Due: After you complete Lesson 7 Credit Weight: 25% of your final grade Purpose: Examine stakeholder resistance to change and initiating successful change management. This assignment forms section 3 o

Lesson 6: Human Process Interventions

Overview:

Lessons 2–5 in this course describe various types of interventions for facilitating organizational change. Such interventions do not fit neatly into specific phases of change processes; depending on the situation, interventions may be part of readiness for change, dealing with resistance, facilitating transition, or sustaining momentum. Helping an organization prepare for change involves understanding the change itself, understanding the conditions under which the change is being implemented, knowing yourself, and knowing your organization. To communicate information to organizational members in ways that are supportive and encouraging, an effective leader/manager must know why the change is taking place and as much as possible about the change or intervention.

Some changes or interventions may be chosen in conjunction with consultants brought in to help with certain organizational problems. Other changes or interventions may be chosen with no outside consultation, and consultants may or may not be involved in implementing these changes. Human process interventions (referred to as approaches in your textbook) include interpersonal processes, group processes, and organization processes that may have system-wide implications.

Interpersonal and Group Process Approaches

Human process interventions that deal with interpersonal and group processes are intended to help group members assess their own behaviours in working with others. Human process interventions often occur when consultants are brought into an organization to help with work-related interpersonal problems.

Human process interventions help people examine their relationships with others. Such interventions require input from the people involved and emphasize having participants share in their own assessment process. This provides a starting point for people to become actively involved in designing change strategies. Human process interventions align with organizational development philosophy, with information about empowerment, and with future trends. It is important to understand the impact of group process approaches, third-party interventions, and team building on effective change management.

Implementing system-wide interventions requires much planning, organizing, and skill. Most often, outside consultants and a number of representative employees form a team that considers special issues. Recent trends point to the effectiveness of large group interventions when appropriate conditions apply.

Understanding and assessing intergroup dynamics can help people work together more effectively. Large group interventions focus on major issues affecting an entire organization. Three types of system-wide process interventions include confrontation meetings, intergroup relation interventions (microcosm groups and resolving intergroup conflict), and large-group interventions.

Two major approaches to meeting and gathering information for large-scale change are open-systems methods and open-space methods. Open-systems methods require strong leadership with a focus on the environment, whereas open-space methods are more informal and assist people to help themselves. Anecdotal evidence supports the benefits of such interventions.

Learning Objectives:

After completing Lesson 6, you should be able to

1. discuss the assessment issues associated with interpersonal relations and group dynamics interventions.

2. outline the principles of the process consultation intervention.

3. describe the process of third-party conflict resolution.

4. discuss and evaluate the core organization development (OD) intervention of team building.

5. provide an overview of organization-level process approaches.

6. explain two traditional organization process interventions: the organization confrontation meeting and the intergroup conflict method.

7. describe and evaluate the effectiveness of large-group interventions.

8. define and assess the effectiveness of culture change efforts.

Learning Activities:

Reading Assignment

In Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2019). Organization development and change (11th ed.). Cengage Learning.

• Chapter 10: Interpersonal and Group Process Approaches

• Chapter 11: Organization Process Approaches

Viewing Assignment

Pink, D. (2015, March 13). Fear, shame, empathy and more ways to change behavior  [Video]. YouTube. SXSW Live. https://youtu.be/rA27ltMOXqU 

Lesson 7: Technostructural Interventions

Overview:

Technostructural interventions are those targeted toward technological and structural issues such as organizational design, work redesign, and employee engagement. Such interventions are intended to affect productivity and human fulfillment.

Many organizations are applying interventions such as downsizing and re-engineering. Lesson 7 discusses the downsizing phenomenon and the decidedly poor results associated with it. It also discusses re-engineering, an intervention intended to challenge the fundamental ways in which organizations perform their work. Re-engineering can radically change an organization. Such interventions, and varying levels of employee involvement, are likely to continue as trends in the future.

Creating jobs and work that lead to more productivity and fulfillment can involve employees or can be designed as an independent change program. Lesson 7 examines three approaches to work design. The first looks at engineering jobs for efficiency and simplification (e.g., Taylorism — time and motion studies). The second approach applies motivational theories to make jobs more enriching. The third approach, sociotechnical theory, guides many employment involvement and work design approaches.

Your textbook describes two fundamental assumptions that form the basis of the sociotechnical systems approach. People can be encouraged and supported to work together in the form of self-managed teams. This increasingly popular concept incorporates both social and technical aspects of work systems and integrates ideas about current and future trends. Self-managed teams are often linked to skills-based pay.

Lesson 7: Learning Objectives

After completing Lesson 7, you should be able to

1. define the principles of employee involvement and describe their relationship to performance.

1. compare the following three employee involvement interventions: parallel structures, total quality management, and high-involvement organizations.

2. describe the engineering and re-engineering approaches to work design.

3. explore and evaluate the motivational approach to work design.

4. discuss and apply the principles of sociotechnical systems work design.

5. design work to meet technical and personal needs.

Learning Activities:

Reading Assignment

In Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2019). Organization development and change (11th ed.). Cengage Learning.

• Chapter 12: Employee Involvement

• Chapter 13: Work Design

Supplementary Reading

• Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday.