Organization Development
Organization Development
A practitioner’s guide for OD and HR
THIRD EDITION
Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge
Linda Holbeche
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First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2011 by Kogan Page Limited
Second edition published in 2015
Third edition published in 2021
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© Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge and Linda Holbeche, 2011, 2015, 2021
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ISBNs
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
978 1 78966 794 3
978 1 78966 791 2
978 1 78966 792 9
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CONTENTS
Introduction
1
PART ONE
A practitioner’s guide for Organization Development
Section 1: OD history and theory overview
1
What is OD? Its brief history
5
7
9
The goals, characteristics and definition of Organization Development 9
A brief history of OD 12
Critical founders who shaped the OD field 14
How the field got its name 16
Values that have informed OD practice 19
The role of the OD practitioner 21
Summary 23
2
Theories and practices of OD: a theory overview
25
The building blocks of our practice 25
The theoretical bases of OD 26
The theoretical bases of OD 26
The relationships between theory and practice 26
Eight core theoretical bases that shape OD practices 29
Methodological/practical implications of the theoretical perspectives 51
Summary 56
Section 2: OD cycle of work
59
3Theories and practices of OD: the OD cycle and the entry and
contracting phase 62
Overview of the OD consultancy cycle – six key components 62
Phase one: entry – initial contact 67
Phase two: contracting 72
Summary 78
vi
CONTENTS
4
Theories and practices of OD: the diagnostic phase
79
What is diagnosis in OD? What are the wider aims for the diagnostic
process? 80
Summary of the tasks and skills required for the diagnostic process 82
Political considerations in managing the diagnostic phase 83
An outline of the different kinds of data you may need 86
Data collection methods and how to ensure that the data collection process
achieves its aims 90
Data analysis – how to join different data together 92
Data feedback and action planning 95
Summary 98
5
Theories and practices of OD: the intervention phase
99
Definition of intervention and the key criteria for OD intervention 100
Design interventions (cross-dimensional design) – review of the three ‘cubes of
intervention’ framework 105
Levels and types of interventions 111
Summary of cross-dimensional checklist based on concepts from the three
cubes, levels and types of intervention 116
Building an intervention strategy – construction of criteria for effective
intervention design 118
Summary of the tasks and skills required in an intervention 126
Summary 128
6
Theories and practices of OD: the evaluation phase
130
The three roots of evaluation 131
OD evaluation as part of the OD cycle of work 131
What is evaluation and what are metrics? What does one measure and
how? 134
The tasks and skills required for evaluation 149
How to build the culture of evaluation as an integral part of OD work 151
Summary and quick reference for evaluation 155
Section 3: OD and change
7
159
Living at the edge of chaos and change
162
Preamble 162
The dilemma of OD practitioners 163
What is the traditional change paradigm? 166
What are the implications for our change practices? 170
CONTENTS
A word about change vocabulary 171
Summary 173
8
Back-room and front-room change matters
174
Overview 174
Back-room matters – macro level of change work 174
Front-room matters (the people dimension and the engagement issue) 190
Change implementation capabilities 198
What areas do we need to pay attention to during implementation? 200
What are change implementation capabilities? 200
What is the benefit case for having effective change implementation
capabilities? 210
Summary 211
9
Can behavioural change be made easy?
213
Overview 213
Three different approaches to looking at culture and behavioural change 214
Four ways that offer alternative insights into how to achieve behavioural
change 219
Summary – the practice implications for practitioners 239
Section 4: The Organization Development practitioner
10 The Organization Development practitioner
243
245
The roles and tasks of OD practitioners 245
The concept of self and the ‘use of self as instrument’, and its role in the
theory and practice of OD 248
The competence profile of the OD practitioner 256
The development journey that OD practitioners should engage in 261
Summary 264
11 Power and politics in Organization Development
266
What are power and politics? 267
Why power and politics are not favourite subjects for OD practitioners, and
what they can do differently to change that perspective 268
How power dynamics show up in organizations and the practical implications
for ODPs 272
How to build up a personal power base and power strategies to achieve
greater impact – and be an ethical power user 277
vii
viii
CONTENTS
What the OD community needs to do to build organization power bases 282
Summary 284
Section 5: Additional thoughts
287
12 What is an organization? What is organization health?
289
What is an organization? 291
The range of definitions and indicators that exist in the literature on
organization health 293
McKinsey research on organization health 302
How do you begin to build a practice of keeping an ‘equal eye’ on
performance and health? 310
Summary 318
13
How to build up your presence and impact on organization life
How to expand your presence and impact on the organization 320
How to build up an internal OD function in the organization 322
Summary 327
PART TWO
HR in relation to OD: practice examples
14 HR in relation to OD
331
Why is it important that HR ‘gets’ OD? 332
How well equipped is HR to be change agent? 336
A strategic agenda 339
The COVID-19 pandemic 341
Culture is key 343
Managing the talent stream 345
Model the way 346
How to get the ‘licence to play’ 351
Building credibility 355
Conclusion 358
15 Organization Design
360
What is Organization Design (ODS)? 361
Challenges for the business 362
The changing field of ODS 364
The Star ModelF0E4 366
329
319
CONTENTS
The Organization Design process 373
An HR/OD approach to designing organizations 374
16 Transformation and culture change
385
A turbulent backdrop 385
The challenges of profound change 386
Planned change philosophies and approaches 390
HR and transformational change 393
About culture change 401
HR’s role in changing cultures 406
Training as an enabler of cultural integration 413
To stimulate culture change 415
Conclusion 417
17 Building organizational agility and resilience
418
What is organizational agility? 419
Why are agility and resilience so elusive? 422
Unpacking organizational agility and resilience 425
How can HR help build agility and resilience? 429
Modelling HR agility 440
Conclusion 442
18 A culture conducive to innovation and learning
444
Introduction 444
The innovation imperative 445
The innovation process 448
Agile approaches to innovation 451
A change-able, innovative culture 451
HR’s role in building a culture of innovation and organizational learning 453
Conclusion 465
19 Building the context for employee engagement
467
What is employee engagement? 468
Changing psychological contracts 473
The ‘gig economy’ 474
What motivates people to want to do a good job? 476
How can employers create the context for engagement? 481
Building trust and involvement 482
Maintaining engagement in times of change 486
Conclusion: building a more mutual employment relationship 492
ix
x
CONTENTS
20 Developing effective leadership
494
Defining leadership 495
HR’s role in developing leaders 497
Equipping leaders for the task 498
HR exercising stewardship 510
Crafting a leadership development strategy 511
Conclusion 513
Postscript – towards a better tomorrow 514
References and further reading 521
Index 548