❚❘ THREE APPROACHES TO ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING Anthony J. Reilly “I do OD.” “We’re into OD in our organization.” The term Organization Development, or “OD” as it is popularly called, has become part of the applied behavioral science jargon. In some instances it is confused with other terms, such as management training or management development. Although there is some overlap, both conceptually and operationally, among the terms, there are real differences as well. The attempt here is to show how the three terms complement one another on the one hand and how they differ on the other. An implicit expectation of any kind of management enrichment program is that of learning, which generally involves some relatively permanent type of change— behavioral, attitudinal, or cognitive. Therefore, the different kinds of learning are of particular interest to us in this paper. MANAGEMENT TRAINING When I think of “training,” I think of one kind of learning. Training conveys to me the idea of making people more alike than different in some respect and trying to deemphasize individual differences in some particular area. For example, a number of persons are trained to operate a complicated piece of equipment. Once the equipment is designed and built, hopefully to the specifications that optimize a person’s ability to operate the machine, training programs are implemented in order that the operator may “fit” himself or herself to the machine. Individual differences among people in terms of how they operate the machine may cut down on the machines’ efficiency. Time-and- motion studies represent another approach where training may be utilized to make people respond to a set behavioral pattern. What about management training? Many organizations spend considerable time, energy, and dollars to make their managers more alike than different. Instilling company values and philosophy and inculcating the organization’s climate and norms are examples of exposing managers to ideas and ideals they are expected to emulate and to think similarly about. Training managers in specific skill areas—data processing, budget and accounting techniques, salary administration— are other examples of applications of management training. Originally published in The 1973 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators by John E. Jones and J. William Pfeiffer (Eds.), San Diego, CA: Pfeiffer & Company. The Pfeiffer Library Volume 16, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer ❚❘ 1 MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT Whereas management training attempts to level out individual differences, management development provides a different kind of learning opportunity. To me, development means legitimizing individual differences, providing opportunities for the person to actualize his or her own potential, and encouraging managers to be more different than they are alike along certain dimensions. As with training, numerous organizations invest extensively into management development programs. Examples of management development include the following: career testing and counseling programs, in which the person receives feedback based on test results about his or her abilities, interests, and personality; university programs geared towards a continuing education experience for the person, such as new ideas about management and advanced technological advances the manager needs to know about; and personal growth experiences, in which the person comes to an increased awareness and understanding of himself or herself and how he or she affects other people. Each of these provides an experience aimed at developing the individual’s unique potential. The focal point is on self-development. The assumption made here is that increased self-awareness and understanding can lead to attitudinal or behavioral changes that will increase an individual’s personal effectiveness and ultimately the effectiveness of the organization. ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT Conceptually, organization development is different from both management training and management development. The latter two kinds of learning may, however, be part of an OD effort. Burke (1971) stated that “although persons may be involved in events that are properly labeled as OD technology (some of the examples mentioned above), such activities are not considered organizational development if they are not part of a planned effort at changing the organization’s culture.” In short, OD can be defined as a planned process of cultural change utilizing behavioral science knowledge as a base for interventions aimed at increasing the organization’s health and effectiveness (Beckhard, 1969). As such, its focus is not solely on the individual person and his or her growth in the organization. Rather, the focus is on how the individual relates to his or her own work group and how his or her group interfaces with other groups in the organization. Again, to use Burke’s words: “The primary reason for using OD is a need to improve some or all of the system that constitutes the total organization.” Such a planned process demands careful assessment or diagnosis of what is needed to increase overall effectiveness, along with tailor-made changes or interventions, the goals of which are to satisfy those felt needs. The key concern of behavioral science practitioners involved in OD work is, of course, to create the kind of organizational climate wherein individuals meet their own needs and, at the same time, optimize the realization of organizational goals. Team-building, learning how to diagnose needs, working through task and interpersonal issues, creating structural and functional changes to facilitate effectiveness are some examples that may be part of an OD effort. 2 ❘❚ The Pfeiffer Library Volume 16, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer These three approaches to organization growth are certainly not mutually exclusive. Rather, each is complementary to the other. Often one phase evolves rather naturally into another. However, the evaluation has a definite sequence. Generally, the pattern follows one of management training→management development→organization development. For example, before effective intergroup work (part of an OD sequence) is done, it is of great importance that team-building within each group be conducted. The choice of learning approach employed—management training, management development or organization development—depends, therefore, on the specific kind of change desired in the organization. Whether the change be directed at reducing individual differences, legitimizing individual differences, or enhancing group/intergroup collaboration, performance is the key issue. REFERENCES Beckhard, R. (1969). Organization development: Its nature, origin, and prospects. Reading, MA: Addison- Wesley. Burke, W.W. (1971). A comparison of management development and organization development. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 5. The Pfeiffer Library Volume 16, 2nd Edition. Copyright © 1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer ❚❘ 3 ❚❘ DIMENSIONS OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL UNIVERSE: A MODEL FOR ASSESSMENT AND DIRECTION David J. Marion Many approaches and technologies have been devised for assessing, managing, and developing organizations. Now available is a more sophisticated and varied set of alternatives for understanding and directing organizational behavior than ever before. The very complexity of this arsenal, however, renders it more a maze than a repertoire of choices. Lacking an adequate frame of reference, such a situation tends to produce confusion and poor choices. This essay presents a paradigm to order this array in terms of basic dimensions of organizational life. This model is keyed to the view that human systems are preeminently knowledge-producing and knowledge-utilizing systems. STATE OF THE ART The proliferation of theories, approaches, schemes, and models for understanding and affecting organizations is a natural and laudable consequence of success in basic research and in applied development efforts. Not unlike what has occurred in medicine and other highly technical fields, however, this has resulted in an information overload. A second cause of this proliferation of models and methods is that, unlike medicine’s development of new ways to deal with problems that have always existed, the organizational, interpersonal, and intrapersonal arts and sciences must produce new approaches to new problems. Individuals, their relationships, and their organizations exist in, contribute to, and partake of a new world. In the broadest terms, this new world may be characterized by unprecedented rates of change, magnitudes of size, degrees of complexity, explosions of information, implosions of space and time, and interpenetration and pervasiveness of systems. In such a world, traditional and unexamined forms of organizational functioning have become progressively less satisfactory. Thus new innovations have arisen, some of them directly out of scientific exploration of the organizational universe. If traditional ways are marked by their stable and unexamined nature, the contrasting hallmarks of science are change and explicit inquiry. Deliberate, thoughtful experimentation has led to such techniques and approaches as PPBS (Planning Programming Budgeting System), participatory management, PERT (Program Originally published in The 1975 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators by John E. Jones and J. William Pfeiffer (Eds.), San Diego, CA: Pfeiffer & Company. This paper has benefitted from discussion of earlier versions with Francis J. Pilecki, Kenneth Benne, and Joe Krzys,