Individual, interpersonal, and group process approaches

This chapter discuss change programs relating to individuals, interpersonal

relations, and group dynamics. These interventions are among the earliest ones
devised in OD and the most popular. They represent attempts to improve individual
performance as well as peoples working relationships with one another.
Coaching
Coaching involves working with organizational members, typically managers and
executives, on regular basis to help them clarify their goals, deal with potential
stumbling blocks, and improve their performance. This intervention is highly
personal and generally involves a one-on-one relationship between the OD
practioner an the client.
Choaching is it self a skill that any OD practioner or manager can develop. It in
volves using guided inquiry, active listening, reframing, and other techniques to
help individuals see new or different possibilities and to direct their efforts toward
what matters most to them.
Application Stages
The coaching process closely follows the process of planned change outlined in
Chapther 2, including entry and contracting, assessment, debriefing (feedback),
action planning, intervention, and assessment. 1. Establish the principles of the
relationship. The initial phases of a coaching intervention involve establishing the
goals of the engagement; the parameters of the relationship, such as schedules,
resources, and compensation, and ethnical considerations.
2. Conduct an assessment. This process can be personal or systematic. In a
personal assessment, the client is guided through an assessment framework. It can
involve a set of interview questions that elicit development opportunities or amore
formal personal-style instrument, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the FIROB, or DISC profile.
3. Debrief the results. The coach and client review the assessment data and agree
on diagnosis. The purpose of the feedback session is to get the client to move to
action.
4. Develop an action plan. The specific activities the client and coach will engage in
are specified. These can include new actions that will lead to goal achievement,
learning opportunities that build knowledge and skill, or projects to demonstrate
competence.
5. Implement the action plan. In addition to the elements of the action plan listed
above, much of the coaching process involves one-on-one meetings be tween the
coch and client.

6. Assess the results. At appropriate intervals, the results of the clients actions are
reviewed and evaluated. Based on this information, the goals or action plans can be
revised, or process can be terminated.

The Results of the Coaching

Although coaching has been practiced for many years, few studies have assessed
its effectiveness. Most the evidence is anecdotal and case based. Benefitd cited are
diverse and depend on the nature of the clients objectives.
Training and Development
Training and development interventions are among the oldest strategies for
organizational change. They provide new or existing organitation members with the
skills and knowledge they need to perform work. The focus of training interventions
has broadened from classroom methods aimed at hourly workers to varied methods,
including simulations, action learning, computer-based or on-line training, and case
studies, intended for all levels and types of organization members.
Aplication Stages
Training and development interventions generally follow a process of needs
assessment, setting instructional objectives and design, delivery, and evaluation.
1. Perform a needs assessment. Similar to the diagnostic process in the general
model of planned change, a needs assessment determines what training, if
any, is necessary.
2. Develop the objectives and design of the training. The step first establishes
outcome objectives for the training and development intervention. These
objectives should described the quality and quality of performance a
participatint should be able to demonstrate t be considered competent.
3. Deliver the training. This stge implements the training and development.
Participants are invited or apply to attend the training, complete the activities
included in its design, and return their normal work routines.
4. Evaluate the training. This final step assesses the training todetermine
whether it met its objectives. The four criteria most commonly used to
evaluate training effectivenessare reaction, learning, behavior, and results.

The results of training

Despite the prevalence of training and development interventions in the
workplace. Most of the evaluation research consist of only reactions, the weakest
measure of the effectiveness.

Process consultation
Process consultation is a general framework for carrying out helping relationship.
Schein defines process events that occurin interval and external environment in
order the improve the situation as defined by the client.The process consultant
does not offer expert help in the form of solutions to problem, as in the doctorpatient model. Rather, the process consultant work to help managers,
employees, and groups assess and improve human processes, such as
communication, interpersonal relations, decision making, and task performance.
As a philosophy of helping in relationships, Schein proposes 10
guide the process consultants actions.

principles to

Always try to be helpful. Process consultants must be mindful of their

intentions, and each interaction must be oriented toward being helpful.
Always stay in touch with the current reality. Each interaction should produce
diagnostic information about the current situation. It includes data about the
clients opinions, beliefs, and emoticons; the systems current functioning; and
the practitioners reactions, thoughts, and feelings.
Access your ignorance. An important source of information about current
reality is the practioners understanding of what is known, what is assumed, and
what is not known. Process consultants must use themselves as instruments of
change.
Everything you do is an intervention. Any interaction
relationship generates information as well as consequences.

inconsultative

The client owns the problem and the solution. This is a key principle in all OD
practice. Practitioners help clients solve their own problems and learn to manage
future change.
Go with the flow. When process consultants access their own ignorance, they
often realize that there is much about the client system and its culture that they
do not know.
Timing is crucial. Observations, comments, questions, and other interventions.
Process consultants must be vigilant to occasions when the client is open (or not
open) to suggestions.
Be constructively oppurtunitic with confrontive interventions. Although
process consultants must be willing to go with the flow, they also must be willing
to take appropriate risks. From time to time and in their best judgment,
practitioners must learn to take advantage of teachable moments. A wellcrafted process observation or piece of feedback can provide a group or
individual with great insight into their behavior.

 Everything is information; errors will always occur and are the primesource for
learning. Process consultant never can know fully the clients reality and
invariably will make mistakes.
When in doubt, share the problem. The default interventions in a helping
relationship is to model openness by sharing the dilemma of what to do next.
Group Process
Process consultation deals primarily with the interpersonal and group process
that describe how organization members interact with each other. Group process
includes:
Communications. One of the process consultants areas of interest is the
nature and style of communication, or the process of transmitting and receiving
thoughts, facts, and feelings. Communication can be overt-who talks to whom,
about what, for how long, and how often.
The functional roles of group members. The process consultant must be
keenly aware of the different roles individual members take on in a group.
Group problem solving and decision making. To be effective, a group must be
able to identifity problems, examine alternatives, and make decisions.
Group norms. Especially if a group of people works together over a period of
time, it develops group norms or standart of behavior about what is good or bad,
allowed or forbidden, right or wrong.
The use of leadership and authority. A process consultant needs to understand
processes of leadership and how different leadership style can help or hinder a
groups functioning. In addition, the consultant can hel the leader adjust his or
her style to fit the situation..
Basic Process Interventions
For each of the interpersonaland group processes described above, a variety
of interventions may be used. In broad terms, these are aimed at making
individuals and group more effective.
Individual Interventions
The interventions are designed primarly to help people be more effective in
their communication with others. For example, the process consultant can
provide feedback to one or more individuals about their overt behaviors during
meetings. At the covert or hidden level of communication, feedback can be more
personal and is aimed at increasing the individuals awareness of how their
behavior affects others.

The blind window comprises personal issues that are unknown to the
individual but that are communicated clearly to others. For example, one
manager who made frequent business trips invariably told his staff to function as
a team and to make decisions in absence.
Individual interventions encourage people to be more open with others and to
disclose their views, opinions, concerns, and emotions, the reducing the size of
the hidden window. Further, the consultant can help individuals give feedback to
others, thus reducing the size of the blind window. The following are guidelines
for effective feedback:
a. The giver and receiver must have consensus on the receivers goals.
b. The giver should emphasize description and appreciation.
c. The giver should be concrete and specific.
d. Both giver and receiver must have constructive motives.
e. The griver should not withhould negative feedback if it is relevant
f. The giver should own his or her observations, feelings, and judgments
g. Feedback should be timed to when the giver and receiver are ready.
Group Interventions
These interventions are aimed at the process, content, or structure of the group.
Process interventions sensitize the group to its own internal processes and
generate in terest in analyzing them. Interventions include comments, questions,
or observations about relationship between and among group members; problem
solving and decision making; and the indetity and purpose of the group.
Content interventions help the group determine wht it works on. They include
comments, questions or observations about group membership; agenda
setting, review, and testing procedures; interpersonal issues; and conceptual
inputs on task related topics.
Finally, structural interventions help the group examine the stable and recurring
metodhs it uses to accomplish task and deal with external issues.
Results of Process Consultation
Altough process consultation is an important part of organization development and
has been widely practiced over the past 40 years, only a modest amount of
research addresses its effect on improving the ability of groups to accomplish work.
Kaplans review of process consultantion studies underscored the problems of
measuring performance effect. It examined published studies in three categories: 1.
Reports in which performance is measured inadequately or not at all 2. Reports in
which performance is measured but process consultation is not isolated as the
independent variable (the case in many instances), and 3. Research in which

process consultation is isolated as the causal variable and performance is

adequately measured.
Third party interventions
Third-party interventions focus on conflicts arising between two or more people
within the same organization.
An episodic model of conflict
Interpersonal conflict often occurs in iterative, cyclical stages known as episodes.
An episodic model is shown in figure 12.2. At times, issues underying a conflict are
latent and do not present any manifest problems for the parties.
Facilitating the Conflict Resolution Process
Walton has indetified a number of factors and tactical choices that can facilitate the
use of the episodic model in resolving the underlying causes of conflict. The
following ingredients can help third-party consultants achive productive dialogue
between the disputants so that they examine their differences and change their
perceptions and behaviours; manual motivation to resolve the conflict; equality of
power between the parties; coordinated attempt to confront the conflict; relevant
phasing of the stages of indentifying differences and of searching for integrative
solutions; open and clear forms of communication; and productive levels of tensions
and stress.
Team Building
Team building refers to a broad range of planned activities that help group improve
the way they accomplish task nd help members enchance their interpersonal and
problem-solving skills. Organizations comprise many different types of groups in
cluding permanent work groups, temporary project teams, and virtual teams. Team
building is an effective approach to improving teamwork and task accomplishment
in such environments. It can help problem-solving groups make maximum use of
members resources and contributions. It can help members develop a high level of
motivation to implement group decision.
The important of team building is well established, and its high use is expected to
continue in the coming years. Management teams are encountering issues of
greater complexity and uncertainty, especially in such fast-growing industries as
software and hardware development, entertainment, and health and financial
services. When the team represents the senior management of an organization,
team building can be an important part of establishing a coherent corporate
strategy, and can promote the kind of close cooperation needed to implement
complex strategies and new forms of governance.
Team Building Activities

A team is a group of interdependent people who share a common purpose, have

common works methods, and hold each other accountable. The nature of that
interdependence varies, creating the following types of teams: groups reporting to
the same supervisor, manager, or executive; group involving people with common
organizational goals; temporary groups formed to do a specific, one-time task;
groups consisting of people whose work roles are interdependent; and groups
whose members have no formal links in the organization but whose collective
purpose is to achieve tasks they cannot accomplish alone.
Team building activities can be classified according to their level and orientation: 1.
One more individuals; 2. The groups operation and behavior; or 3. The groups
relationship with the rest of the organization is (1) diagnostic or (2) development. A
particular team-building activity can overlap these categories, and, on occasion, a
change in one area will have negative results in other areas. For example, a very
cohesive team may increase its isolation from other groups, leading to intergroup
conflict or ther dysfunctional unless the team develops sufficient diagnostic skills to
recognize and deal with such problems.
Activities Relevant to One or More Individuals
People come into groups and organization with varying needs for achievement,
inclusion, influence, and belonging. These needs can be supported and nutured by
the teams structure and process or they can be discouraged. Diagnostic interviews
and survey instruments can help members to better understand their motivations,
style or emoticons in the group context. It results in ore or more of the members
gaining a better understanding of the way inclusion, emoticons, control, and power
affect problem solving and other group processes, and provide choice about their
degree of t\involvement and commitment.
Activities Oriented to the Groups Operation and Behavior
The most common focus of team-building activities is behavior related to ask
performance and group process. In an effective team, task behavior and group
process must be intregrated with each other as well as with the needs and wants of
the people making up the group. Diagnostic activities involve gathering data trough
the use of questionnaires or, more commonly, trough interviews. The nature of the
data gathered will vary depending on the purpose of the team building program,
the consultants will vary depending on the purpose of the team-building program,
the consultants knowledge about the organization and its culture, and the people
involved.
Activities affecting
Organization

the

Group

Relationship

with

the

rest

of

the

As a team gains a better understanding of itself and becomes better able to

diagnose and solve its own problems, it focuses on its role within the organization. A

groups relationship to the larger organizational context is an important aspect

group effectiveness.
Development activities involve actions that improve or modify the groups
contribution to the organization, how it acquires resources, or alters its outputs in
terms of cost, quality, and quantity. Sometimes, the team may recognize a need for
more collaboration with other parts of the organization and may try to establish a
project team that crosses the boundaries of existing teams.
The managers Role in Team Building
Ultimately, the manager is responsible for team functioning, although this
responsibility obviously must be shared by the group itself. Therefore, it is
managements task to develop a work group that can regularly analyze and
diagnose its own effectiveness and work process.
Many managers, however, have not been trained to perform the data gathering
diagnosis, planning, and action necessary to maintain and improve their teams
continually. Thus, the issue of who should lead a team-building session is a function
of managerial capability.
The Results of Team Building
The research on the team buildings effectiveness has produced inconsistent results.
Some studies have positive across a range of variables including feelings, attitudes,
and measures of performance. For example, one review showed that team building
improves measures, such as employee openness and decision making, about 45%
of the time and improves outcome measures, such as productivity and costs, about
53% of the time. Another review revealed that team building positively affects hard
measures of productivity, employee withdrawal, and costs about 50% of the time.
Other studies have shown less positive outcomes. In general, the research supports
a pattern of positive changes in attitudes or satisfactions. However, less powerful
research designs and short time frames prohibit drawing strong conclusions linking
performance improvements to team development efforts. For example, one review
of 30 studies found that only 10 tried to measure changes in performance. Although
these changes were generally positive, the studies research designs were relatively
weak, reducing confidence in the findings. Moreover, team building reraly occurs in
isolation. Usually it is carried out in conjunction with other interventions leading to
or resulting from team building itself. For this reason it is difficult to separate the
effects of team building from those of the other interventions.

Buller and Bell have attempted to differentiate the effects of team building from the
effects of their interventions that occur along with team building. Specificity, they
tried to separate the effects of team