Organisational Development: An Easy Introduction

Organisational Development

Organisational development, often referred to as “OD”, is a broad phrase that captures many things. Fundamentally though, organisational development can be thought of as intentional work designed to change and improve an organisation so that it is better at what it does.

Most of the time this work focuses on the human factors at play in an organisation. After all, organisations are complicated systems of intertwined processes and streams of work. And at their cores lie people.

In many instances the social systems, ways of working, cultures, methods of communication, relationships, human knowledge and behaviors within organisations determine how effective and competitive they are. They also determine what those organisations are like to work for and how fulfilling and rewarding the individuals who work for them find them to be.

The fundamental premise of organisational development, which derives many of its roots from organisational psychology, sociology and change management, is that by designing and delivering “interventions” that change the social systems, ways of working and cultures within organisations, it’s possible to both improve their competitiveness, and make them better places for people to work.

 

A Brief History of Organisational Development

Organisational development evolved in roughly the 1930s, primarily from the world of Psychology.

The founding father of organisational Development is considered to be Kurt Lewin, an MIT professor who worked across a wide range of areas including organisational psychology and change as well as group dynamics. In fact, he set up MIT’s Research Center for Group Dynamics in 1944, shortly before his death in 1947. Kurt Lewin contributed hugely to the world of business and merits further research if you have time, we certainly regularly reference him and his work throughout what we do.

While Kurt is considered the founding father of organisational Development, he never actually used that phrase himself. Instead, the phrase was formed by another giant of the profession, Richard Beckhard, who coined the term in the 1950s while working at Bell Labs. He later published a seminal work on the subject, “organisation Development: Strategies and Models”. He too was a professor at MIT.

From the 1960s on-wards, organisational Development really started to take off, though perhaps not by that name. Management sciences became more professional and important as organisations searched for increasing competitive advantages and focused more on the engagement and productivity of their employees. In this period things like employee surveys were introduced and organisations started to deliver specific interventions designed to increase engagement. This ability to quantify and evidence changes in in employee opinion or engagement helped move these practices into the mainstream.

The Rise of the Term “OD”

While organisational Development has grown significantly in recent decades, the term has only really become popular in the near past.

Prior to this, various areas of HR delivered organisational Development initiatives under different names, wrapped up in learning and development, personnel, organisational change and performance and engagement teams.

Why Organisational Development Matters

Focusing on the people within an organisation is an effective way to increase competitiveness.

Creating great places to work is important for improving competitiveness in all industries, but it’s particularly important in industries that require people to be creative, innovative, solve problems, manage complexity or otherwise perform more complex mental tasks. In these industries, being a great organisation to work for really is a significant competitive advantage.

Organisational Development is one of the few fields of work in which it is really possible to create great outcomes for both individuals and organisations. To create lasting change though, organisations need to ensure that the benefits of organisational development programs are shared with employees, not simply captured as cost savings for the organisation.

Learning More

Organisational development is a form of organisational change. These programs are often focused on changing a culture, improving employee engagement or changing the employee experience. Many successful organisational development programs have similarities.

As with much change, co-creation is helpful in OD programs and we should consider the emotional impacts of change on people. It might also be worth using Force Field Analysis to assess how likely it is for an OD program will succeed.

In our view, organisational development is one of the most important things that leaders can do.

We don’t really care about the name OD, or the fact that it changes a lot. But we do care about the conscious effort to understand and improve how people feel and work together in an organisation.

We genuinely believe that improving the human aspect of work leads to better outcomes for organisations and individuals involved, and think this is important and powerful.

In our view, all leaders should have an understanding of organisational development.