Organizational Development

Today’s organizations are experiencing an incredible amount of change. Organization development is a field of academic study and professional practice that uses social and behavior science knowledge to develop interventions that help organizations and individuals change successfully. It is a field practiced in almost all kinds of organizations that you can imagine, from education to health care from government to small and large businesses. Changes that OD practitioners address are diverse as well, addressing organizational structures and strategies, team effectiveness and much more. Od is not management consulting or training and development, and it is neither short term nor the mere application of a standard procedure or toolkit. Od practitioners can include many kinds of people for whom organizational change is a priority, such as managers and executives, project managers and organizational members in a variety of roles.

Organization development has evolved, adapted, and changed dramatically in the decades since the first T- groups were initiated. Early practitioners and researchers concentrated on individual growth and development through T-groups, action research and survey feedback activities, and emphases on management practices and employee involvement, whereas later approaches beginning in about the 1980s emphasized larger, system wide concerns such as culture, change management and organizational learning. Throughout its history, with new experiences and research programs, academics and practitioners have built on previous practices in order to develop the content and process of OD work to continue to change individuals and organizations. We see elements today of each of these trends in the history of OD. Consequently, od is not a one size fits all approach to organizational change, not is it a methodical set of rigid practices and procedures, but it consists of multiple methods, perspectives approaches traditional and well tested or cutting edge and...