stored in a place
where it will be accessible to other employees in the future. Many companies
achieve this goal by using an intranet. (The organizational learning gurus would
call these “knowledge management systems.”)

Transfer the knowledge

Finally, the knowledge must be transferred out of the individual community and
into the organizational community as a whole. Some methods for transferring
knowledge are simple, like conducting training or writing articles to share online.
But it’s important to also use the information to inform your business processes.

Think of organizational learning as the comprehensive knowledge structure of the

organization. Individual managers or groups of employees learn something new.
They share that knowledge with the organization, which then uses it to change its
practices. This is how organizations adapt to a changing environment. And it’s
how businesses thrive in the long term.

Senge’s five disciplines

According to Peter Senge, one-third of 500 companies will disappear within 15

years, and the average lifetime for the largest enterprises is approximately 40
years. It addresses the question how today’s organizations can experience
continuous growth to perform better than its competitors.

Instead of visualizing a traditional hierarchy, today’s companies can survive

when it succeeds in creating a learning organization. An organization where
people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire,
where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective
aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning how to learn
together.

The Senge’s five disciplines of learning organizations or Senge’s learning

organisation describes how to manage the success and development of an
organization and how employees give the extra mile that goes beyond the
expectations of the company.

1. Building a Shared vision

In learning organizations, the vision should be created through interaction with
the employees in the enterprise. Many leaders have personal visions that lack
transferring them to a shared vision. The only way to create a shared vision is
by compromising the organization’s and individual’s visions. People who do
not share the same vision might not contribute as much to the organization. The
effect of sharing the same vision is that employees do tasks because they want
to do so instead of they are told to do so. It changes the relationship with the
company, and it turns its performances in a learning mechanism.

2. Systems Thinking

Instead of focusing on individual issues, systems thinking reflect the

observational process of an entire system. Managers have to understand that
every action and consequence is correlated with another. Many times it happens
that managers focus on individual actions, and therefore, forget about seeing the
big picture. When the correlation is understood, it enables us to see
interrelationships and patterns of change in particular situations. Managers will
be able to determine cause and effect.

3. Mental Models

According to Peter Senge, the employees must identify the values of the
company and what the business is all about. A correct understanding of who we
are will enable us to visualize where to go and how to develop further. The
organization has to be flexible in accepting changes to new mental models and a
new image of the company. The most successful companies are those who can
learn and adapt to new models to become faster than its competitors.

4. Team Learning

To accomplish excellent functional team dynamics, team-learning is a primary

importance. It is the discipline by which personal mastery and shared vision are
brought together. It is crucial for the workforce to consider its colleagues as
team members instead of rivals. It is the first step to set up dialogues wherein
people dare to be vulnerable and express their real personality. The working
environment should be safe where honest mistakes are forgiven. Otherwise, no
learning can be experienced.

5. Personal Mastery

Personal mastery occurs when an individual has a clear vision of a goal,

combined with an accurate perception of reality. The gap between the vision
and reality drives the employee to practice all necessary related activities to
realize the vision. This creative tension depends on a clear understanding of
current reality. For this reason, for personal mastery and the related discipline of
a shared vision, looking at, and sharing the truth is a crucial fundamental.
However, employees could believe they lack the competencies to achieve their
goals. A vicious circle might have established and could be difficult to remove.
According to Peter Senge, we should train our subconscious mind because it
can handle more complex problems quicker than what our consciousness can.
When people believe in their own powerlessness, it will hold them back from
realizing their vision. For this reason, we should train the subconscious mind to
tackle the stress and problems in reality.