This Organizational Development thing, let's demystify it...

Org Dev is a function under the HR umbrella whose primary function is to optimize the performance of an organization vis a vis programs whose aim is to benchmark key performance indicators, metric individual employees against those KPIs and broadly speaking, work with internal stake holders to optimize organizational structure (e.g. the org chart) for higher performance.

That's alot corporate-y sound words.

Really what we're talking about is a function that at it's essence is about program management.

For example there are a variety of models "OD Practioners" employ to improve performance, one example being "Balanced Scorecard"..

(The jist of Balanced Scorecard incidentally is to benchmark and measure performance at the departmental level in an org because those activities are a leading indicator of near and mid-term success. Balanced Scorecard advocates allege fiscal results are a lag indicator (true) and look to sync those departmental (lead) indicators with the lag indicators.)

At it's heart Organization Development is a defined body of knowledge that's easily learned.

The primary difference between an effective OD function and not is applying the right model to the organization. Conceptually Balanced Scorecard and other models are all the same, but the discrete differences are centered around those models are how they apply to small, mid or large organizations.

Naturally, things can be taken a step further; in large outfits such as IBM or Microsoft where individual business units or products really comprise a distinct business from other business units strategic application of discrete OD models could (and are) applied to optimize performance
in those respective business groups.

Pretty simple right?

So, if we could weight the qualities of a tactical and even a strategic resource's success we'd probably be talking about weighting program management expertise followed by smart application of domain knowledge/subject matter expertise.

Why are folks in HR so darn mystified by OD?

I call it the "black box syndrome"...

Folks either have a vague understanding of it or just don't get it period; if they are tasked to provide something for an OD program (an input) that input enters the program and later on the OD group magically produces some result (usually a report) that isn't fully understood either because it's not properly explained (or maybe marketed) by OD or we have a knowledge gap issue on the receiving side of the equation.

Net: stuff goes into the magical OD machine really smart people with a master's degree in OD do stuff with it, but we don't know what and, poof, incomprehensible babble appears.

(That's from the POV of the HR folks participating in the process)

Solution:

Transparency around process and what the strategic vision and objectives of the OD program are.

Paint broad strokes, get folks in HR on board, some of them may be foot soldiers so-to-speak for the OD cause and having an "I don't know why I'm asking & collecting this data from you (internal stakeholder) but I have to because of XYZ initiative" doesn't do much to engender high levels of participation in a program.

Next up.. I'll explore building world class HR organizations, why we aren't, how we can in small and mid-sized companies.