The contemporary organizations are operating in the information age characterized by rapid information sharing, stiff completion, unprecedented changes and divergent employees and customers particularly in cultural aspects. To be successful, an organization must strive to meet all the expectations of its clients as well those of its stakeholders and shareholders. Effective communication, work teams, goals setting, change management and the organization’s culture must be handled effective since compromising any of these aspects that are intertwined will ultimately compromise the success of an organization. As agents of change, managers are confronted by continuous modernization in computer and information expertise and a muddled world of shifting markets and customer regimes. Today’s managers must be exceedingly skilled and equipped with necessary resources required to manage the organizational environment and development. This paper shall use examples to expansively explore how organizations are utilizing the various principles of OD and candidly elucidate what future managers should anticipate in the world of management.
Human beings are part of an organization. Organizations have different cultures brought about by difference in goals, mission, objectives, size, and/or employees (Grieves, 2000). Organizational culture is taught to an organization’s employees as a way of informing them how to think, feel, and behave. Primary, mission statements vividly defines the purpose of the existence of an organization and guides its other aspects. For instance, Oxfam envisions has a simple mission statement, “a just world without poverty.” It guides understanding and action in an organization by outlining apposite conduct for various circumstances. Commonly, in large organizations, there are diverse and conflicting cultures that co-exist due to varying characteristics of management teams (Meglino et al., 2009). This, apparently, affects the underlings’ perceptions and identification. The culture is affected by factors such as technology, market, management style, national cultures ad products. OD informs an individual how to create an organization culture that will attract professionals and make them admire working in such a motivating environment (McLean, 2006).
Evidence suggests that the effective communication is of utter importance in the success of a business. Communication can only be effective when the sender receives the desired feedback. Organizations must strive to eliminate any barriers to effective communication. Members of the organization must interact freely, share ideas, and information. The effective media and channel must be used. It suggested that organizations should deliver timed messages to its members to ensure that their understanding or reaction to the message is not affected by personal differences or mood variations.
Moreover, response must be made a two-way process. Teams are formed to work on a particular task. Through OD, an individual learns of the 5-steps through which a team must progress to become effective as hypothesized by Tuckman. These steps can be used in future to create effective teams in the health care sector (Anderson, 2010). The first stage is forming the teams. Here, people try to identify their identity, learns the attitudes of the other people, finding the need to feel included, and make impression on team members. Cohesion and involvement are the main issues at this stage. Storming stage where members where individuals communicate their personal goals follow. It is difficult to resolve many conflicts that arise during this stage hence effective communication must be embraced. In the norming stage, group norms are established. The exact behavior of team members is defined and roles allocated. It ensures a harmonious existence of the team and its simultaneous success. In the performing stage, the task is handled as the team strives to attain its objectives (Anderson, 2010). The final stage is adjourning where the team is disbanded because it has completed the task or members have left. Team members meet and reflect on the successes and failures. The members experience a feeling of separation and loss hence managers must have the organizational behavior content learnt in OD to ensure that the members are not unsympathetically affected by the disbarment.
Importantly, the organization’s culture determines the performance and preference of its members and apparently the productivity of the entire organization (Meglino et al., 2009). However, many organizations rely on explicit CEO support in reinforcing the organization’s ability to act on values. The worthy affiliation with customers is an important concept learnt in OD and informs an organization how to create good, long-lasting relationships with its employees (Anderson, 2010). Learning OD informs a healthcare service provider how to relate to the employer, colleagues, meet the organization’s as well as the society’s expectations.
Companies face cultural conflicts in their daily operations. To successfully manage the organization, cultural intelligence (CQ) is being employed. Adaptability and capability to perform new behaviors based on new cultural surroundings is being armored among its employees of different cultures, languages, and groups. With CQ models currently being used in many organizations, future organizations must be ready to incorporate the models into their mainstream (Erskine, 2013). However, it is anticipated that the models will improve with the current technological advancements and completely resolve the hardships faced by managers due to cultural diversity. Cultural intelligence officers must advance their professional skills and be in a position to handle sufficiently the challenges that will be presented by future generations and the impending growth of global business.
Managing organizational change is more successful if one applies simple principles that take into consideration the organizational behavior. Change management involves solicitous planning, profound implementation, and consultation and involvement of all the people that will be affected by the change (Grieves, 2000). Any change that an individual intends to implement must be realistic, measurable, achievable, and time-bound. Remarkably, a change should not be forced on people since they are likely to complain and ruin the organization’s reputation. Managing organization change often starts by managing personal change. In introducing a change, healthcare service providers assess the customers that will be affected by the change, what they want to achieve with change, and parts of the change that the organization will require to be assisted in implementing.
Managers can ease their role in organizational development by familiarizing themselves with the Psychological Contract theory and the Nudge theory. These theories elucidate the complex organization-employee relationship and examine how decisions are made, changes initiated and accomplished (Grieves, 2000). Effective planning enhances the ability of any manager to handle the adversities presented by the serene business environment, decline in performance of employees, and the challenges presented by the legal-political environment and help them to cope proficiently with any change. Since change is mostly disconcerting, future managers should obtain skills that will make them have a coherent settling influence.
The RISE Personal Change Model, hypothesized by Dawn Stanley, is also a helpful model that should be used by managers to understand people’s personalities and how people react differently to change (McLean, 2006). Managers should utilize Kotter's 8-step change model.
- Increase the urgency of the change
- Build a team that will guide the change
- Have the right vision
- Conduct an effective communication of the change
- Empower actions
- Set short term easy to achieve objectives that will help in monitoring the change process
- Foster and encourage persistence and determination
- Weave the change into culture through successful promotions and recruitment.
In the healthcare, OD is quite important considering the various changes that have to be made to effectively meet the current skyrocketing demand for health services. Kotler’s 8-step change model can help an individual to effectively foster a certain change. At the place of work, this model will help a healthcare provider to coalesce with the management, pinpoint the changes needed, help in setting short-term objectives, and encourage persistence and determination among colleagues (Erskine, 2013).
Various organizations must identify the challenges that they face, list and prioritize them and decide on the best change that can be effected to alleviate impending dangers/risks. Impending risks should be managed effectively by:
- Establishing objectives of the risks management plan
- Identify the risks that are likely to occur
- Inspect their severity and frequency
- Investigate alternatives
- Implement and conduct regular reviews of the program to incorporate new dangers and/or changes that might be required as the time moves (Grieves, 2000).
Managers can use goal setting to motivate employees and motivate themselves. Every decent manager recognizes the value of goal setting in the success of an organization and incorporates it into the management by objectives structure of the organization (Kanungo & Mendonca, 2004). In human resource management, organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and industrial organization, goal setting theory is perceived as the utmost valid and useful motivation theory. Locke’s motivation theory indicates that there is a direct relationship between people’s performance and the difficultness of a goal (McLean, 2006). Hard goals are motivating as compared to easy to attain goals. However, the set objectives must be SMART. Through understanding Locke’s model, OD helps an individual to create a big picture of what they want to achieve in their job, break goals into smaller bits that needs to be attained as they strive to reach their lifetime goals, and start working on a plan that will enable them achieve the goals. Brainstorming will further improve the quality and attainability of the goals and objectives of a healthcare service provider. Personal goals might include;
- Achieving a 4.5% increase in sales by within 2014.
- Increase the number of people receiving healthcare services by 0.1 million every year.
With such clear, challenging, and SMART objectives, employees struggle to attain their personal and organizational objectives. It has become a force to reckon with in the electronics industry. Individuals should have goals in their daily lives since they will help them focus attention towards relevant activities and away from the irrelevant ones (Erskine, 2013). Notably, managers must learn that goals stimulate cognitive knowledge and approaches thus helping individuals to cope with the situation surrounding the organizational environment (Kanungo & Mendonca, 2004). The Shannon-Weaver communication model is utilized by many organizations and a healthcare service provider should too use it in their daily duties for a successful career life.
Diagnostic models help in providing reliable data that can be used in analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to a company. Leavitt’s model specifies structural, technological, human, and task variables that organizations must consider in their daily operations (Erskine, 2013). An organization must analyze these variables and come up with the best strategies of organizing and conducting its operations. This will help it obtain a competitive advantage over and above its competitors.
More concepts and theories are expected to be developed in OD. This will affect how OD will be used, analyzed, and implemented in the future (Anderson, 2010). The economy continues to be vast, concentrated on wealth, and the world is becoming globalized (Hess & Bacigalupo, 2010). The workforce is becoming diverse, free-agent oriented and educated. Knowledge-based work, e-commerce, networking are growing at a faster rate while workers’ productivity is continuously increasing. This implies that, in the near future, OD will be diverse and multifaceted.
References
Anderson, D. L. (2010). Organization development: The process of leading organizational change. Los Angeles: Sage.
Argyris, C. (1971). Management and organizational development: The path from XA to YB. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Erskine, P. (2013). ITIL and Organizational Change. Ely: IT Governance Publishing.
Grieves, J. (2000). Introduction: the origins of organizational development. Journal of Management Development. doi:10.1108/02621710010371865
Hess, J. D., & Bacigalupo, A. C. (2010). The emotionally intelligent leader, the dynamics of knowledge-based organizations and the role of emotional intelligence in organizational development. on The Horizon. doi:10.1108/10748121011072672
Kanungo, R. N., & Mendonca, M. (2004). Work motivation: Models for developing countries. New Delhi: Sage.
McLean, G. N. (2006). Organization development: Principles, processes, performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Meglino, B. M., Ravlin, E. C., & Adkins, C. L. (2009). A work values approach to corporate culture: A field test of the value congruence process and its relationship to individual outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology. doi:10.1037//0021-9010.74.3.424
