Change is a must in any organization to match the changing environment around. Planned strategies are required for managing the process of change. These strategies should be based on research undertaken by a specialized Organizational Development (OD) consultant. In doing so, an OD consultant can use "Feedback" as a tool for facilitating organizational change. This feedback is based on the analysis of data collection over a period of time. Analysis of data provides strong empirical evidence for any change that is required. The article gives an insight into the importance of the feedback technique in the domain of change management.
Change agents frequently use data-based methods in getting the desired change. They collect, analyze and interpret the feedback of data and use it as a tool for organizational change. Author Stephen P Robbins defines an organization as "a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals." Another author, David A Nadler has defined an organization as a complex and interdependent open system, which can be viewed as a complex set of interrelated elements called a system. The system consists of several subsystems which involve various social and technical components. While the social component includes elements such as people, relationship, behavior and structure, technical components include elements such as technology, capital, etc.
Since an organization is a complex system, creating a change in it will involve a complex process. Changing an entire organization does not come through a sole secluded intervention but through attention to the different yet related parts of the system. This requires special skills and intelligence. In the organizational world, this domain is dealt by Organizational Development (OD) Consultants. OD is a reaction to the change. It is a composition of various strategies which is purposefully applied for making a change in the structure, culture and beliefs of an organization. OD increases the efficiency of an organization to adapt to the new challenges in the environment and change accordingly. It helps an organization to face and become accustomed to the changing forms of technologies and markets. |
