Organizational Development | Meaning and Definition

What is Organizational Development?

Organizational development is a process that intends to develop, improve, and reinforce structures, processes, and strategies in the organization. It is a scientific and critical approach to enhance an enterprise’s competency to adopt positive changes and accomplish higher efficacy in the system and processes. To achieve sound organizational development, professionals examine the behavior of employees and the work environment, before anticipating the kind and level of change to be introduced.

Characteristics of organizational development (OD)

Through organizational development, cultural, strategic, and structural realities of work are aligned to respond to the needs of a constantly evolving business climate. 

Key features of Organizational Development are:

•   Shifts in the culture, strategy, processes, and structure of an individual role and the entire enterprise.
•   Applying the knowledge of behavioral science to facilitate organizational transformation.
•   Allowing organizational change in an adaptive, participative way, and flexible manner.
•   Promoting high performance, productivity, financial conduct, quality products, and consistent improvement.
•   Enabling the organizational member to learn new skills and knowledge and adopt new ways of thinking to facilitate them in identifying and understanding the challenges in an organization.

Organizational Development (OD) also functions from a specific set of workplace values that directly influence the way work is done.

Why consider Organizational Development (OD)?

If you aspire to facilitate the organization in its evolution, progress, and success, organizational development is imperative. While addressing the obvious and needful changes like business objectives, structural objectives, product development, stakeholder requirements, strategic direction, etc., it also looks into the latent facets of the organizational culture. On top of this, it aims to understand how the changes can be utilized to procure sustainable, effective, and long-term success in the organization.