Saturday, December 7, 2013

A631.7.4.RB_LarsonKurt, Future of OD

Together, MSLD 630 and MSLD 631 provide an overview of Organizational Development (OD). The courses present an OD view of managing change and organizational transformation. In this final chapter of your textbook, Brown presents two opposing ideas: some as a rapidly changing field keeping up with the times and by others as a fad that will become irrelevant views OD. Given what you have learned over the past two courses, what do you see as the future of the OD discipline?

According to Brown (2011,) Organizational Development or OD as it is affectionately referred, is the discipline that applies behavioral science techniques to managerial problems. It advocates the installation of long range change through the use of opportunities through efforts that are planned, organizational wide and managed from the top by increasing organizational effectiveness and health through planned interventions in an organizations processes and procedures that utilize the knowledge of behavioral science.  With this in mind several items immediately become relevant regarding OD like Organizational Transformation (OT,) which is a large scale program designed to assist organizations with large scale change and the issues generally associated with environmental or technological changes, corporate culture, vision, strategy including strategy change management and changing the organizational culture.

Considering the above observations, including the nature of todays global business and market place, that so many organizations and governments find as the new normal place to conduct business. It would only seem fitting that the discipline of OD would naturally evolves with the changing needs of its customers as a method of establishing a hierarchy of information that its previous and future customers alike can draw from a repository of information relevant to its individual and joint needs as in the case of joint-ventures between organizations and governments.

In other words, for OD to survive like Total Quality Management (TQM) or Lean Manufacturing (LM) it is indicative to seek out new and improved methods of reaching out to current and potential customers, much like TQM and LM has in the past. Much like the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Safety Management System (SMS) that is based upon ISO 9000 requirements. It too looks for improved methods of reaching out to and partnering with government regulatory bodies and organizations to collaborate with and enter into a joint-venture with organizations, for the betterment and sustainability of the craft and business models that OD is seeking to partner with for the continued improvement and development of global organizations.   

Reference:

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

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