Assessing effectiveness of organizational development interventions

¶ … biases and presumptions about the mindset and competencies of others can muddy and otherwise make problematic any implementation of organizational development. The second pertains to how an adept organizational development person would go about choosing and implementing the proper interventions when it comes to challenges in the workplace and organization relating to the above. Beyond that, it will be answered how it could or should be measured whether or to what degree the intervention is working after the implemented solution has been implemented. While someone's presumptions or "gut" can be on the money sometimes, there are many other times where these intuitions can be partially or entirely wrong and, regardless, it is wrong to just assume things without solid and complete evidence.

Questions Answered

Question One

The one main reason an organizational development intervention would not work would be one of two things. The first is that the people that are the subject of the intervention are resisting the solution and they are not participatory in making it work. However, the other reason is that the solution prescribed is at odds with reality and the totality of what is really going on. Beyond that, the latter of those two issues can come off as the former. For example, if there are two groups and one of them makes the claim that the other group is not abiding by the solutions of the first group, it might be assumed that the secondary group is resisting change. However, to just assume that would be exceedingly unwise. The complaining group may be imposing their ideas on the second group with little to no consideration of anything that is contrary. The first group may have their own misguided preconceptions and assumptions about the second group. Regardless, any OD practitioner worth their salt will talk to both groups and get the full lay of the land before implementing any change. Absolutely nothing should be left to presumption or incomplete data (Rothwell & Sullivan, 2005).

Conclusion

Any company with a strong organizational culture is going to try and enforce that culture with the rank and file. People that are not on board with the company culture should probably find another place to work and potential hires that are clearly not simpatico with what will be required should probably be passed over. Regardless, the practice of anyone using assumptions and guesses as a basis for how people are treated and perceived should be the antithesis of normal. This is true of OD professionals and normal rank and file people alike. There should never be a presupposition that a person is doing the wrong thing or is incompetent based on anything other than hard and verifiable facts.