20 – Implementation and Assessment of OD

Introduction

Most of the studies examined did not employ robust enough designs to accurately determine the outcomes of the OD process. The current underdeveloped state of the art in OD assessment reveals that practitioners must: (1) select acceptable measures for evaluation;

(2) build more adequate instruments for measuring change linked to OD; and

(3) consistently use more rigorous designs for their research.

20.1 Organizational Evaluation

Assessment is focused on providing feedback to practitioners and organisation members on the progress and impact of treatments. The evaluation process takes into account both the success of the proposed intervention’s implementation and the long-term benefits it produces.

What factors influence the selection of an OD intervention most suited to the situation for implementation? The following three considerations determine the choice of an OD intervention:

• Applicability
• Feasibility
• Acceptability

Applicability

The capacity of a given intervention to produce the anticipated results is referred to as its applicability. This is conceivable when an intervention can address the real issue and has a fair chance of resolving it. Examining an intervention’s possible positive and negative implications is one technique to determine its applicability. Following the preceding is the need to evaluate one’s client system with great attention and concern before implementing any action.

Feasibility

The applicability of an intervention to the client system is referred to as its feasibility.

Acceptability

An intervention’s applicability and practicality are meaningless unless the client system accepts it. This means that an intervention must be accepted by its client system to produce the desired results. Experience has shown that it is likely to be less accepted unless adequate preparation work is done before implementing an intervention.

20.2 The Basic Components of OD Assessment

To begin an assessment programme, the essential assessment components must be identified. These are their names:

Objectives: They are synonymous with mission, goals, or objectives. The goal of an evaluation during the early stages of a major change programme is to obtain knowledge and insight about its efficacy and design. The goal of intermediate evaluations at regular intervals is to set benchmarks.

Worth or Value: for the focal variables, which can be a person, an

object, a circumstance, or a programme.

Measurement: Psychometric exams measure social characteristics, which is the variable’s quantitative dimension. Other qualitative approaches for estimating worth include interviews, observational methods, modelling, and projective techniques.

Comparison: The data produced from the measurement can be compared to data obtained from other sources.

Conclusion: It is decided to make a comparison.

20.3 Evaluation Criteria

Efficiency Evaluation Measurement: The primary goal of efficiency evaluation is to identify waste and investigate alternatives.

It is focused on the examination of the transformational process.

Effectiveness evaluation is evaluating the consequences of a given set of inputs. The outcome is the object against which organisational success is measured. Some effectiveness criteria include achieving objectives and goals, adapting to the external environment, monitoring the internal environment, revitalization, integration, profitability, and growth in net sales, earnings, variation in growth rate, risk, bargaining position, employee satisfaction, and collaboration.

Cost-benefit analysis evaluates the benefits of a particular level of inputs, such as change programme achievement, social significance, societal contribution, and so on.

Evaluation should take place both during and after implementation to determine whether the intended results are being achieved. The measurement and study design are two critical parts of the evaluation.

20.4 Measurement

Two activities are required to provide practical implementation and evaluation feedback:

1. Choosing the Appropriate Variables: The variables examined in OD evaluation should be derived from the intervention’s theory or conceptual model. Both the intervention and outcome variables must be measured for implementation and evaluation. The intervention variable to be measured should be chosen based on the conceptual framework behind the OD intervention. The various references provide additional sources of information about intervention variables.

2. Creating Effective Metrics: A good measure should have the following features: It is operationally defined as how empirical data is collected and, more importantly, how data is turned into information.

3. Reliability: The extent to which a measure represents the genuine value of a variable is referred to as its reliability. In four ways, OD practitioners can increase the dependability of their measures:

– Define the variables operationally.

– Measure a specific variable using multiple approaches. Questionnaires, interviews, and observations are used.

– On a questionnaire, use numerous items to measure the same variable.

– Employ standardised instruments.

– A growing variety of standardised questionnaires for measuring OD intervention and outcome variables are available.

– Validity is concerned with how much a measure genuinely reflects the variable meant to be reflected.

20.5 Prerequisites for OD Success

A variety of things can grow in an OD programme. Wendell French and Cecil Bell recognise the following conditions as necessary for the optimal effectiveness of an OD programme:

1. Top management and other important personnel must be aware of an issue within the organisation. Top management decides the time, effort, and money committed to an OD programme.

2. A behavioural science specialist must be brought in to help. The consultant is responsible for diagnosing the problem.

3. The OD effort should involve human resource staff and adhere to current personnel regulations and practices.

4. Employees in the organisation must build on what they learn from the OD change agent.

5. The OD effort must be meticulously monitored. The change agent and organizational staff must communicate so that everyone knows where the organisation is going.

6. The process must begin slowly and acquire pace due to its success. In collaboration with the change agent, management should plan the intervention’s activities to ensure its success.

7. Action research must be used: the change agent must establish a preliminary diagnostic, collect data, relay it to staff, and design an action plan and follow-up.

8. To be truly successful, the OD effort must be monitored, checking staff attitudes toward what is going on and determining the extent to which problems are discovered and handled.

20.6 OD Effort Failures

French and Bell list some limitations of organizational development, including the following: imprecision in the definition and conceptualization of OD.

• The client-consultant relationship is insufficient.
• Non-availability of a behaviour science consultant with OD experience.
• Inadequate understanding of skilled interventions and the efficacy of diverse tactics.
• Failure to connect OD modifications with other subsystems.
• Inability to be imaginative in bringing about alignment with other programmes.
• As people evolve, top management support and involvement are required for an extended period.
• There are issues with measuring attitude change.

According to Nadler, resistance, authority, control, and task redefinition are the four fundamental barriers to effective organisational change.

20.7 OD Evaluation and Change in Organizational Performance

Performance management is an integrated process that defines, evaluates, and reinforces employee work behaviour and outcomes. Organizations with a well-developed performance management procedure outperform others who do not have this part of their work design. The practices and methods of goal formulation, performance appraisals, and reward systems all impact organisational performance. They are addressed more below:

20.7.1 Setting Goals

Goal setting entails management and subordinates working together to develop and explain employee goals. Setting tough objectives entails regulating the level of engagement and goal difficulty.

Goal-Setting Characteristics

Creating Challenging Goals: Creating goals that are perceived as challenging but realistic and to which there is a high level of commitment.

Clarifying Goal Measurements: The second step in the goal-setting process is to specify and clarify the goals. To clarify, goal measurement should be operationally defined and capable of being changed by employee or group behaviour.

Stages of Application: OD practitioners have created specialised procedures that include diagnosis, goal-setting preparation, goal-setting, and goal review.

Object-oriented management: MBO is a typical type of goal-setting used in organisations. This method aims to match personal ambitions with business strategy by improving communication and shared perceptions between management and subordinates.

20.7.2 Performance Evaluation

A performance appraisal is a feedback mechanism that involves a supervisor, manager, or peers directly evaluating individual or job performance groups. The following steps are involved in the performance appraisal process:

1. Choose the proper people.

2. Analyse the existing circumstances

3. Create the system’s purpose and objectives, then design the performance appraisal system.

The Effects of Performance Evaluation

In a meta-analysis of performance assessment treatments, it was discovered that feedback has a favourable influence on individuals and can improve organizational performance.

20.7.3 Reward Schemes

Organizational awards are influential motivators for increasing employee and workgroup performance. Traditionally, organisational development has depended on intrinsic rewards to inspire employee performance. Recently, OD practitioners have concentrated on including extrinsic rewards such as compensation, stock options, bonuses, promotions, profit sharing, and gain sharing. They discovered that intrinsic and extrinsic rewards can both improve individual performance.

The three contextual factors that influence how these practices affect work performance are as follows:

1. Business strategy specifies an organisation’s aims and objectives to compete successfully.

2. Workplace Technology: influences whether performance management strategies should be based on individuals or groups.

3. Employee Involvement: The extent of employee involvement in an organisation should determine the nature of performance management procedures.

20.8 The Effect of OD

When planning a turnaround or substantial improvements, the importance of Organizational Development is sometimes overestimated; however, it represents the single most crucial aspect when assessing the sustainability of any changes that may have been implemented during the process. OD is the primary tool for developing and manifesting an organization’s culture, and it is the organization’s culture that supports how it executes, embraces change, controls customer focus, produces new value, and integrates new team members.

Organizations are being encouraged to focus on the customer, the external customer, and significant resources, time, and emotional engagement are invested to attain “best in class” customer attention. The author believes that the author’s sustained external customer focus, which leads to customer satisfaction and, more crucially, customer loyalty, is only the outcome of how an organisation maintains customer focus and customer satisfaction throughout the company’s internal value chain. An organization’s external customer focus will be sustained to the same extent that it generates respect and excellence in the execution of its internal customer/supplier relationships.

20.9 Key Points for OD Implementation

To control OD, there are five keys to remember. They are directly related to the concerns identified previously and parts of the organisation. Each can have an impact on the elements of the social system and may assist the organisation in avoiding some of the significant challenges associated with change management:

• Take a holistic picture of the organisation.
• Obtain top-level support.
• Encourage participation from the change’s affected population.
• Promote open communication.
• Reward those who contribute to change.