The Organization Development Practitioner

Who is the OD Practitioner?

O They may be internal or external

consultants who offer professional services to organizations, including their top managers, functional department heads, and staff groups. O They may be those specializing in fields related to OD, such as reward systems, organization design, total quality, information technology, and business strategy.

O The OD practitioner facilitates the

changes by training, educating, and collaboratively designing new ways of functioning.

The various steps in an OD process

O 1.Developing practitioner-client

relationship O 2.Diagnosing the problem O 3. Making action plans, strategies and Techniques O 4. Monitoring and stabilizing

OD Practitioner Styles
O Practitioner styles depend upon the

degree of emphasis the practitioner places on the two thingsO Effectiveness: the degree of emphasis on accomplishment of goals O Morale: the degree of emphasis on relationships and participant satisfaction. O Based on these two factors, there are five styles of OD practitioners.

O 1. The Stabilizer Style: This style is mainly

found where the OD program is taken just for the sake of it. The management is not very keen on it . As a result, the OD practitioner is neither concerned about goal accomplishments nor employee moral. O The Cheerleader Style: In this style, the practitioner is mainly concerned with the morale of the employees and is less concerned about the accomplishment of goals. The underlying assumption is that if the employees are satisfied, their effectiveness will be high.

O The Analyzer Style: This style is the

reverse of Cheerleader style. The emphasis here is more on effectiveness and less on employee moral. The practitioner here is quite authoritative. O The Persuader Style: This style focuses on both the effectiveness as well as morale. The approach here is to achieve satisfaction and support of a majority of members and prepare them for change.

O The Pathfinder Style: This style believes

that when all the members are involved, and work as a team, greater effectiveness is achieved. Thus the emphasis here is equally high for effectiveness as well as morale.

Roles of an OD Practitioner
O The Basic assumption of any OD program

O O O O

is that a team is the building block of any organization. The OD practitioner analyses the team behavior in terms of - communication - members role and function in groups - group norms and growth - leadership and authority

O The OD practitioner analyses as to how these

O

processes occur in the organization. With the help of OD practitioner, the group is observed and the observations shared and improvements brought about. At the same time the client is also learning to observe and improving his problem solving abilities. Client participation in the process is very important. The client may either have the requisite skills or he may have the ability to develop them.

Competencies of an OD Practitioner

O Following are the skills critical for the success

of an internal practitioner: O - Leadership: this skill is necessary to give direction to the team, monitor the progress and to keep the members focused on the company values. O - Project management: involving all the right people and departments to keep the program on track O - Communication: key values must be communicated to all the members.

Problem Solving: implementing a solution to an organizational problem. The practitioner must not only be skilled in solving the present problem, but must also be skilled enough to anticipate what problems the company is likely to face in future. O Interpersonal: giving the responsibility as well as the authority to everybody in the organization to be involved in the change process. This can be done if the practitioner is skilled in facilitating, building relationships and process skills. O Personal: the practitioner should have the confidence to help the organization take tough decisions, introduce new techniques and see if it works.

Foundation Competencies
O Organization Behavior
O Organization Culture O Work Design O Interpersonal Relations

O Power and Politics

O Leadership O Goal-Setting O Conflict

O Ethics

Core Competencies
O Organization design
O Organization research O System dynamics O History of organization O Theories and models for change