Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

• A healthy organization defines itself as a system, and the organization’s work is to take in
needed raw materials and to transform them into goods and services.
• It has a strong sensing system for receiving current information on all parts of the system
and their interactions (system dynamic thinking).
• It has a strong sense of purpose. It is managed in alignment with its own vision of the
future.
• It operates in a “form follows function” mood. The work to be done determines the
structures and mechanisms to do it
• It employs team management as a dominant mood
• It respects customer service – both to outside customers and to those within the
organization – as a principle.
• Its management is information-driven. Large amounts of information can be received and
processed in seconds.
• It encourages and allows decision-making at the level closest to the customer, where all the
necessary information is available.
• It keeps communication relatively open throughout the system.
• Its reward systems are designed to be congruent with the work and to support individual
development.
• The organization operates in a learning mode. Identifying learning points is part of the
process of making all decisions.
• It makes explicit recognition for innovation and creativity and has a high tolerance for
different styles of thinking and for ambiguity in all things.
• Its policies respect the tensions between work and family demands. Parental leave and
childcare are seen as responsibilities of the firm.
• It keeps an explicit social agenda. Community citizenship, protecting the environment, and
supporting the arts are corporate policies, not isolated activities.
• It gives sufficient attention to efficient work, quality and safety awareness in operations, and
identifying and managing change for a better future. (Hesselbein, Goldsmith, Beckhard,
1996).
In this manual we will address most of the aspects cited by Richard Beckhard, who proposed a
kind of ‘health standard’ for contemporary organizations. However, we will go further, to discuss
not only the health, but also the behaviour of organizations.
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