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

Part II. Management Tools for Developing Organizations
If horses would turn into stone and the vehicle stop – no coachman or manager would be needed
any longer. Organizations need managers as long as the vehicle is going. Thankfully, it never
stops. The overall process of organizational life is twofold. On the one hand – it is a process of
functioning and producing certain products for customers. On the other hand – it is a process of
change that permanently produces a new organization. Thus, an organization is also a product. It
is a product of organizational development.
Changes in an organization (either external or internal ones) are taking place all the time. Life
would never wait for managers, or their timeframe for ‘planning and implementing changes’. And
managers also influence changes (whether consciously or unconsciously, due to their action or
inaction), even when they would prefer to withdraw.
However, not every influence is a control. Only actions that bring an organization to a consciously
pre-designed situation, the one that is desirable, can be associated with control. To be able to plan
and implement these actions, a manager must see the whole picture of the organization, its
structure and substructures, environment and associated landscape, everything in dynamic flux,
and everything in terms of a future state. He or she must know what is going on, understand why it
is the way it is, be able to find out what to do in order to change the situation to a desirable
direction, and know how to do it. A manager needs a lot of special tools.
We have included in this manual some instruments for organizational development. They are
grouped in five clusters called: Problem Solving, External Relations, Internal Relations, Strategic
Planning and Training for Organizational Development. The basic ideas are described in
corresponding chapters. Some handouts that can be used for training are included in Appendix 3.
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