Assignment:
You were asked by Dr. Babcock to meet with his direct staff and give an overview of OD and what has been discussed by the executive team so far. You were immediately swept up in the group's excitement about the idea of improving the organization and became involved in talking through what made them most successful. These thoughts were summarized as the key values of the function. (See the list below for further details.)
Creating increased involvement at all levels was one change the R&D management felt was mandatory. They convinced you that the people in the organization really did want this to happen, but no one was sure how to go about it. They asked you if it is possible to reinforce this change by how a diagnosis and analysis is conducted.
Based on your capacity as an expert in OD, you were asked to draft a questionnaire to assess where the function is now and where it should be. Being researchers, they understood the need for information and thought the questionnaire approach was a fast way to proceed. You know you need help to generate definitions that could be used to make the questionnaire meaningful and understandable. They agreed that their organization needs to be involved, but they want a working document to discuss to save time. Once they have a means (the questionnaire) and plan for collecting information, they can then use it to set priorities and begin discussions on what to change and how to go about it.
They want open discussions involving all members of the organization at every stage.
One idea was to use staff meetings-the intent being to use some mechanism, such as force field analyses, to generate information and consolidate it across all areas as a starting point.
You want to talk with your consulting company to see if this might be a good way to involve the organization in creating the questionnaire.You have put the following question on the agenda for the next review meeting. Is this a good way to generate the types of information that could create the behavioral endpoints for a questionnaire?
Another suggestion was to start with the higher priorities and form taskforce
You want to talk with your consulting company to check if the concept of using staff meetings might be a good way to involve the organization in creating the questionnaire.
You also want to brainstorm any issues about the facilitation of these meetings. If all agree that this method is the approach to use, who should facilitate the meetings? Should the managers facilitate the meeting? Should you personally facilitate it? Should it be the members of the internal OD staff?
You have put the following on the agenda for the next review meeting:
• Is statement A below a good way to generate the types of information that could create the behavioral endpoints for a questionnaire?
• Would there be significant advantages to creating meaningful and lasting change if we used managers or internal OD staff to facilitate the meetings?
• What organizational factors would make this a "bad" approach or one to avoid?
STATEMENT A:
One idea for generating definitions to the key values was to use staff meetings - the intent being to use some mechanism such as force field analyses to generate each area's information and consolidate it across all areas as a starting point. Our firm or the top management team (facilitated by us) would use the consolidated information to create the overall questionnaire