COVID-19 and the Vital Role of Organization Development

There's no shortage of predictions about the way organizational life will change after COVID-19. Whether some of you will continue to enjoy (or endure) working from home is anyone's guess. What is clear from a management perspective is that coronavirus is a blistering indictment of bureaucratic thinking and design. Rigidly structured, risk-averse, and approval-laden organizations are collapsing under their own weight .

Unlike Black Swan events like 9/11, Fukashima, and Brexit, our current crisis was predictable . Yet only a few leaders had the prescience, means, and buy-in to prepare in advance. They took the long-view and invested time in scenario planning, creating budgetary space, cultivating a resilient and innovative culture, and developing a talent base capable of real-time strategic planning. For pandemic-era leaders, producing flexible systems and resilient organizational cultures is more than a good insurance policy. It is a moral obligation. In the grips of coronavirus, we now know why.

For pandemic-era leaders, producing flexible systems and resilient organizational cultures is more than a good insurance policy. It is a moral obligation.

It's more likely, however, that your organization assumed a bandwagon approach: a game of watching, waiting, and following the trends of peer organizations, which include layoffs, furloughs, and voluntary pay decreases. Others wait in utter abeyance, hoping to be rescued. It's...well... painful to watch.

When we resurface, it will no longer suffice to "plan the work and work the plan", a phrase celebrated as the hallmark of an MBA education in The Complete Idiots Guide to MBA Basics. To prepare for reassimilation, many leaders are scenario planning for the very first time, keeping a careful watch on CDC predictions while holding their breaths and sketching contingency plans. There are some great ways to conduct scenario planning, but this is hardly enough! As reality sets in, executives will flock to diagnostics, methodologies, and tools that increase strategic flexibility, decisiveness, and innovation. But where do you even begin? For this inquiry, let's start with the end in mind.

If you could wave a magic wand, you might personally wish for the knowledge, skills, and abilities to transform your organization entirely. You might seek to create an organization that engages in fearless dialogue and thrives in periods of uncertainty. An organization like this wouldn't just be ready for change; it would be a revolutionary force, creating leaps in market value. This competitive edge would be clear, core, sustainable, and aligned across all aspects of your operations, including strategy, structure, management processes, people, rewards, and metrics. To top off this utopia, all employees would be capable of deep, in-the-moment, critical reflection that promotes regular innovation and prevents negative publicity . Ah, if only!

Best Kept Secret?

It turns out that there is an entire field dedicated to making this happen. Organization Development (OD), which is a decades-old discipline about to storm the scene, is described as a systematic approach to organization-wide change, which aims to increase the effectiveness and health of organizations through planned interventions - including Organizational Agility Measures - using behavioral-science knowledge.

Though it is not a panacea, OD is a staple of successful organizations, and as of late, has gained serious press. The World Economic Forum recently ranked OD as #9 in its Job Landscape Report for 2022 . It is also worth noting that adaptability, which the field of OD takes very seriously, is one of the very few skills that are in serious future demand but also currently lacking, according to LinkedIn , the Society for Human Resource Management , and Forbes .

A Rose by Any Other Name

OD is not only a field of practice supported by thousands of qualified consultants and scholars whom you can connect with through the OD Network . It's also a socio-technical formula and set of competencies that can be integrated into all aspects of organizational operations for greater effectiveness. To put this into perspective, a great marketing campaign for the chemical manufacturer BASF reads, "At BASF, we don't make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better." OD is very similar in this regard. Others who enjoy OD frameworks and tools also compare it to Intel, a core component that we do not always see, but is observable in performance.

Because OD applications are so easy to integrate with existing organizational processes and performance indicators, OD graduate programs, and certificates (while popular with internal/external consultants) have witnessed an increase in enrollment from former MBA graduates, Strategic HR Partners, IT Managers, Business Analysts, and even Lawyers.

Back to Agility

One of the fastest areas of growth in the field of OD is Organizational Agility, which refers to “the ability of an organization to renew itself, adapt, change quickly, and succeed in a rapidly changing, ambiguous, turbulent environment” (McKinsey ). The value of having a skillset and technology to diagnose and cultivate agility is widely agreed upon, but here's the rub: most executives are aware they lack in this regard. According to Accenture, "While 93 percent of executives say they know their industry will be disrupted at some point in the next five years, only 20% feel they're highly prepared to address it."

According to Accenture, "While 93 percent of executives say they know their industry will be disrupted at some point in the next five years, only 20 percent feel they’re highly prepared to address it."

Leaders are painfully aware that rapid globalization, technological advancement, and seismic shifts in generational expectations have thrust their organizations into a volatile and ambiguous playing field. We are about to enter a parallel universe, the Upside-Down of organizational life, which will be torn open by decentralized autonomous organizations , hyper-loop transportation , quantum computing , AI virtual assistants , and augmented reality.

Getting Started

Dealing with these pressures requires an almost unthinkable level of organizational dexterity, in which leaders balance an increasingly mindful and futuristic outlook with ‘on the spot’ innovation. This requires a perspective shift in the way we view organizations, from an org-chart to a series of dialogic networks engaged in meaning-making. As a professor of Organization Development & Change at Penn State University, I teach a graduate course on Organizational Agility that incorporates numerous frameworks, tools, and diagnostics that you are likely to hear about (or share) soon. Here are just a few:

1. Developing an agile organization requires thoughtful planning so that systems, structures, talent, and rewards are capable of immediately accommodating these shifts while remaining open to further change. Thankfully there are many great examples of organizations that have adopted this method. Some of the many case studies we explore in my course include Netflix, Kaiser Permanente, Allstate Insurance, Harley Davidson, and Cambria Healthcare. You can read about these cases in The Agility Factor: Building Adaptive Organizations for Superior Performance by Christopher Worley, Thomas Williams, and Ed Lawler.
2. Skills and structure alone are better than nothing, but what may make the biggest difference is an organizational culture where the 'silently agreed-upon norm' is that mistakes are gold-mines for innovation. This is not easy for employees who already face scrutiny about their value add. The key is attracting, hiring, developing, and rewarding employees who are bold and yet display low ego needs. An excellent introduction to cultivating psychological space that breeds creativity is The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth by Amy Edmondson
3. As consumer expectations continue to evolve, to maintain a diverse ‘innovation portfolio’, managers no longer have the luxury of assessing known certainties and developing fully tested products and services for their stakeholders. As a result, some of the best machinery for organizational agility includes skills and abilities from the discipline of human-centered design. Design thinking positions customers and clients as co-creators so that an organization’s strategy is not entirely contingent upon what the existing structure can accommodate. Instead, the structure is driven by a strategy that is closely, consistently, and rapidly developed with key stakeholders. The test for successful rapid innovation is whether the solution is not only desirable but also feasible and scalable. An outstanding introduction to this process can be found in Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown.
4. Once an organization's leaders and culture align for agility, the next goal is to find a way to get your pistons firing without disrupting the existing structure. Here's the thing, you don't need to throw out your existing hierarchy. Instead, you can introduce a second, network-driven, agile system that operates alongside hierarchy. According to John Kotter, this dual operating system "allows companies to capitalize on rapid-fire strategic challenges and still make their numbers." A fantastic overview of how this works is available in Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World by John Kotter.

Extra Credit

There are numerous avenues for learning more about OD and its proven track record in revitalizing organizations and creating a competitive advantage through status-quo-busting innovation. Google the term and you will likely be directed to a graduate program in your area. I'm proud to say that one of the only graduate programs offering professional Certificates and a Master's Degree in OD entirely online is Penn State University through its World Campus, which is consistently ranked as one of the Top 10 Best Online Graduate Programs by US News and World Report. In addition to graduate students, our courses are also taken by non-matriculated professionals who are looking to upgrade their skills in inspiring and leading organizational change.

Read and Share your Comments Below!

We only grow stronger as a community when we engage in honest dialogue around the challenges and opportunities we face. Please read and add your thoughts to the comments below. You'll find that many of those who have commented have also posted links to some incredible OD resources.

A few introductory texts on OD

• Burke, W. W., & Noumair, D. A. (2015). Organization Development: A Process of Learning and Changing . Pearson Education.
• Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization Development and Change. Cengage learning.
• Gallos, J. (ed.) (2006). Organization Development: A Jossey-Bass Reader . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Jamieson, D. W., Barnett, R. C., & Buono, A. F. (Eds.). (2016). Consultation for Organizational Change Revisited . IAP.
• Rothwell, W. J., Stavros, J. M., Sullivan, R. L., & Sullivan, A. (Eds.). (2009). Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change (Vol. 34). John Wiley & Sons.

Organizational Transformation

• Scharmer, C. O. (2009). Theory U: Learning from the Future as it Emerges. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Excellent OD Related Journals

• Academy of Management Journal
• Academy of Management Learning & Education
• Academy of Management Perspectives
• Academy of Management Review
• Administrative Science Quarterly
• Business Ethics Quarterly
• Business Strategy & the Environment
• Harvard Business Review
• Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
• Journal of Applied Psychology
• Journal of Change Management
• Journal of Corporate Citizenship
• Journal of Industrial Ecology
• Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies
• Journal of Leadership Studies
• Journal of Management Studies
• Journal of Organizational Change Management
• Leadership Quarterly
• OD Review
• Organizational Dynamics
• Organization Science
• Organization Studies
• MIT Sloan Management Review
• Strategic Management Journal