To achieve the desired goals of high performance and competitive advantage, organisations have often resorted to radical change. Yet in many of these cases, inspirational vision for the organisation still gets created by a few and then thrust upon the many. This often means that these change initiatives end in failure and disappointment. One way of avoiding this is to involve employees from all levels of the organisation - to co-create a vision of the future and to manage the change process.
Organisational Development (OD) is a planned, holistic approach to improving organisational effectiveness – one that aligns strategy, people and processes. Fundamentally, OD balances the need for organisational effectiveness, organisational and individual well-being with wider societal concerns about the kind of world we live in.
Roffey Park believes the practice of OD is about ensuring the organisation is ready for the future by taking deliberate planned steps to create an environment that will enable employees to understand, embody and deliver the organisation’s objectives. OD involves both “hard” issues – strategy, policies, structures and systems – and “soft” issues those that develop appropriate skills, behaviours, attitudes, culture and a style of leadership that will enable organisations to deliver optimum performance. To avoid conflict between organisational goals and needs, it is imperative that both these issues are addressed.
What differentiates OD from other areas of our work is its holistic focus, on how what is done in one part of the organisation impacts on another. As more and more practitioners and clients embrace OD, there is a real need to build their capacity and help them come together to discuss the challenges they face. At Roffey Park we offer a number of ways to develop the OD practitioner’s knowledge, skills and personal attributes as well as supporting leaders in their quest to understand the implications of OD for their role. These include:
For those wishing to transform their OD practice our MSc in People and Organisational Development is proven to be one of the best qualifications in the field of OD.
I believe that OD is a vital part of an organisation’s strategy. It is a democratic and collaborative process, which enables organisations to holistically co-create their vision, mission, values and change interventions to maintain health and wellbeing whilst enhancing leadership, performance and employee morale.
Sylvia Baumgartner - Principal Consultant for Organisational Development