OD
Synergy Article
Total Organizational Development Article...
Total
Organization Development Challenge for Top Managers
Dr.
Oladele Akin-Ogundeji
President, OD Synergy Ltd (http://www.odsynergy.com)
Summary:
Top managers that concentrate on total organization development
to position their organizational and people systems for sustainable
high performance are creating the future of their organizations
in business. Total organization development integrated with
fostering total organizational poise is the heart and bedrock
of high-performance organizational systems.
The heart of sustainable high-performance in business is total organization development!
Total organization development, involving fostering total
organizational poise and organizational synergy, is the ultimate
corporate challenge for long-run success and growth! It is
to imaginatively foster the synergy of excellence of people's
actualizing attributes and excellence in the facets and interfaces
of business systems and subsystems for sustainable high
performance.
A Little
Exercise Here!
When last did you undertake an organization development project
or an organization intervention program? Let's consider two
scenarios...
If you undertook an organization development project at least
over 12 months ago, Was the initial organization development
program conceived around certain specific burning issues?
What did you achieve six months after the conclusion of the
program? How much of that did you get one year after? What
are the challenges and issues seen as likely to result in,
or determine the course of, any subsequent organization development
project in, say, three years? What about in five years?
How much of these were factored into the design of the initial
organization development program? How did the organization
development project address and position the organizational
or business systems and their interfaces-their quality, functional
interdependence, alignment, and synergy? Which explicit principles
of sustainable organization development drive the project?
If you recently undertook an organization development project,
say, less than 12 months ago consider these questions. What
burning issues did you start with? How much effort did you
put into getting commitment to drive the intervention program?
What did you consider as the overall outcomes of the program?
How much of them were you prepared for?
What would you say is the proportion of foreseen outcomes
(say, good ones) to the unforeseen outcomes (say, bad ones)?
How much consensus did you get on the impact of the intervention
program considering the burning issues you started with? How
did the organization development project address and position
the organizational or systems and their interfaces-their quality,
functional interdependence, alignment, and synergy? Which
explicit principles of sustainable organization development
drive the project?
Implication
for Total Organization Development
Issues, and considerations, such as the foregoing inform
the model, quality and thrust of organization development.
They underpin total' organization development. Which translates
to fostering effective synergy of people's attributes and
excellence of integrating systems and facets-together with
their interfaces- for high performance. It means using insightful
technology and processes to foster effective synergy of organizational
systems and subsystems.
Total organizational development involves exploring and nurturing
the total
poise of all organizational systems and subsystems
for ultimate high performance. It helps businesses position
the drivers (e.g. attributes, attitudes, talents, and skills),
vectors (e.g. mission, vision, values, ground rules and processes)
and equilibrants (e.g. methods, technology and tools) operating
in organizational or business systems and their interfaces
for long-run high performance.
Total
Organizational Poise Is Key!
Keen watchers of corporate history and practices will marvel
that not many top managers and Board are heeding lessons of
limited corporate success arising from poor alignment and
lack of effective organizational synergy. You need look no
further than the increasing or urgent need for stringent regulations
on responsible, transparent corporate governance in the last
10 years globally!
When top managers tend to allow their organizations to remain
in a state of partial poise- so long as they are attaining
an already defined level of profitability or productivity-
their businesses are not motivated to create a vision of long-term
corporate excellence. Far too often, and for too long, we
see an organization which tends to focus on certain systems
to the detriment of others forgetting the interdependent nature
of subsystems in an organization.
The ultimate challenge facing top management in a pulsating
business environment is how to achieve and maintain total
poise for breakthrough performance. This is the focus of total
organization development. When there is total poise in your
organization, your business is in a position to attain breakthrough performance on a sustainable basis.
The truth is that the nature of today's competition is beyond
technology, but what drives technology, creativity and innovations: the
superior essence of the human mind and character. This is
where the competition will be-and is being-won or lost!
Top managers need to explore and address total organization
development if they really care about their ultimate business
mandate, that of creating the future of their businesses today.
Dr. O.
Akin-Ogundeji
, is based in Lagos, Nigeria. He holds PhD of the University
of London and leads OD Synergy, a team of
strategic human resources and organization development consultants
in Africa. He also leads Better Poise (http://www.betterpoise.com), promoting
people's capacity to be on top of their world and attain sustainable
self-fulfilment.
The total
organization development brief, OD Synergy Digest (http://www.odsynergy.com/od-synergy-digest.html) , gives you insight on developing total poise for sustainable
high performance in your organization.
Read
More Articles: You can find more articles on total
organization development and high organization performance
at http://www.odsynergy.com/articles.html .
You
can find valuable resources on total organization development
and high organization performance at OD Synergy
Resource Center.
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