Future? Absolutely!

This week’s MSLD 631 blog considers formal Organization Development (OD) for the future and whether or not current OD efforts will become irrelevant and be remembered as a 'fad’ or that OD will survive and be considered a serious discipline as Brown (2011) presents (p. 425).

Current State of Organizations

               ‘Flat organizations’ that are adaptive like Google, W.L. Gore and Cisco and the like are not yet the norm in America. Until that day arrives when a most organizations are adaptive, self-organizing with collaboration and teamwork skills in place, a need for OD practitioners will continue exist. Organizations with a traditional oligarchic system with many layers of hierarchy not only restrict freedom and flexibility, but in turn stifle innovation and creativity. Innovation and creativity in a technology driven business will mean survival or death. Our organization is seeing what the effects of a traditional oligarchic system can have on a company that faces today’s complex global environment.

Last week a reduction in force was announced (so far 1100 employees) due to a variety of issues (mostly foreign customers and competitors) that only six months ago was not foreseen as being a potential problem. It remains to be seen how deep these cuts will need to go, but the one thing for certain in my mind is that our traditional oligarchic system of silos is to blame for letting this amount of people to be shown the door. “Type 1 organizations, sooner or later face death. Those that survive soon enter a transitional stage towards a Type 2 organization, cross-functional matrices.” (Obolensky, 2014, p. 24). Type 1 organizations that Obolensky (2014) refers to are organizations that operate from silos where work is “strictly organized along functional specialisms. These specialisms would typically include finance, marketing, operations and so on.” (p. 23). Type 2 organizations are described as cross-functional matrices “In these organizations most people are working in a cross-functional way, where a product line or region has its own separate support functions.” (p. 25).

Organizations that have limited the hierarchy to a few and have pushed decision making down to the lowest levels (self-sustaining teams for instance), will be common in the workplaces of the future. How far off in into the future? That is a question without a precise answer. Market forces and the global economy have the most influence. What is evident is that once an organization becomes flat and adaptive, the organization becomes inherently flexible to meet new challenges brought on by the external environment and with the help of OD practitioners, a process of self-renewal to help sustain the organizations adaptive, innovative and creative culture can be put into place. Brown (2011) describes these types of organizations as “reconfigurable—an organization that is flexible and able to change on an annual, monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly time frame. Unchanging systems will become dinosaurs.” (p. 420).

            The Future of OD Practitioners

               Currently the future is bright for OD practitioners, despite many companies not yet recognizing the need to move towards reconfigurable organizations…at least not yet. Our company has an OD department with about 10 assigned personnel. At the meeting where our company announced force reductions, I asked if our OD department was involved in the decision making to reduce the force. The answer I received was not exactly convincing, nor did it lack total credibility. Luke warm is a good description of the response. I imagine the OD department feels temped about management as well. Several months ago when I discovered we actually had an OD department, I reached out via email to learn more about our OD department. I requested a few minutes of their time to learn more about their organization. Never received a response. In lieu of the recently announced force reductions, probably not a good time for a follow-up. Really I get the feeling that our OD department may have been hit by the force reduction. I’ll do some investigation tomorrow. Despite my companies’ misgivings, there is a real need for OD practitioners.

            As more companies decide to move towards reconfigurable systems, the need for OD practitioners will increase and as more companies successfully go thru the transition and implement a self-renewal stage to sustain a reconfigurable organization, the need for OD practitioners should plateau and then diminish, but not disappear completely.  The reason why is that OD is a discipline and there are not that many managers that have the background or the time to be knowledgeable about all of the important aspects of OD. OD is a very intriguing field…so much so that I’m considering a career switch if the opportunity presents itself. Not that I want to be a part of the force reduction, but life has mysterious ways of presenting new opportunities in what seems at first as a threat.

References:

Brown, R. D, (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (Eighth edition.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Burlington, VT: Gower Publishing Company.