Strategic Interventions

These organizational development techniques focus on the change processes that shake the organization to its core. The OD department plays a crucial part in executing on this change.

These types of interventions are designed to change various characteristics of organization settings such as employees, technologies, products among others by focusing on the organization’s interaction with the external environment. According to (McNamara, 2009), these types of interventions are applied mostly in cultural change and strategic planning et cetera.

• Integrated Strategic Change

This comprehensive OD intervention describes how planned change can make a value-added contribution to strategic management. It argues that business strategies and organizational systems must be changed together in response to external and internal disruptions.

A strategic change plan helps members manage the transition between a current strategy and organization design and the desired future strategic orientation.

• Organization Design

This intervention addresses the organization’s architecture or the extent to which structure, work design, human resource practices, and management and information systems are in alignment and support each other.

It is a systemic view of the organization that attempts to direct member behaviour in a consistent and strategic direction.

• Culture Change

This intervention helps organizations develop cultures (behaviours, values, beliefs, and norms) appropriate to their strategies and environments. It focuses on developing a strong organisational culture to keep organization members pulling in the same direction.

• Transformational change. This is a process that involves changing the basic character of the organization, including how it is structured and the way it operates. For example, Nintendo is famous for video games. However, the company was founded in 1889 to create card games. Due to changes in consumer interests, Nintendo shifted to electronic toys, and later video games, from the 1970s.
• Continuous change. Continuous change is an intervention that enables organizations to improve gradually, by making small incremental changes. A popular example is the learning organization. This approach places more importance on learning from mistakes and failures, than punishing them.
• Trans organizational change. Transorganizational change involves change interventions that move beyond a single organization. This includes mergers, allying, acquisitions, and strategic networking. A common type of transorganizational change is when a company buys, or merges with, a competitor.