History of OD

OD developed primarily in the USA out of a number of different schools of thought and practice that have included social psychology, systems thinking, and psychotherapy. More recently, this has also included newer developments such as business process re-engineering, story-telling and large group interventions.

This, in part, explains some of the confusions about OD. The term ‘OD’ is sometimes used interchangeably with other disciplines, such as organisational design, learning and development, and organisation effectiveness.

As a result of this, two people may share the job title ‘OD consultant’, yet come from very different disciplines and do some very different things in their work.

Academic beginnings

American psychologists and behaviourists working in the late 1940s and 1950s found that the application of participative methods to small groups led to attitude change, higher performance and greater commitment.

Abraham Maslow argued for the inherent potential of individuals to pursue ‘self actualisation’, which was more likely to be achieved under conditions of openness and personal recognition. Organisation theorists like Chris Argyris and Rensis Likert advocated organisation-wide participation as a means of motivating individuals and hence achieving greater performance.

New theories of leadership and change also developed: for example, I. Some of the early founders were heavily involved in the T-group movement, a movement resembling group therapy and focusing on group dynamics (although the ‘T’ was said to stand for ‘training’ rather than ‘therapy’). T-groups operated on the underlying premise that causality for behavioural problems lay in an individual’s perceptions, assumptions and feelings concerning events and people around the individual. The solution could be found by altering these elements with feedback in a sensitivity group led by a nondirective trainer.

OD spreads

In the 1960s, the term ‘organisation development’ came into being as an overarching umbrella to include and embrace all of the previous thinking about the behavioural aspects of people involved in changing and developing organisations’2.

OD then spread rapidly within American organisations, which were looking for help in changing the styles of their managers to improve organisational performance. T-group exercises, run by consultants, often on a large scale and designed to move managers towards more open and trusting behaviour, were frequently the vehicle for this.

In the UK, group-based methods of learning and change were being used in coalmines with the involvement of the Tavistock Institute.

OD at this stage could be ‘categorised as primarily focusing on individuals and interpersonal relations. [It] was established as a social philosophy that emphasised a long-term orientation, the applied behavioural sciences, external and process-oriented consultation, change managed from the top, a strong emphasis on action research and a focus on creating change in collaboration with managers’3. However, ‘like the growth of many management techniques, OD gradually took on characteristics of a fad’2 and then began to be criticised for not achieving the desired outcomes.

It was seen to be too ‘touchy-feely’, and in particular to put the individual before the organisation and the informal organisation before the formal organisation. Not all consultants practising OD were well trained, and OD’s emphasis on openness and change was seen as threatening by managers. It was questioned whether OD’s emphasis on training programmes was in itself sufficient to produce lasting changes.
Putting OD into practice

One of the challenges in delivering OD work is that it not just what you do, but also the mindset that is brought to bear on the work. So what does this mean in practice?

Anything that an OD practitioner does in the organisation can be described as an ‘intervention’.

Two examples of OD interventions are:

- The HR team working with the Business Planning team to develop a performance management system that properly aligns individual and organisational goals

- HR Business Partners working with their IT and Finance colleagues to provide a consistent approach to support management teams in delivering strategy.

So what makes these distinctively OD?

An HR practitioner may design and implement a new performance management system without it being an OD intervention. What is distinctive is the creating of alignment with the work of other parts of the organisation in a planned way – what can be described as a ‘systemic and systematic mindset’.

The idea of OD as a ‘scavenger discipline’ is helpful in understanding that it borrows tools and techniques from a wide range of professions and functions in the organisation.

Successful OD practitioners are often very effective at working with colleagues in different departments or organisational disciplines.

Characteristics of OD

It is the underlying characteristics of OD work that help us to see the commonality across the different areas of OD and the link to HR.

- OD work contributes to the sustained health and effectiveness of the organisation

- OD work is based upon robust diagnosis that uses real data from organisational, behavioural

and psychological sources

- OD work is planned and systemic in its focus, that is taking account of the whole organisation

- OD practitioners help to create alignment between different activities, projects and initiatives

- OD work involves groups of people in the organisation to maximise engagement, ownership and

contribution.

Source: CIPD