I've gotten very passionate this year about communicating all the good that can result from applying organization development to any and every group of people in all industries and sectors.  I am particularly enthusiastic about leaders, managers, and employees building their own org development competencies to apply to their everyday work with one another. 

  

In my efforts to inspire the use of organization development, I am sending a short, quarterly article to share ideas about how you can benefit from using organization development.  

  

Welcome to my first article!

  

Marisa 

  

  

We all know organizations that suffer from issues of power-grabbing, resource-hogging, and bureaucratic rules about who can talk to whom. Chances are these organizations do not have shared missions and visions that inspire all employees - including the most senior leaders - to achieve something great. Organizations without a focus to provide service to customers, constituents, or other external stakeholders tend to devolve into reactive organizations that focus on the internal --  power, territory, resources.

 

All you have to do is watch as one of these organizations is thrust into a crisis (think Hurricane Katrina). Suddenly, all the parts are working together, no one cares who "owns" which resources. And employees inspire one another - answering the call to action and achieving greatness. But once the crisis is over, the once-fabulous organization returns to its bureaucratic state. Organization development approaches and techniques support organizations to create (or re-create) inspiring missions and visions. Org development supports leaders to engage employees in the mission-creation as well as the organization transformation required to carry out that mission.

 

Feeling like your organization is stuck in bureaucratic navel-gazing, in-fighting, or malaise? Think about launching an energizing mission- and vision-creation activity to inspire yourself and your employees back to action!

 

Organization development is a broad field that draws from a number of disciplines and can be applied to any organized (or disorganized!) group of people. Based in human behavior theories and values, the goal is to build and sustain effective organizations by leveraging the knowledge and experience within the organization. This newsletter serves as a vehicle to inspire you to use organization
development in your own work.