HR’s role in developing OD solutions to manage change

Poll analysis: HR’s role in developing OD solutions to manage change

The organisation development (OD) poll was live on the website in January and February 2010 and asked for observations on the nature of OD, what an OD intervention might look like and how it might be used. There was a general consensus among our respondents that OD consists of an individual or a series of interventions which are planned, informed by evidence and aimed at performance improvement. As one respondent put it:

“A planned intervention or series of interventions based in diagnostic assessment that is aimed at moving an organisational team or individual issues from one state to another in order to improve organisational effectiveness.”

There was also agreement that OD is a holistic process.

“To be effective, OD should not be about separate individual interventions but about the holistic development of organisational leadership, processes and structural systems. The goal of OD should be to increase synergies between individual intrinsic motivation and the organisation’s overarching purpose as appropriate within any given external environment.”

The major element of OD was therefore about planned action although there was strong agreement that is also encompassed systematic communication, a focus on behaviour and generated data to inform and guide action.

The consensus of poll respondents was that OD is about change management. However the majority also thought it was about culture change and driving organisational effectiveness.

Finally respondents thought that HR would need to develop their ability to think across the whole organisation and take a systematic approach to thinking and problem solving to process conflicting data and opinions about change. They also believed HR would need to hone their communication skills and strategic thinking to develop the platform for leadership and influencing they would need to make OD successful.