Organisation Development

teams like buzz words, and every year new phrases are added to management lexicon.  The current buzz is around .  I remember doing my post graduate diploma and learning that efficiency was doing things right, and effectiveness was doing the right things.  So organisational effectiveness is about doing the right things, but what exactly does that mean?  Anyone?  It appears that Organisational Effectiveness is a difficult concept to pin down.

Francis, Holbeche and Reddington (2012) in their new book offer the following definition;

“Organisation Effectiveness takes as its desired end point sustainable, self-renewing outcomes.  This… requires a shift in mindset and practice with respect to organisational change, towards one based on… authentic mutuality.”

That clears that up then.

Well not really.  It just adds more buzz words to management lexicon which we will need to unpick to understand.

The first element to highlight is that organisational effectiveness is an end point, which suggests that in order to get there, the organisation needs to have a start point, and has to develop towards the point of achieving the outcome or goal of organisational effectiveness.  Its not a process or a system that the organisation adopts, but rather it is something the organisation works towards achieve.

This end point is not something that is static or one thing.  Its not like a gold medal that once achieved can’t be unachieved.  It is akin to organisational learning in that it is a way of doing things around here, but unlike organisational learning, which you never achieve if you really are learning organisation, but rather is something that can be achieved.  If you do the right things, you will continue to do the right things and maintain organisation effectiveness.

The self-renewing and organisational change elements are not new in management literature, but what is different is the element of ‘authentic mutuality’ and that is what makes this definition so exciting.  A seemingly banal statement made up of buzz words is actually challenging the way organisations work in regards to the employer/employee relationship.  It is ask for organisation to work together with employees in a way that not just benefits the organisation but also the employee.  Doing the right thing for the organisation AND doing the right thing for the employees who work in the organisation.

Of course this throws up all sorts of challenges for the organisation in regards to Human Resource practices, and the balancing the tensions created in attempting to do the right things for both organisation and employee.  But the output of an organisation focused on doing only the right things for the organisation is being felt in the economic challenges faced by the world today and the broken nature of the western capitalist model which focuses purely on competitive short-term entrepreneurship without consideration of the people in the organisation.

The time is ripe for change, and quite possible with some societal and cultural changes organisational effectiveness is achievable.