Draft Note for enlisting newer members to the ODIndia Sangam

35 people met in Bangalore on 9 April 2011 at the Wipro Sarjapur Road campus to deliberate on what a forum for OD in India could do and how it may be alike or different from other professional bodies. We let the spirit of volunteerism, informality and discovery sway over and gave ourselves time to pick ourselves up from a fairly spirited togetherness. While a sense of the proceedings are on the blogsite (http://odspace.blogspot.com/) created by the youthful amongst us, we have miles to go. Some of us could not make it then, and we think it is time for us to be together at least virtually, till the time a next face to face meeting arises. Plans are on the anvil for 2012, as also for 2013.

Would you like to be kept abreast of how this OD India Sangam is evolving? Let Vishy know at "Vishy (Viswanathan Sankara)" <vishy.sankara@gmail.com>, so that he could put you on our google group mail list. We've a lot to gain from your active presence in this community too. 

(Add your personal notes here….)

Forming the Intent for an ODIndia Network

Meeting of ODIndia Sangam on 7 Dec, 2011 at Citrix, 23, Residency Road

Present : Dr. TV Rao, Prof. KB Akhilesh, G Vishwanath, Dr. Pallab B, Dr. Gopal Mahapatra, G Vishwanath, Dr. Mary Mathew, V Kartikeyan, George Kunnath, Joseph G

Most thankful to Dr. Pallab in making our meeting happen.

 Formalisation of an India Network would be necessary to transact business of a conference it would appear. More of course is to be reflected from the membership of our forum. Quick highlights for our community to capture.

1.       Prof. Akhilesh would like us to firm up details of 2013 conference date, so that IISc can host the AODN conference. He has consented to be the Conference Chairperson.

2.       G Vish and Joseph G will prepare an approach note by Dec 15^th so that the following can get outlined.

a.       Proposal to AODN for the 2013 conference (needs to be sent to AODN by month end Dec 2011)

b.      Derivative Concept Note to enlist support from a potential Conference Director

3.       Conference Structure beginning with those present above as the Steering Committee that will be expanded to meet a multi-pronged approach.  Kartikeyan V, G Vish will help in outlining a conference structure deliberation.

4.       An approach Note for professional bodies like AISABS, ISTD, AHRD, Sumedhas, SHRM, NHRDN, NIPM to be outlined by Dr. Rao.

5.       In order that we model an inclusive approach, we will need to conduct our meetings as ODers ourselves. George Kunnath reflected deeply the need to involve the participant in experiential mode for real 'conferencing' to happen for the OD community.

Dr. Gopal highlighted the need to look at customer for the conference – namely – Consultants, In-house Practitioners, Academicians and Students.

6.       ODIndia Sangam needs to look at aspects beyond the conference, and the build up to the conference. E.g. Nature of involvement of academic institutions and professional bodies in India.

7.       A workshop on writing OD Cases may be offered so that content from India can be documented in 2012.

CALL FOR INDIAN OD CASE STUDIES

FIRST CALL FOR  INDIAN OD CASE STUDIES

Rupande  Padaki,  Joseph George, Gopal Mahapatra and Mary Mathew

The role documented OD activity in India will play is immeasurable.  Documented OD activity will serve as a resource useful in consulting, teaching, research and knowledge acquisition.  This call aims to motivate members of the ODINSANGAM to contribute written OD case studies they have witnessed, been actors in, heard about.  Case studies can be successful ones or even more interesting, experiences of failed OD efforts. In other words both success and failure stories are most welcome.  Case studies of OD in an Indian context, with Indian actors, in Indian organizational climates and settings are welcomed.  Case studies of foreign multi-national OD experience in India, are also solicited.  All case studies must be originally written by the author/s. 

The general definition of OD given by French and Bell, 1999 can be used as a guideline.  They define OD as follows:  “…. a long-term effort led and supported by top management, to improve an organization's visioning, empowerment, learning, and problem-solving processes, through an ongoing, collaborative management of organizational culture, with special emphasis on the consultant-facilitator role and the theory and technology of applied behavioral science, including participant action research" (French & Bell, 1999). 

 In the long run an edited book on OD case studies will be published and sequels evolved.  Rich OD data on the Indian experience is rare to find. This resource base will have use for both Indians and global change managers alike. 

The following are the guidelines for OD case study submission:

(a) Aspects to note when writing your case study:

Clearly written case studies highlighting the nature of the change that was / is being managed are encouraged.  Indianness in the theme is essential, however cases may well be on a MNC in India, and experiences if any on Indians practicing OD in Indian companies abroad.  Cases on OD successes and failures are equally welcome.    Care must be taken to elaborate  the process in each case study.  The process can be described as follows:

(i)      Planning for change, level of change, individual, group, organization, other, include the industrial sector, functional area if necessary

(ii)    The nature of change will describe the element being changed like, behavioral, structural, process, culture, technology, customer, skills, etc

(iii)  Other interventions like quality movements, HR interventions, cultural change also qualify

(iv)  The characters being addressed in the case must be described: namely the client system, the interventionist (change agent) or the top management of the system.  

(v)    The method of intervention used, for example the diagnostic tools used, the process for diagnosis, target behaviors for change or elements of change, assessments of facilitating and restraining factors, feedback and procedure used for the feedback process, feedback reception, the design of the intervention, the actual intervention,  sub systems involved, evaluation of change, feedback process, success or failure.  Difficulties encountered.

(vi)  Any theory used: for example, action research, systems theory, OD theories, group dynamics and process consulting

(vii)Any hint of philosophies or schools of thought used, like use of science, socio-technical approach, sociology, radical humanism, functionalism,  behaviorist.

(viii)                     The outcome of the intervention, impact and effects, long and short term

(ix)  Learnings and insights from the case study

Whilst these guidelines are essential to maintain uniformity and quality, minor deviations around the guideline is permissible. 

(b) Style guide to follow when writing your case study:

All case studies must have an abstract and main case study.  All abstract must not exceed 250 words.  The following guideline must be followed:

This is the title of your OD Case study and it has a font size of 14 using Times Roman

This is the abstract of the case study.  This abstract must make clear a summary of the process described in (a). The font size for the body of the abstract is size 12 and Times Roman.  Kindly restrict yourself to 250 words. This abstract will be used to screen your case study and assess if it fits and is suitable for the OD database.  In case it is found lacking feedback will be provided. The case studies will be reviewed by Dr Rupande Padaki, Gopal Mahapatra, Dr Joseph and Prof Mary Mathew.  The deadline for the abstract is July 25^th.   Kindly email the case study to marymathew24@gmail.com   All emails bearing your abstract must carry the subject heading “OD Case study”.  Authors will be members from ODINsangam for now, with co-opted co-authors where necessary.  All abstracts must have “key words” below them.  Key words will be small phrases describing the sector of your case study and anything you wish to highlight. Key words will evolve organically and be used to index case studies over time.  Kindly use, Times Roman 12 and italic, for key words. Once all case studies are received we will send you an email with details of how to go about writing your main case study.  Nevertheless, note that the style guide for the main case study will be the same as is in your abstract (namely, font style, size, headings, text).  The main case study must not exceed 10,000 words. The probable time line for the full paper will be October 25^th, 2011. Enjoy!

Word count: 257

Keywords:  Industrial sector, highlight, main issue, main actor

Important Disclaimer:  All authors please note that, abstracts and main case studies must have a disclaimer stating that "The author/s of this case study is/are responsible for permissions from the organization whose name is being mentioned in the OD case study”, alternatively the name must be camouflaged. Also, state that, “To the best of my/ our knowledge, my/our  case study does not contain plagiarism or any kind nor does it contain any form of self plagiarism”.

(c)  Screening process:

The screening of case studies will be done in two stages.  First, the abstract will be reviewed by four reviewers as mentioned above.  Once, the abstract is accepted, there will be a call for the full paper.  Second, the full paper will be further reviewed and comments provided by the same team of reviewers for revisions if necessary.  Following the style guide is mandatory.  The abstract and full paper will be screened to assess if the guidelines mentioned in points (a), (b) and the disclaimer are strictly followed.  Irrespective of the time duration of the OD exercise in weeks, months and years, and the complexity of the case, the length of the case study must not be more than 10000 words and less than 5000.  Short case studies that lack OD content as mentioned in the guidelines will not received high reviews, neither will cases longer than 10000 words.   Plagiarism and self plagiarism of any kind must be avoided. For any queries/clarifications please write to marymathew24@gmail.com

We look forward to your submissions !!!

***

Language in thoughtless Inaction:

Language  in thoughtless Inaction:

Eversince  I had attended  a month long  NLP course @ the feet  of venerable NLP  Guru ,  Jesuit Priest and Indo American ( IMV he is more Indian than many who are born, bred and brought up here)  Dr.Richard Mchugh,   I  was interested in language constructs. My good friend  and trainer   Daniel Pacheco  who  is also into NLP ( he  studied under maverick Richard Bandler)  used   to say that anythhng  people say  has 3 meanings.  Stated, understood and hidden. And I would hasten to add most often we miss all 3 of them.
S.I. Hayakawa’s  classic book “ Language in thought and action” just reinforced that belief.  It
is a small book , written some 70 years ago.  That wonderful book offers  invaluable insight into how language affects human thought and conditions behaviour, and addresses the question of how
language should be sued  to achieve cooperation and understanding  than  confrontation.

A few days back  TIME magazine published an interesting  article  two  well meaning ladies who live
in  Mexico.  It  was reported , “ The survival of an endangered language may depend on two people --
and all they want to do is ignore each other. Manuel Segovia and Isidro Velazquez, the last speakers of a language called Ayapaneco, live less than half a mile away from each other in Ayapa, Mexico. But no matter how precious the cultural implications of keeping their language alive are, they are not
going to speak to each other.”

The Guardian notes that, “It is not clear whether there is a long-buried argument behind their mutual avoidance, but people who know them say they have never really enjoyed each other's company.”

Btw, Ayapaneco is one of many dozens of indigenous languages remaining in Mexico, many are on the verge of extinction. Regardless, linguists are still attempting to preserve the language despite the lack of communication between the last two fluent speakers, who no longer converse with
anyone regularly in their native tongue. When Segovia, 75, and Velazquez, 65, both die, their language will pass away with them.

Still, Daniel Suslak, a linguistic anthropologist, sums up their relationship succinctly: “They don't have a lot in common."

Senator Hayakawa's main point is that, we need to pay focus on how we use the language, since it is language  humans use in order to think, and since language has such an extraordinary power to influence others and ourselves.

Then when what happens  when we cease to use a language. Do  we stop thinking ?  or how do we influence others ?

It is said  that “By age four, most humans have developed an ability to communicate through oral
language. By age six or seven, most humans can comprehend, as well as express, written thoughts. These unique abilities of communicating through a native language clearly separate humans from all animals.”

The animal that comes closest to producing anything that even vaguely resembles human speech is not another primate, but rather a bird.

For instance, a famous African gray parrot in England named Toto can pronounce words so clearly that he sounds rather human. Like humans, birds can produce fluent, complex sounds.  Infact I do remember during my childhood, my cousin  had  a myna, which could utter a few words.

One of the big ‘success’ stories in looking at the human-like qualities of non-human primates is a male bonobo chimpanzee known as Kanzi. Kanzi was born 28 October 1980, and began his long journey to learn to ‘speak’ as a result of the training provided for his mother, Matata, via a
‘talking’ keyboard. Matata never did master the keyboard, but Kanzi did. Through many years of intense training and close social contact with humans, this remarkable animal attained the language abilities of an average two-year-old human. By age ten, he had a vocabulary (via the keyboard) of some two hundred words. In fact, Kanzi was able to go beyond the mere parroting or ‘aping’ of humans; he actually could communicate his wants and needs, express feelings, and use tools.


One of the examples of Kanzi’s behavior is In an outing in the Georgia woods, Kanzi touched the symbols for "marshmallows" and "fire." Susan Savage-Rumbaugh said in an interview that, "Given matches and marshmallows, Kanzi snapped twigs for a fire, lit them with the matches and toasted the marshmallows on a stick."

The biggest tragedy  is  while those animals make a sincere attempt in mastering the single most differentiating factor between them and humans (  language),  we humans cease to communicate.

For example  Jaylalitha and  Karunanidhi ?  Or  Mulaym Singh and Mayawati ? 
 And aren’t we really happy that  many others do  talk in Tamil and Hindi ?  

Going Nowhere Furiously?

I post another link here for those who may find it worth reflecting on.  http://bit.ly/l2hyZi  Feel free to comment on the same, as it means a lot to those who embrace the lives and professions we do.

My take on the book Tell-Tale brain by VS Ramachandran

Living in Groups: Saluting the Brain : Ramachandran VS (2010) The Te...: "When babies are born, we’re happy if the weight of the infant is about 4 to 6 pounds. Adult brains that r..."

History of OD in India

History of OD in India

(Source:  Organization Development: Interventions and Strategies by S. Ramnaryan, T. V. Rao and Kuldeep Singh; New Delhi: Sage India)

OD is a process for planned change. It aims at building internal competencies in individuals and teams in the organizational context, and at taking organizations to higher levels of performance by building individual-, group-, system- and process related compe­tencies. It focuses on behaviour and uses various behavioural tools. It has a specialized body of knowledge and therefore needs special­ists to handle it Its focus on people, processes, systems, structure, etc., can extend from individual-based interventions to structural changes and system revamps.

In India, OD and planned change started in the early 1960s. A group of Indian professionals trained at the National Training Laboratories (NTL) at Bethel, Maine, USA, brought a good deal of OD technology to India. Grid programmes were initiated in the early 1960s in Larsen & Toubro. The T-group was initiated and widely used at the Small Industries Extension Training (SIET) Institute, Hyderabad, State Bank of India and in the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) programmes in the mid-1960s. Unfortunately, these remained isolated efforts and did not take OD to its logical conclusions.

In the mid-1970s, OD was first introduced in India in Larsen & Toubro as a formal and structured part of the HRD department. It was expected that the change process would get institutionalized and more OD specialists would be developed. Unfortunately, this did not happen as the corporate sector in the country had a very protected and secure environment and there were few compulsions to change. Hence OD remained mostly in academic institutions— the forte of a few specialists and largely limited to T-group training and other training-based interventions. That it has had a slow growth is indicated by the fact that even after 40 years of existence, the Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Science (ISABS), an associate of NTL, produced less than a 200 process specialists in this vast country.

There have been several efforts to apply the OD approach and associated techniques in India but it has not created the desired impact. According to Srinivas (1994), one plausible explanation for this is that OD as it has emerged to date is culture specific, that it simply cannot be applied to locations outside the US. The issue of non-transferability of OD technology to cultures such as India has arisen because of the 'fear' or 'distrust' of its techniques of confrontation. The general (American)-practitioner or changeagent style of informality and an attitude of openness is also not suited to the Indian context. However, a deeper examination of values embed­ded in Indian religion and psycho-philosophy suggests that the cultural values are indeed largely supportive of organizational re­newal and change. The rich cultural heritage also contains a para­digm of change, based on which new approaches and designs of OD interventions may be possible. And such designs are likely to be accepted more readily in the country.

The scenario has changed thanks to an increasing number of applied behavioural scientists and T-group trainers, the HRD movement and establishment of HRD departments, contributions of multinationals in India, and the influence of Western education. Professional bodies such as the Indian Society for Applied Behavioural Sciences (ISABS), Indian Society for Individual and Social Development (ISISD) and its off-shoot Sumedhas, Indian Society for Training and Develop­ment (ISTD) and the National HRD Network, and academic institutions such as the IIMs have further facilitated this. In the post-liberalization period, every one has been forced to seek change. As a result, the application of OD technology has increased.

LESSONS LEARNT

OD has been practised in India for the last 45 years, with mixed results. However, a few lessons drawn can be useful to the practitioners, consultants and academicians. Similar lessons have also been learnt in other countries.

♦   OD is basically a strategy for planned change. A change pro­cess is always messy and is never as clear as is made out in books and papers. However, the delineation of phases of creating readiness for change, implementing and stabilizing change, and of what needs to be done in each of these phases can prove useful. This requires clarity about the ultimate change goal and identification with where the organization is going. The 'pull' effect of future aspirations works much bet­ter than 'pushing' people through changes. Also, it is impor­tant to sustain the enthusiasm of those involved even after the excitement associated with initiation and the accomplishment of some early wins. This can be done by continuing to keep people informed, celebrating achievements and linking rewards to the achievement of change goals (Burke 1995).

♦   OD is based on the human-processes approach, focusing on interpersonal relationships during the course of interventions. Such an approach may not be feasible in the Indian context. A directive approach soliciting participation may be more effective and suitable.

♦   OD interventions should take into consideration the extraneous factors, such as caste, religion and relationships, that in­fluence the people working in the organization. Therefore, any change effort needs to be realistic.

♦   In India, the role of the government in regulating the activities of an organization is considerable, particularly in the pub­lic sector and to some extent in the private sector as well. While initiating any OD effort, the influencing role of the gov­ernment cannot be ignored.^l

♦   As Indian culture is strongly hierarchy based, an OD facilitator must first explain the need for change, what is to be changed and how it is going to benefit the target group. Such persuasion on the part of the change agent is bound to yield positive results.

♦   Another important theme concerns the role of leadership, particularly the visioning process and sharing vision; establishing and articulating purpose; developing change initiatives and programmes to guide implementation; communicating with and listening to people, dealing with questions and frustrations; and generating feelings of empowerment in organizational members during times of significant change (Burke 1995).

♦   Another issue of concern is the structure and processes, particularly making the functioning flexible and less bureau­cratic; decentralizing, but at the same time strengthening accountability; building bridges among different groups, functions and divisions; reorienting people and roles to make them more adaptive; and creating a small-group atmosphere within a large organization (Burke 1995).

♦   Also, since training is a widely used intervention, it is important to link it in terms of learning how to work together better, solve problems more effectively and improve the learning processes in organizations, much more strongly to solving of actual problems in real time in organizations (Burke 1995).

♦   In any OD-based change effort in the Indian context, it is sine qua non to take into consideration the prevailing cultural values, norms, attitudes, beliefs, etc., and leverage the functionalnes for making the change effort a success.

Keeping in view the current volatile and competitive Indian environment, managers cannot preoccupy themselves with basic business issues of organizations and ignore other such vital dimensions of strategy, change and social process. The manager who believes that for managing an organization 'all you have to do is make a good product and sell it hard' is becoming a virtual dinosaur. To meet the demands of business in the future, managers must be­come better informed, think more broadly and comprehensively, and undertake problem-solving processes in all the dimensions of their organizations and not only in their familiar 'production' or 'marketing' aspects.

There is a critical need at this point for a practical and straight forward approach to develop organizations. What is needed is a workable perspective that can help managers to look at their organizations in a comprehensive and systematic manner, as also a process for making organizations adapt to change—internal as well as external. OD offers one such perspective and process for developing the adaptive and coping capabilities of an organization.

The scope of OD is growing rapidly and the approaches to it are becoming more and more diversified. The practitioners of OD often disagree substantially on how to do it and hence there is a need for a general understanding of the concepts and ideas of OD, to be able to judge the relative merits of its various methods and techniques. There is no one 'best' approach, no one 'right' technique and no one 'correct' method. The subsequent chapters of this volume discuss a range of approaches and interventions.

References:

Burke, Warner W. (1995), 'Organizational Charige: What We Know, What We Need to Know", Journal of Management Inquiry, 4 (2): 158-71.

Lindsay, William M. and Joseph A. Petrick (1997), Total Quality and Organization Development, Florida: St Lucie Press.

Srinivas, Kalburgi M. (1994), 'Organization Development: Maya or Moksha', in Rabindra N. Kanungo and Manuel Mendonca (eds). Work Motivation: Models for Developing Countries, New Delhi: Sage.