Organizational Development: Reflection on Learning Essay

Cummings, T. G.; and Worley, C. G. (2015). Organization Development and Change, (10th Ed). Mason, OH. Cengage Learning.

Organisation Development ensures organisation to establish and maintain a better future for the entire organisations. Organisation development can be achieved through either a change management plan or supported by software upgrading. Staff behaviour patterns will allow organisation development management to observe and analyse situations and consider the required justifications, which will result in achieving effective organisational changes.

Organizational change is often used to improve all or part of an organization, such as a process. Organizational change may occur as the organization changes its strategy for success or when there were decisions made to change the entire environment that the organization is currently functioning under (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2011). Change can also occur as the organization evolves while moving through life cycles. In order for organizations to grow and develop, there must be change at various stages of this process.

Organisation development(OD) is a planned process of change in an organisation’s culture through the utilization of behavioral science technology, research and theory (Warner Burke, 1982). It also refers to a long range effort to improve an organisation’s problem solving capabilities and its ability to cope with changes in its external environment with the help of external or internal behavioral-scientist consultant or change agents (Wandell French, 1969).

Organizational change is a very critical and yet very inevitable process ofan organization’s structure. It can create a lot of pressure from the workers as well as management as a result of fear of the unknown.

Organizational change encompasses many challenges to both the individual, and the organization. An organization is a living system, as Flower (2002) states “living systems cannot survive without change, challenge, variety, and surprise” (Flower, 2002, p. 16). An organization requires the ability to adapt in to survive as Darwin states in The Origin of Man, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” (Read Me First, 2013, p. 1). It must adapt to the changing market, global economic pressures, stakeholder demands, and the diverse needs

In this article we can see that different disciplines can be combined for a more effective organization development and management change of thinking.

In order to have a successful outcome to occur from an organizational development intervention the organization must be acceptable of change. The organization’s readiness must be evaluated. To evaluate the readiness for change a combination of three different measures will need to be implemented, which are observation, surveys, and interviews

Burke (2014) stated that organizations change from day to day. The changes that take place in organizations can be intentional or unintentional. Generally, the changes that occur is accidental. It is important to have a broader and deeper knowledge of understanding organization change. Understanding what is currently happening as well as trends in which the organization is functioning can provide such awareness.

Organizational development (OD) and implementing change in an organization can be a complex and challenging task. It is important to understand what Organizational development (OD) is and the change management approaches will work best with the organization and its people to manage change. In todays, globalize economy organizations experience rapid changes that managers have to be able to manage. I will discuss what organizational development, how to implement changes and different change management approaches. Compare and contrast OD and change management approaches categorizing when each approach is appropriate, advantages and disadvantage each have.

An organization’s capability to learn and convey that learning into action quickly, is the supreme competitive advantage. The learning organization is the structure that eases the realization of such competitive advantage, it empowers employees, it deepens and enhances the customer experience and cooperation with main business partners and eventually improves business performance. Organizational learning is considered as the suitable process to develop knowledge resources and capabilities/core competencies (human capital, social capital and organizational capital) that engender ongoing values; which in turn yield persistence superior performance; which lead to sustainable competitive advantage within the context of the strategic management.

Organizational development (OD) is an application or process of building a greater level of efficiency within the organization. OD develops the ongoing effort geared for long-term effects. OD works to help management and employees on a variety of levels. Organizational development is perhaps unequaled in its ability to meet any type of organization needs. However, the solutions developed from the role of OD may not be necessarily interchangeable with different organizations (Grant, 2010).

Organizational change is usually triggered by relevant environment shift, either internal or external, that sensed by companies and leads to intentionally generated response (French, Bell & Zawacki, 2006). This paper will discuss several organization development models..

Organization development grew out of the human relations traditions of the 1940s and 1950s, and it has had enormous influence on management practices and thinking about how organizational effectiveness can be achieved. Critical manpower and resource shortages faced by all organizations, public and private, during World War II and in the immediate post-war years stimulated a search by social scientist and managers, separately and in cooperation with one another, for effective means to maximize the utilization of existing individual and organizational resources. (Ritcher, I 2007). Organization Development was by tradition about planned change efforts, instituted to enhance organization effectiveness within the context of the traditional, hierarchical, management-as-experts, top-down era. The legacy of leaders and organizations developed in this context remain. Organizational Development is about how organizations and people function and how to get them to function better. Organization transformation signals the need to transform mindsets, engage people and make the deep shift to the ongoing mutual learning environment needed for the long-lasting change characteristic of our world today.

Organizations become successful by being the best at what they do. In other words, how well the body develops the vision and mission of their organization. I believe the significances of being the best is the team’s approach to OD. some agencies fail to meet the demands of changes internally and externally. Business conditions do not remain the same year to year. Internal employee’s needs and working conditions also change externally, the costumer’s needs change from time to time too. The understanding of this and knowing how to develop one’s organization to meet the change leads to a successful organization. The CEO, to succeed in developing the business, he must have employee involvement and commitment. In other words, engaged employees from top management to the team leaders. The entire workforce must be aware of the vision and mission of the organization and the changes that will get them there. Organizational development is the thing that will get the organization to its goals and objectives. According to the textbook, “OD encompasses the long-range efforts and plans targeted at improving an organization’s talent to endure by changing the way it solves a problem and revitalize its developments. OD involves moving toward an adaptive organization and achieving corporate excellence by integrating the desires of employees for growth and development with organizational Goals” (Brown, 2011, p. 4). Not only does it take corporate events, but a corporate practitioner. “A person