Organization and Management Development

To be successful an organization needs

• its staff to feel that they are a part of an organization and know what it is trying to do
• good relationships between individuals and teams
• working systems and organizational structures that enable an effective job to be done
• the necessary skills and resources to meet the needs of the task

The appropriate attitudes, skills, structures and systems must all interrelate if an organization is to achieve its aims. Senior management must constantly review the requirements of their business to adapt and direct it to meet ever-changing challenges.

Sometimes, pressures created by speed of change or the demands of every day operational activities mean that stresses and strains start to emerge. Alternatively, managers look ahead and fear that their business may not be able to cope with the demands of the future.

Organization development activities provide a climate in which an organization's strengths can be identified and balanced. Organization development is directed towards the future. It addresses tomorrow's problems starting from a thorough understanding of present realities. Organization development encourages the extension of management knowledge and understanding.

Management development is a central feature of organizational development. All organizations need to have managers of the highest quality who are capable of anticipating and handling change. Management development is about enhancing the knowledge and skills of individuals and teams who are responsible for the direction of a business. This development can flourish only in a supportive organization.

Organization and management development must go hand-in-hand.

Examples of recent projects

Our client Company, a medium sized engineering based operation was facing simultaneous challenges of rapidly changing markets subject to price regulation and dramatic changes in corporate governance requirements and shareholder expectations. The ODL team worked with the Board of Directors to identify the key strategic questions for a positive way forward without focusing only on the constraints being faced and to establish strategic options for positive development of the organization.

Faced with a need to increase sales revenue with limited sales resources, this client worked with the ODL team to analyse the full range of market opportunities and prepare a comprehensive sales plan and implementation schedule that would work during a period in which the operations and support sides of the business were also undergoing dramatic change.

A period of substantial structural change in a system of local government led to a situation in which Department Heads Designate faced the task of building new structures whilst existing services were maintained and there was significant pressure on financial and availability of human resources. The ODL team worked with several of the Department Heads, both on strategic organizational planning and on specific aspects of the changes by providing outsourced managerial support. The departments also acquired completely new Management Boards and the ODL team co-ordinated the production of comprehensive organizational briefing packs for Board Members.

In order to support in-house work-based coaching and learning systems as well as operational work analysis and key HR systems, ODL has been commissioned by several clients to devise competency frameworks tailored to their operational needs. The key feature of these frameworks is a plain English and simple language approach that breaks down any potential barriers between learners and those who are managing, coaching and assessing them.

This client asked ODL to use its extensive network in order to find out the practical experience of organizations that had undertaken a particular form of organizational restructuring. The research was then applied to the client organization so that the risks of such a restructuring were clearly understood in order to maximise the benefits and to minimise the adverse effects of changes being implemented.

This client was looking to ensure that a particular group of first line managers overseeing a diverse set of business units became more involved in the management of the business as a whole and saw that involvement as a regular part of their job. ODL worked with the Senior Management Team to identify project tasks that had managerial implications for the whole business. Each Development Action Team consisted of four or five first line managers and the ODL team provided support and project planning services to see the tasks through. The Senior Management expressed considerable satisfaction both in the results achieved by the teams and in the personal and team development benefits of the process.

A disciplined and uniformed Service commissioned ODL to work with representatives of every level of the organization on a project to rationalise the approach to promotions. Vacancies for promotions occur only periodically but both staff and managers agree that a successful candidate must be properly prepared before they take on additional responsibility. ODL and the organization's team devised a programme of learning and structured work experience that enables prospects for promotion to feel that they are fully prepared when the opportunity occurs.

Shortly after a significant reorganisation, this client with a complex portfolio of operational responsibilities asked the ODL Team to devise job descriptions for every post across the organization. Based on information collected from people doing the jobs and from their managers, the job descriptions added the detail needed to cement the structure represented by the organization chart.