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Free guide on organisational development

Executive education company Roffey Park has produced a free guide to organisational development (OD).

Called Making Sense of Organisational Development, the guide sets out a definition of OD, highlights the skills and attributes needed by OD practitioners and gives examples of OD in practice. The guide also charts the growth of OD and includes an A-Z listing of terms and concepts.

"OD is a significant and influential field of practice," said Diane Moody, Director of Roffey Park's modular OD practitioner's Programme and its MSc in People in Organisational Development. "It involves employees from all levels of an organisation to co-create a vision for the future and to manage change processes."

The guide highlights ways in which OD can be used including resolving diverse issues such as implementing cultural change, determining the mission and values, introducing new systems or processes and enhancing leadership and employee morale. It also emphasises that decisions about OD interventions must be informed by data.

"OD models encourage us to begin collecting data at a number of levels across the organisational system and to start asking questions beyond the obvious," said Moody. "The role of the OD practitioner is to help identify what data needs to be collected, how, and by whom. It is then to respond to the issues that emerge and ensure that those who are critical to success of the change - the staff - remain actively involved."

Although many practitioners come to OD through the HR route, Roffey Park say a trend is emerging that shows its appeal is broadening across other functions.

"OD is a strategic process and, as such, it needs to be positioned where it is best able to influence across the whole organisation," said Moody. "The OD role possesses most leverage when senior leaders see it as critical to business success and strategy and the OD practitioners themselves have high credibility and influence with these stakeholders."

According to the guide, OD practitioners require core skills and knowledge, including ‘soft' skills in facilitation, influencing and consulting. These should be coupled with expertise in areas such as organisational design and ‘systems thinking'.

"Just as important is the mindset of practitioners and the extent to which they are able to commit to the central values of OD and reflect on their own practice," said Diane Moody. "The most purposeful, effective practitioners live and breathe these values through every intervention they make."

External link

To request a free copy of ‘Making Sense of Organisational Development' visit www.roffeypark.com

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