Organizational Psychology, Organizational Development, Management Development and Change Management have all become synonymous and can be freely interchanged without any change in meaning. They all must remain true to the same supporting pillars of Principles, Processes and Performance.
A deficiency to any of these pillars will set in motion an organization oscillating wildly. The organization will typically react in a predictable manner of slashing headcount and other costs with little concern to funds lost in the developing of their human talent who may offer an alternative and less costly solution to the problem at hand. The focus needs to be on recovery.
An organization is like a bullet - it usually goes where you aim it...
Then there are the unintended consequences of these actions, such as: missed windows of opportunities to gain market share or high profit low risk endeavors. These actions will adversely affect company moral with a lessening of confidence in management decisions. This would result in the organization becoming highly Resistant to Change and most likely, enter an ever-declining spiral of loss of control.
Today the business world and organizations, in particular, are experiencing pressures that are severely challenging the ability of modern day business and Organizational Development models to sustain companies, regardless of the size of the operation. These challenges have necessitated an altering of attention from event-driven activities to a focus on “Controlling the Growth of an Organization” regardless if that growth is negative or positive.
Controlling negative growth allows the organization to: recover much more quickly, utilize its developed human talent, forgo much of the perils of unintended consequences and effectively lower the resistance to change.
Controlling positive growth allows an organization the wherewithal to: instill confidence throughout the organization, engage windows of opportunity early in their life cycle attract and maintain the “right” employees, effectively lower the resistance to change, and create opportunities to exceed profit and ROI expectations.
Bruce L. Watier, Ph.D. has also created a Principle of “Cultivating an Organization”© with the given that the organization must play the hand dealt the company. This translates to using a three part strategy which needs to be formulated and used before the organization reacts with what it believes to be the only option available.
Part 1 – Analysis – Where are we right now? Where do we want to be relative to the existing talent pool?
Part 2 – Develop – Install and teach how to interpret appropriate tools that are summarized on a one page Dashboard.
Part 3 – Mentor – Provide proactive consultation while maintaining a data base of results that forces focus on organizational prosperity.