One of the foundational definitions in the field of organizational development (aka OD) is planned change:
“Organization Development is an effort planned, organization-wide, and managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization's 'processes,' using behavioral-science knowledge.”
-- Richard Beckhard, “Organization development: Strategies and Models”, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969, p. 9.
To understand the practice of OD, some of the key terms, embedded in Beckhard's formulation, include:
- Planned - carefully thought through; based on data; documented
- Effectiveness - as measured by actual organizational performance versus desired organizational performance
- Health - as measured by the organization's ability to respond, grow and adapt in its environmental context
- Intervention - the specific action(s) selected for implementation that are intended to bring about the envisioned change
- Processes - how work gets done in an organization; e.g. delivery of service, billing, repair, etc.
Famous quotes containing the words planned and/or change:
““If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What’s dying but a second wind?
How but in zig-zag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)