SFU-SQA PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA

PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN HUMAN RESOURCES

MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

1
Module 2- Organizational Development

Topic – Continuous Change

Dr. Nu Nu Lwin
Professor & Head
Dept. of Management Studies
Yangon University of Economics

2
Learning Objectives
Compare and contrast four continuous change OD interventions.

Describe the elements and processes associated with the dynamic strategy-making

intervention.

Define the demands of turbulent environments and describe the self-design

intervention.

Outline the definition and application of organization learning interventions.

Explain the logic and process of developing built-to-change organizations

Dynamic Strategy Making
A new type of OD intervention that combines OD’s traditional human process focus on relationships

among organization members with strategic management’s customary emphasis on strategy and

organization design to help organizations manage strategic change.

A deliberate, coordinated process that leads to continuous realignments between an organization and

its environment.

Whereas ISC focuses on making a systemic and revolutionary change, dynamic strategy making creates

a continuous strategic change process intended to improve performance and effectiveness over time
Dynamic Strategy Making
Criteria for Effective Strategic Change

Speed over delay

Breadth over narrowness

Flexibility over rigidity

Empowerment over autocracy

Simplicity over complexity

Unity over fragmentation

Dynamic Strategy Making
Criteria for Effective Strategic Change

Speed over delay

New opportunities & threats need immediate strategic action, but organizations are often slow to
react, gathering more information & assessing more solutions instead of acting.

Breadth over narrowness

Unpredictable & complex conditions require expansive thinking and openness to innovative ideas, but
organizations tend to be discipline focused and take input from selected stakeholders.

Flexibility over rigidity

Organizations must discover new solutions, adjust priorities, and reallocate resources constantly, but
they are often ruled by rigid policies and annual budgets.
Dynamic Strategy Making
Criteria for Effective Strategic Change

Empowerment over autocracy

Strategy making must permeate the entire organization and give members the
freedom to respond to local changes; it cannot remain the sole domain of top
management.

Simplicity over complexity

Complexity threatens to overwhelm organization members; strategy needs to be

concrete and specific enough to be acted on but not so detailed that members
cannot respond and improvise as situations change.

Unity over fragmentation

Strategy must promote consistent and integrated action, because organizations

spread out across countries, markets, and businesses tend to fragment, lose
coordination, and deviate from the intended strategy.
A Dynamic Strategy System
Dynamic Strategy Making
Conceptual Framework

Strategic system: The core of dynamic strategy making

View strategy as a central concept that permeates the organization rather than being
another element to align with other parts.

Strategic system:

Include a statement of strategic direction and a strategic process for developing

and executing the strategy.

Continually matches the firm’s resources & capabilities to changing environmental

opportunities and demands.
 Dynamic Strategy Making
Statement of Strategic Direction

Strategic direction: The primary outcome from the situational assessment

Provide a way to record, communicate, and implement the strategy.

Elements of the Statement of Strategic Direction

Competitive Logic: A value propositions that connects the firm’s capabilities to market
opportunities

Goals: Unifying target for achievement:

Financial goals & a single rallying goal

Organization: Formal organization design which aligns work, structure, HR practices &
management processes to the competitive logic and goals

Action Plan: Initiatives & specific steps required to implement the strategy

Set priorities over a specific timeframe

 Dynamic Strategy Making

Strategic Process

Identifying the relevant stakeholders who should be involved directly in the strategy-making process

Engaging them in a highly interactive set of conversations and debates about the organization’s strategic

direction and how to move forward.

Dynamic Strategy Application Stages

Choosing relevant stakeholders

Holding the first retreat

Engaging stakeholders between the first and second retreats

Holding the second retreat

Implementing actions
Dynamic Strategy Application Stages
Choosing relevant stakeholders

To ensure that the strategic system results in a more realistic formulation of the strategy and has the
commitment necessary to support its implementation.

Driven by senior executives or the top management team

To systematically identify stakeholders: Employ a variety of techniques such as open

system planning or stakeholder mapping processes

Holding the first retreat

To create an initial draft of the statement of strategic direction

Collect information about participants’ perceptions of S,W,O,T through personal interviews or other
methods before the retreat.
 Dynamic Strategy Application Stages
Holding the first retreat

Before the session: Collect information about participants’ perceptions of S,W,O,T through

personal interviews or other methods

Three primary discussions:

Understanding the data

Formulating competitive logic and goals: Difficult stage

Split into smaller breakout groups to develop a competitive logic for the organization.

Preparing for broader organizational involvement

Establishing procedures and timelines for gathering feedback on the draft logic and goals
 Dynamic Strategy Application Stages

Engaging stakeholders between first and second retreats

Senior managers: Perform reality tests on the validity of assumptions in the statement

Through feedback on the draft statement from other stakeholders.

Review the draft competitive logic & goals during interim meetings

Middle managers, frontline employees, & other relevant stakeholders: Provide feedback &
comments.

Holding the second retreat

To review the feedback, finalize the competitive logic and goal statements, and complete the
statement of strategic direction.

Through total group reviews and discussion on the input from stakeholders and building
consensus regarding the competitive logic and goals.
Dynamic Strategy Application Stages

Implementing actions

Involve putting effort into pursuing the statement of strategic direction

Establish task forces with charters to develop action plans

Implement the initiatives

Report progress to the senior team.

Self-Designing Organizations

Organizations with a built-in capacity to

transform continually and to achieve high
levels of performance

Involve cycles of diagnosing, designing, and

implementing activities

Today turbulent environment: Complex &

changing rapidly

To be effective: Require a coordinated organization response.

To result in changed behaviors throughout the system: Need large-scale change at multiple levels of
the organization
Application Stages of Self-design Intervention

Self-design Intervention
Focus on all features of the organization & design them to support the strategy.

A dynamic and an iterative process aimed at providing organizations with the built-in
capacity to change and redesign themselves continually as the circumstances demand.

Five stages In practice the stages merge and interact iteratively over time)

Clarifying the strategy

Laying the foundation

Creating design criteria

Designing

Implementing and assessing

Learning Organizations

Organization Learning interventions

Emphasize the structures & social processes that enable employees & teams to learn & share
knowledge

Focus on the tools and techniques that enable organizations to collect, organize, and translate
information into useful knowledge

Aim to enhance an organization’s capability to acquire & develop new knowledge and improve
themselves constantly

Focus on changing behaviors by changing the way people solve problems and address
opportunities

Enable organizations to acquire and apply knowledge more quickly and effectively than
competitors, thus establishing a potentially long-term competitive advantage
Learning Organizations
How Organization Learning Affects Performance
 Learning Organizations

Characteristics of Learning Organizations

Structures: Emphasize teamwork, information sharing, empowerment

ISs: Facilitate rapid acquisition & sharing of complex information to manage knowledge for competitive

advantage

HRs: Reinforce new skills and knowledge

Organization culture: Encourages innovation

Leaders:Model openness and freedom to try new things while communicating a compelling vision
Learning Organizations
Organization Learning Process

Single loop learning (Adaptive learning): Most common form of learning

Aimed at adapting and improving the status quo

Double loop learning (Generative learning):

Learn how to change the existing assumptions & conditions

Lead to transformational change, where the status quo itself is radically altered.

Deutero learning: Learning how to learn

How to improve single and double loop learning

 Learning Organizations
Organization Learning Activities

Discover Theories in Use & Their Consequences:

Dialogue, Action Maps, Left-Hand, Right-

Hand Column, The Ladder of Inference

Invent & produce more effective theories in use

Attend to the knowledge management practices

that support learning

Continuously monitor & improve the learning

process
Learning Organizations
Knowledge Management Practices that Support Learning

Generating Knowledge

Identify knowledge for competitive strategy

Develop ways to acquire or create that knowledge

Organizing Knowledge

Put knowledge into a usable form

Codification and Personalization

Distributing Knowledge

Making knowledge easy to access, use & reuse

Built-to-Change Organizations

Design organizations with the ability to change constantly to create the best sustainable source of competitive
advantage

Design Guidelines for B2C Organizations

Built-to-Change Application Stages

Reframe culture as a facilitator of change

Create a change friendly culture

Redefine organization design components for flexibility

Emphasize a flat, lean, and flexible organization structure

Human resources practices support managing the right talent for change

Build an orchestration capability

Redefine leadership to be shared throughout the organization

Thank You