Organization Development Basics

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When I wrote Organization Development Basics, I focused on the OD practices and principles that my OD colleagues and I use the most. This is not a theoretical book. It is full of practical knowledge and is designed to help trainers, OD practitioners, HR pros, and leaders improve their organization’s results and success.

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction:

The field of organization development (OD) exists to enable people and organizations to do their best work. It’s a growing and important discipline. As a company’s requirements to compete and improve efficiency increases, so too does its need for effective OD. Organization Development Basics is a primer on common OD practices and introduces several methods within the field.

What is Organization Development?

Organization development work is, at its core, a purposeful and systemic body of work that improves how people and processes perform. Activities and initiatives represent a conscious and planned process to align the various aspects of the organization to meet its goals. Organization development professionals seek to improve the organization’s capabilities as measured by its efficiency, effectiveness, health, culture, and business results. They do this by facilitating, consulting, coaching, analyzing, training, and designing.

There is some disagreement within the field about which practices and tools fit in OD. Some adopt a narrow interpretation that focuses on organization alignment and change intervention. Others see OD as a broader set of practices that includes leadership, diversity, and team training. There are some overlap of skills and practices between OD, training, human resources, project management, and quality improvement. To muddy the definition further, each company interprets these functional boundaries differently.

According to the Organization Development Network, a professional organization for OD practitioners, “Organization Development is a values-based approach to systems change in organizations and communities; it strives to build the capacity to achieve and sustain a new desired state that benefits the organization or community and the world around them.”

Warner Burke, an OD pioneer, said that “Most people in the field agree that OD involves consultants who try to help clients improve their organizations by applying knowledge from the behavior sciences–psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, and certain related disciplines. Most would also agree that OD implies change and, if we accept that improvement in organizational functioning means that change has occurred, then, broadly defined, OD means organizational change.”

These two definitions share the notion that OD focuses on helping an organization get from Point A to Point B using a systemic approach based on knowledge of the behavioral sciences. The definitions also emphasize that OD work involves managing and implementing change. Organization Development Basics presents a broad view of OD and touches on a long list of practices and disciplines. Based on actual OD job descriptions, the systemic approach is consistent with the requirements of most OD positions because companies are looking for OD professionals who can perform an abundance of tasks. That said, there are fundamental practices required of most OD practitioners, such as consulting, facilitating, coaching, analyzing, and managing change. This book delves into these and other fundamental OD practices and will briefly mention other methods.

End of excerpt.

Order Organization Development Basics from the ASTD website

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