Action Research Case Study
Course: BUS370
Date: 19 April, 2021
Introduction
Recently, organizational design has become more essential. The world today is characterized by complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity and volatility that necessitates new agility from organizations hence organizational development is the best way to end it. Organizational development can be termed as a critical and science-based concept that aids organizations in building their capabilities to change and achieve more effectiveness by advancing, improving and strengthening strategies, structures and processes (Christens, 2019). The main stakeholders of organizational development are both internal and external to the organization. The internal stakeholders include management and employees while the external stakeholders are investors, customers, suppliers, community and government.
Organizational development interventions
Considering that organizational goals vary from one firm to another such as increasing organizational competitiveness, organizational development creates aspects to help organizations achieve their goals so as to win in the marketplace. It aims at developing an organization’s capability to assess the current functioning and adjust it to achieve its goals. In organizational development, there are interventions which are structured programs that are designed to solve problems in the organization so as to enable the organization to achieve its goals. Basing on the Blaze mining case study, which faces organizational problems, theoretical concepts and methods used during organizational development interventions will be applied to solve the organizational problems.
The Blaze mining company has been experiencing antagonistic and non-collaborative behavior among the management and employees which has led to massive harm to the management and operations and critical functions within the company. A chief executive officer who recently joined the company was startled by the conflict among the leaders of the company and its impact on the organization. The Blaze mining company’s organization design, which is owned and managed by a family and has many departments whereby every department is led by a family member and the personally selected team should be shaped and well structured. As requested by the chief executive officer, organizational development interventions will be used to facilitate interactions with the leadership team and evolve a cohesive team that is aimed on the success of the company.
The organizational development intervention activities will be best conducted with overall context of short-term and internal strategic planning in the company which includes development and solving of problems so as to achieve organizational goals. For the organizational development interventions to be highly impactful to the Blaze mining company integrated standpoint that considers the structure and behavior of the leaders of the Blaze mining company will be used. The intervention will include three workshop sessions once a month for three months, a specialized intervention with each department and a wrap-up session with all stakeholders. The structural approach and behavioral approach will be integrated into the intervention for the specific groups involved in the organizational development intervention.
Behavior approach method
A behavioral approach that entails several techniques or aspects will be mostly used in the workshop sessions. Sensitive training will be the first technique taken in the workshop sessions. The purpose of it is to change the behavior of the leaders through unstructured group interactions. The leaders will be bought together by a facilitator and freely discus themselves. The objectives of the sensitive training include; to let the leaders of Blaze mining company understand the perception of greater sensitivity of behaviors of each of them, provide the leaders with increased awareness of their own behavior and increase understanding of group processes that are working together as a team. Management by objective is the second aspect of the behavioral approach that will be used to solve the leadership crisis in the Blaze mining company. It is a dynamic system that will integrate the Blaze mining company’s need to reach its goals for growth and profit with its leaders’ needs to contribute and develop themselves. In other words, since the chief executive officer of the Blaze mining company is the overall overseer of the company, he or she will fix the goals of the company to be a responsibility of the leaders to make sure they attain them and also results will be expected from them.
The leaders will have no choice rather than working together and develop a cohesive team that will work together towards reaching the organizational goals. The leaders will be reminded of the organizational goals through the workshop sessions and through specialized intervention each departmental leader together with his or her team will discuss how to contribute to attaining the organizational goals. The management by the objective technique will encourage performance appraisal of the leaders because of shared goal setting and evaluation. Team building technique will also be essential for the leaders and all of Blaze mining company so as to motivate them to work together (Hayhurst, 2018). It will mostly apply in the specialized intervention of each department and make them aware of group functioning. It is an application of sensitive training techniques because the whole department will undergo a discussion facilitated by an expert concerning how to work together to achieve the organizational goals. The leaders in the department will be able to bridge their differences hence building a cohesive team that works together towards achieving the organizational goals. This is because the management in the department will get exposed to the thinking of others and also social-psychological behavior at the workplace.
Structural approach method
The structural approach method will involve organizational redesigning and work design. Organizational redesigning will involve changing the Blaze mining company’s structure to make it more efficient by redefining the flow of authority. There should be changes in the functional responsibility of the leaders such as adopting a matrix organizational structure. The organizational redesign will help the company pursue the strategies or techniques of ensuring there is cohesiveness in the company hence reaching the organizational goals. The organizational structure will be influenced by the chief executive officer since it will reflect his or her needs and values. Changing organizational structure will impact the relationship between the leaders in the organization to a cohesive team. Work design entails redesigning the tasks and jobs of the management and employees. The Blaze mining company’s leader’s jobs and responsibilities should be redesigned to involve responsibilities that require them to work together so as to achieve the organizational goals hence facilitate the cohesiveness of the leaders. Job redesigning will also involve educational skills, behaviors, and relationships with each other.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Blaze mining company should use both the behavioral approach and structural approach method of organizational development interventions to address the challenge of leadership antagonistic and non-collaborative behavior experienced by its leaders. The company should apprehend the challenge before it enlarges to a bigger scale and it should be addressed at the initial stage because it requires low efforts. The company should not neglect the issue because with time it can adversely affect the organization in terms of cost resulting in losses.
References
Carnevale, D. G. (2018). Groups, public management reform, and organizational development. Organizational Development in the Public Sector, 79-97. doi:10.4324/9780429498558-5
Christens, B. D. (2019). Organizational development. Community Power and Empowerment, 91-122. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190605582.003.0005
Hayhurst, R., & Wills, G. (2018). Part D: Organizational transfer-organizational development. Organizational Design for Marketing Futures, 135-176. doi:10.4324/9781351250887-4
Tearle, R. (2020). Organizational development: How to choose the right intervention.
