OD Interventions At Chemcorp

Sameer Prakash MBA IV B Enrollment No. 11761203912

OD Interventions of Chemcorp
The case generally talks about Chemcorp, which was a large public sector corporation. The authors of this case, V Nilakant and S Ramnarayan (Nilakant and Ramnarayan 1998) were the OD consultants involved. Chemcorp is a very successful public sector corporation in the chemical industry, situated in western India. The events cover the period between 1983 and 1988. The authors then were working with Tata Management Training Centre. At Chemcorp a new Chairman and Managing Director was appointed by the government. He recognized the fact that there was an urgent need to train the staff throughout the corporation. The authors' training institute was al so approached to design and impart training. It was suggested by the authors that a training needs analysis be conducted to determine the scope and content of training. They also decided to conduct a workshop for the Chairman and Managing Director and his directors. This was basically to discuss the issues arising out of the assessment and agree on a strategic direction for the corporation. According to the authors, the chief executive of the company was not only bright, but also very committed to the process of OD. The whole project reflected the authors mindset about OD and change. According to them, their role as facilitators was to create a collaborative learning climate that would inevitably lead to change. Their view of change was the prevailing view of OD as a strategy of empowering people to reflect, learn and change in a collaborative manner. The training needs analysis was conducted through a series of relatively unstructured and informal interviews with a sample of senior managers. The interviews revealed that the senior managers largely saw themselves as technical specialists rather than managers. There was also a great deal of cynicism. In general, there was widespread discontent with the personnel policies, the promotion policies in particular. . The structure of the organization was a functional structure. The major functions were marketing, operations, finance and personnel. These were further divided into departments. Very few managers could take a holistic view of the organization. Status was considered very important and directly tied to hierarchy. When these results were let known to everybody, it did not seem to evoke any kind of surprise from the top management. Apparently, they were well aware of the situation. Workshops were designed to overcome all these barriers. They were designed around the basic concept of OD. With this in mind, the workshops were specifically designed to help the participants reflect on their experiences, learn collaboratively and work together to generate choices and options to solve key organizational problems.

In I 988, when the authors were called again for a second round of assessing the Organizational climate, a new Chairman and Managing Director was brought in. By 1992, the scene was not good. The interviews revealed feelings of anger, frustration, resentment, powerlessness and lack of purpose among the middle managers. The middle managers perceived the organizational structures and processes as incapable of accommodating their views and ideas. They felt that they had access to only very limited information. They felt mostly marginal in the organization. Finally, the interviews seemed to indicate that little had changed in the organization. The recommendations that the authors gave were as follows: Finding out what the organization really needs-whether it requires incremental change (which involves fine tuning existing structures, systems and procedures and does not result in a fundamental change of the organization) or transformational change (which involves a radical, rapid, frame breaking change that results in a complete transformation strategy, structure, systems. and culture of the organization); Whether the organization expect any shifts in its environment; Whether the culture and history of the organization is proving to be a barrier of change. If incremental change is what is required in the organization, then traditional OD interventions may be the most appropriate strategy. Setting up teams within the organization to drive change, working closely with this team and jointly design the needs assessment surveys and training programmes. Train people within the organization to act as trainers. Make the team monitor the change process and take responsibility for the change. If transformational change is what is actually required, then the top management has to commit itself to the change. Because bulk of the work is required at this level. The top management must take responsibility for this change and must also drive the process. The change agents can help the top management to articulate a vision for the organization. The vision should also provide a reason for radical change. Once the organization has a shared vision the top management should be helped to translate the vision into specific strategies. If vision represents a destination, strategies are the vehicles that would carry the organization to its destination. There could also be a transition management team which could be set up, comprising individuals from different parts of the organization to implement those strategies. At this stage, we can help the transition management team to work with other people in the organization in convening the strategies into action plans.

Awareness that a change of this nature is likely to be an intensely political process. Understanding that the power issues and making sure that nobody gets dys-functionally caught up in the political struggles. Once the vision and strategies have been accepted, traditional OD can be used to identify and provide skills and capabilities required in the new changed organizations.

According to the consultants one of the greatest learning from their experience in Chemcorp is that managing change of any kind, particularly in India requires a great deal of patience and perseverance. Organizations may not always be changing in the direction that we desire, but they are nevertheless changing. The OD practitioners need to develop qualities of tolerance and appreciation for achieving the goals. OD practitioners choose the most appropriate OD Intervention, to create "Planned Change." 1. Applying criteria to goals Here the leadership establishes objective criteria for the outputs of the organization's goalsetting processes. Then they hold people accountable not only for stating goals against those criteria but also for producing the desired results. Example: Organizations are implementing the concept of Balanced Scorecard, X-Matrix etc., to capture the goals of the employees, which in turn is helpful in their assessment and midterm correction of their performance. 2. Establishing inter-unit task forces These groups can cross both functional parts of the organization (the "silos") as well as employee levels. They are ideally accountable to one person and are appropriately rewarded for completing their assigned task effectively. Then they disband. Example: Organizations have introduced various schemes for rewarding their employees for their performance, like: - Introducing the concept of Variable pay in as a part of CTC - Spot Recognition Award - Project bonus, performance bonus etc.,

3. Identifying "Fireable Offenses" This intervention deepens the understanding of and commitment to the stated values of the organization. This facilitates the work of the Top Management to answer the critical question, "If we're serious about these values, then what might an employee do that would be so affrontive to them that he/she would be fired?" Example: - Publishing and Instilling Values and Beliefs among all employees - Introducing Policies like Whistle Blowing, Sexual Harassment etc., 4. In-visioning This is actually a set of interventions that help to "acculturate" everyone in the organization into an agreed-upon vision, mission, purpose, and values. The interventions might include training, goal setting, organizational survey-feedback, communications planning, etc. 5. Team Building This intervention can take many forms. Example: The most common is interviews and other pre-work, followed by a one- to three-day offsite session. During the meeting the group diagnoses its function as a unit and plans improvements in its operating procedures.