Process Consultation

The process consultation view has been advocated by Schein since late  60’s (first edition 1969). It belongs to activities of organization  development (OD). OD is one of part of the organization processes which  aim improving organizational and individual effectiveness. Process consultation (PC) is one of the OD techniques, enlisted with  sensitivity training (self €improvement), survey feedback (introspection),team building (socializing), and role negotiation (changing roles and  perception. The main  argument of Schein for process consulting is to help people in organizations  to help themselves. Process Consultation is the creation of a relationship with the client that permits the client to perceive, understand, and act on the process events that occur in the client’s internal and external environment in order to improve the situation as defined by the client.  Edgar Schein, (1969) Process Consultation: Its role in organization development Process consultation is the reasoned and intentional interventions by the consultant, into the Continue reading

Sensitivity Training

Sensitivity training is a method of laboratory training where an unstructured group of individuals exchange thoughts and feelings on a face-to-face basis. Sensitivity training helps give insight into how and why others feel the way they do on issues of mutual concern. Training in small groups in which people develop a sensitive awareness and understanding of themselves and of their relationships with others. Sensitivity training is based on research on human behavior that came out of efforts during World War II to ascertain whether or not an enemy’s core beliefs and behavior could be modified by the application of certain psychological techniques. These techniques have been gradually perfected over the years by efforts of business and industry leaders to persuade people to buy products, including the radio and television industry to ascertain how an audience might be habituated to certain types of programming. Kurt Lewin is credited with being the Continue reading

Developing the Internal Capability for Change Management

One of the fundamental challenges facing leaders today is how to regularly transform the business through major change initiatives, with minimum disruption. Change is changing: it is becoming more frequent, radical and complex. Research suggests that 70% of projects fail to secure their anticipated benefits because organizations install new systems, processes or practices, but fail to implement the change fully–people are not sufficiently personally committed to the new ways of working to sustain them. Developing the internal capability for Change Management is an essential step in assuring the successful implementation of any change project. It is also a factor that will enable the organization to continue to optimize its performance in response to changing service demands and new strategic drivers. To develop the internal process management capability organizations should: Define the roles in Change Management, and where possible, involve the future change managers in the analysis and re-design Establish and Continue reading

Mental Modes in Organizational Change

An important aspect of organizational culture is the mindset, influenced by the basic assumptions and core values underlying it. It is the same as in the case of individuals whose thinking and behavior is governed by certain values imbibed through their own life experiences. An organization, at any given point of time, tends to be in a particular psychological state or mental mode, which, in turn, influences its functions, activities, and processes. An organization’s psychological state arises out of its experiences in the business environment in which it operates, the basic assumptions it holds about the environment (markets, customers, technology, community) and itself (mission, strategy, capabilities/competencies), and its operative culture. “A mental mode is the peak of a particular existential/experiential state that an organization gets into over time (as do individuals, who live in their own mental modes and most often see what they want to see) and that remains Continue reading

Factors Influencing Organizational Change

Organization Change is a response of the organization to the various forces within and external to it. Organizations exist within a society and therefore respond to various factors like the economic, the political and legal framework as well as various socio cultural factors. An organization is like a system and is constituted of various sub systems. However what determines an organizations sustainable competitive advantage is its ability to accept change and plan for it. The two major factors, which can influence an organizations strategy and its ability to survive and grow, are: Business Cycles and Industry Life Cycle. Business Cycles Just as a biological organism grows and dies, organizations too experience life and death based on the overall economic activity. Growth in the economy means a growth for the organization and slump in the economy may reflect in a slump in the business. However all organizations do not respond the Continue reading

Organization Change Management Models

Change whether planned or unplanned occurs in all organizations and at all levels. Change is inevitable and thus today many organizations prepare themselves for change. However the successful organization recognizes and understands the fact that change is not only inevitable it is also required in order to grow and stay ahead of competition. Therefore such organizations plan and implement change. Planning and implementing change requires the expertise of  Organization Development experts who rely on certain models of change. Some of the popular organization change  management models, which have received attention globally, are: 1. Kurt Lewins Model of  Change Management One of the earliest models of planned change was put forward by Kurt Lewin in 1975. Lewin explained that organizations like human beings prefer to stay in a state of equilibrium or a steady state called as homeostasis. He observed that the stability of human behavior was based on “quasi- stationary Continue reading

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