Mentoring Process

What is mentoring?

“Mentoring is advising, teaching, counseling and role modeling.  Formal mentoring matches a senior or more experienced person—the mentor—to a junior or less experienced person—the mentee.

Mentors focus on a mentee’s achievements, success in school and preparation for the workforce through a one-to-one relationship that is non-threatening and non-judgmental to both parties.

It is a relationship that changes over time as each grows, learns, and gains experiences in the relationship.”

Types of Mentoring

•          Peer Mentoring

–        Mentor/mentee—similar ages

–        Mentor experience > mentee experience

•          Group Mentoring

–        Multiple mentees

•          Professional Mentoring

–        Major difference in life experience

Foundations of Mentoring

Attributes —The mentor will demonstrate

1. Strong performances and continuous improvement on each performance that they mentor
2. Ability to grow the performance abilities of mentees
3. Professional behavior and attitudes
4. Commitment to improving the enriched learning environment project—both the team and the overall environment

•          Clearly defined educational goals

–        Measurable elements of engineering performance

•          Clearly defined expectations

–        For the professors

–        For the mentors

–        For the mentees

•          Mentor Training

–        Mentoring is a learned performance (not an innate skill)

HOW TO SELECT PROMISING MENTORS

Effective mentors share a number of characteristics. The profile sketched below is based on a synthesis of observations described by many mentors and authors. While any single mentor may not possess all of the characteristics, effective mentors have many of these qualities:

Knowledge of Their Field

• They are considered by peers to be experts in the field.

• They set high standards for themselves.

• They enjoy and are enthusiastic about their field.

• They continue to update their background in the field.

Demonstrated Skills in Their Field

• Their work demonstrates superior achievement.

• They use a variety of techniques and skills to achieve their goals.

Earned Respect of Colleagues

• They listen to and communicate effectively with others.

• They exhibit a good feeling about their own accomplishments and about the profession.

• They recognize excellence in others and encourage it.

• They are committed to supporting and interacting with their colleagues.

• They are able to role-play others and understand their views.

• They enjoy intellectual engagement and like to help others.

• They are sensitive to the needs of others and generally recognize when others require support, direct assistance or independence.

• They exercise good judgment in decisions concerning themselves and the welfare of others.

Some Characteristics of a Good Mentor

• Approachable and welcoming

• Shares information and experiences openly

• Good communication skills

• Trustworthy

• Provides accurate and appropriate feedback

• Technical expertise

• Motivating, encouraging, positive and empowering

• Allocates appropriate time to mentoring

• Sensitive to the needs of the coach/official

The Mentoring Process

• Goal setting

• Observation

• Analysis

• Providing feedback

• Action planning

• Review

Organization Change

Organizational Change and Intervention Strategies

Organization Change

The change means the alteration of status quo or making things different. It may refer to any alteration which occurs in the overall work environment of an organization. When an organizational system is disturbed by some internal or external force, the change may occur. The change is modification of the structure or process of a system, that may be good or even bad. It disturbs the existing equilibrium or status quo in an organization. The change in any part of the organization may affect the whole of the organization, or various other parts of organization in varying degrees of speed and significance. It may affect people, structure, technology, and other elements of an organization. It may be reactive or proactive in nature. When change takes place due to external forces, it is called reactive change. However, proactive change is initiated by the

management on its own to enhance the organizational effectiveness. The change is one of the most critical aspects of effective management. It is the coping process of moving from the present state to a desired state that individuals, groups and organizations undertake in response to various internal and external factors that alter current realities.

Survival of even the most successful organizations cannot be taken for granted. In some sectors of the economy, organizations must have the capability to adapt quickly in order to survive. When organizations fail to change, the cost of failure may be quite high. All organizations exist in a changing environment and are themselves constantly changing. Increasingly, the organizations that emphasize bureaucratic or mechanistic systems are ineffective. The organizations with rigid hierarchies, high degree of functional specialization, narrow and limited job descriptions, inflexible rules and procedures, and impersonal management can’t respond adequately to the demands for change. The organizations need designs that are flexible and adaptive. They also need systems that require both, and allow greater commitment and use of talent on the part of employees and managers. The organizations that do not bring about timely change in appropriate ways are unlikely to survive. One reason that the rate of change is accelerating is that knowledge and technology feed on themselves, constantly making innovations at exponential rates.

Organizational change is the process by which organizations move from their present state to some desired future state to increase their effectiveness. The goal of planned organizational change is to find new or improved ways of using resources and capabilities in order to increase an organization’s ability to create value and improve returns to its stakeholders. An organization in decline may need to restructure its resources to improve its fit with the environment

The Imperative of Change

Any organization that ignores change does so at its own peril. One might suggest that for many the peril would come sooner rather than later. To survive and prosper, the organizations must adopt strategies that realistically reflect their ability to manage multiple future scenarios. Drucker, for example, argued that : Increasingly, a winning strategy will require information about events and conditions outside the institution. Only with this information can a business prepare for new changes and challenges arising from sudden shifts in the world economy and in the nature and content of knowledge itself. If we take an external perspective for a moment, the average modern organization has to come to terms with a number of issues, which will create a need for internal change. Six major external changes that organizations are currently addressing or will have to come to terms with in the new millennium are :

1. A large global marketplace made smaller by enhanced technologies and competition from abroad. The liberalization of Eastern European states, the creation of a simple European currency, e-trading, the establishment of new trading blocs such as the ‘tiger’ economies of

the Far East, and reductions in transportation, information and communication costs, mean that the world is a different place from what it was. How does an organization plan to respond to such

competitive pressures?

2. A Worldwide recognition of the environment as an influencing variable and government attempts to draw back from environmental calamity. There are legal, cultural and socio-economic implications in realizing that resource use and allocation have finite limits and that global solutions to ozone depletion, toxic waste dumping, raw material depletion, and other  environmental concerns will force change on organizations, sooner rather than later. How does an individual organization respond to the bigger picture?

3. Health consciousness as a permanent trend amongst all age groups throughout the world. The growing awareness and concern with the content of food and beverage products has created a movement away from synthetic towards natural products. Concerns have been expressed about salmonella in eggs and poultry, listeria in chilled foods, BSE or ‘mad cow disease’ and CJD in humans, genetically engineered foodstuffs, and the cloning of animals. How does an individual organization deal with the demands of a more healthconscious population?

4. Changes in lifestyle trends are affecting the way in which people view work, purchases, leisure time and society. A more morally questioning, affluent, educated and involved population is

challenging the way in which we will do business and socialize. How will people and their organization live their lives?

5. The changing workplace creates a need for non-traditional employees. Many organizations have downsized too far and created management and labour skill shortages as a result. In order to make up the shortfall, organizations are currently resorting to a

core/periphery workforce, teleworking, multi-skilled workers and outsourcing. A greater proportion of the population who have not been traditional employees (e.g., women with school aged children) will need to be attracted into the labour force. Equal opportunity in pay and non-pecuniary rewards will be issues in the future. How will an individual organization cope with these pressures?

6. The knowledge asset of the company, its people, is becoming increasingly crucial to its competitive wellbeing. Technolgical and communication advances are leading to reduced entry costs across world markets. This enables organizations to become multinational without leaving their own borders. However, marketing via the internet, communication viae-mail and other technology applications are all still reliant on the way you organize your human resources.

Your only sustainable competitive weapon is your people. How do you intend managing them in the next millennium? The same way as you did in the last?  What is important, however, is recognition that change occurs continuously, has numerous causes, and needs to be addressed all the time. The planned change is not impossible, but it is often difficult. The key point is that

change is an ongoing process, and it is incorrect to think that a visionary end state can be  reached in a highly programmed way.

Stimulating Forces

What makes an organization to think about change? There are a number of specific, even obvious factors which will necessitate movement from the status quo. The most obvious of these relate to changes in the external environment which trigger reaction. An example of this in the last couple of years is the move by car manufacturers and petroleum organizations towards the

provision of more environmentally friendly forms of ‘produce’. However, to attribute change entirely to the environment would be a denial of extreme magnitude. This would imply that organizations were merely ‘bobbing about’ on a turbulent sea of change, unable to influence or exercise direction. The changes within an organization take place in response both to business and economic events and to processes of management perception, choice and action.

Managers in this sense see events taking place that, to them, signal the need for change. They also perceive the internal context of change as it relates to structure, culture, systems of power and control, which gives them further clues about whether it is worth trying to introduce change. But what causes change?

What factors need to be considered when we look for the causal effects which run from A to B in an organization? The change may occur in response to the :

• Changes in technology used

• Changes in customer expectations or tastes

• Changes as a result of competition

• Changes as a result of government legislation

• Changes as a result of alterations in the economy at home or abroad

• Changes in communication media

• Changes in society’s value systems

• Changes in the supply chain

• Changes in the distribution chain

Internal changes can be seen as responses or reactions to the outside world which are regarded as external triggers. There are also a large number of factors which lead to what are termed internal triggers for change. Organization redesigns to fit a new product line or new marketing strategy are typical examples, as are changes in job responsibilities to fit new organizational

structures. The final cause of change in organizations is where the organization tries to be ahead of change by being proactive. For example, where the organization tries to anticipate problems in the marketplace or negate the impact of worldwide recession on its own business, proactive change is taking place

OD Approaches

Approaches to problem Diagnosis

The phases of OD programmes are as follows:

1. Entry

2. Contracting

3. diagnosis

4. Feedback

5. planning change

6. Intervention

7. Evaluation

Entry represents the initial contact between consultant and client; this includes exploring the situation that led the client to seek a consultant and determining whether there is a good match between the client, the consultant, and the problem atic situation.

Contracting involves establishing mutual expectations; reaching agreement on expenditures of time, money, and resources; and generally clarifying what each party expects to get and give to the other.

Diagnosis is the fact-finding phase, which produces a picture of the situation through  interviews, observations, questionnaires, examination of organization documents, and the like. This phase has two steps: collecting information and analyzing it.

Feedback represents returning the analyzed information to the client system. In this phase, the clients explore the information for understanding,clarification, and accuracy; they own the data as their picture of the situation and their problems and opportunities.

Planning change involves the clients’ deciding what actions to take on the basis of information they have just learned. Alternatives are explored and critiqued; action plans are selected and developed.

Intervention involves implementing sets of actions designed to correct the problems or seize the opportunities.

Evaluation represents assessing the effects of the program: What changes occurred? Are we satisfied with the results?

Cummings and Worley also explore implementation issues. They identify five sets of activities required for effective management of OD and OT programs:

(1)  Motivating change,

(2)  Creating a vision,

(3)  Developing political support,

(4)  Managing the transition,

(5)  Sustaining momentum.

These activities include specific steps for the consultant to take to ensure effective implementation. For example, motivating change involves creating readiness for change and overcoming resistance to change.

Creating a vision involves providing a picture of the future and showing how individuals and groups will fit into that future, as well as providing a road map and interim goals. Developing political support involves obtaining the support of key individuals and groups and influencing key stakeholders to move the change effort for ward. Managing the transition means planning the needed transition activities, getting commitments of people and resources, and creating necessary structures and milestones to help people locomote from “where we are” to “where we want to be.”

Sustaining momentum involves providing resources for the change effort, helping people develop new competencies and skills, and reinforcing the desired new behaviors. These are the details consultants and leaders must attend to when implementing organization development and transformation programs.

Strategies of organization development implementation:

Trust building :

Scholars have widely acknowledge that trust can lead to cooperative behavior among individuals, groups, and organizations. Today, in an era when organizations are searching for new ways to promote cooperation between people and groups to enhance the value they create, it is not surprising that interest in the concept of trust and, in particular, how to promote or actualize it is increasing. For example, many organizations have sought to increase cooperation between people and groups by reengineering their structures into

flatter, more team-based forms, in which authority is decentralized to “empowered” lower-level employees.

Creating readiness for change :

Readiness, which is similar to Lewin’s (1951) concept of unfreezing, is reflected in organizational members’ beliefs, attitudes, and intentions regarding the extent to which changes are needed and the organization’s capacity to successfully make those changes. Readiness is the cognitive precursor to the behaviors of either resistance to, or support to the behaviors of either resistance to, or support for, a change effort. Schein (1979) has argued “the reason so many change efforts run into resistance or outright failure is usually directly traceable to their not providing for an effective unfreezing process before attempting a change induction”

Models of organization development

The most commonly considered expression of power in organization research and practice in downward power, which is the influence of a superior over a subordinate. This kind of influence in the form of one having power over another is a central focus in much of our traditional leadership research and training, such as Theory X versus Theory Y or task oriented versus people oriented style. Upward power refers to attempts by subordinates to influence their superiors. Until recently, subordinates were considered relatively powerless. But a small and growing body of research indicates that subordinates can and do influence their superiors in subtle ways. A third direction, sideways power, refers to influence attempts directed at those people who are neither subordinates nor superiors in one’s immediate reporting chain of authority. Horizontal power, interdepartmental power, external relationships, and lateral relationships are all terms that reflect expressions of sideways power.

T – Group training

Efforts to improve group functioning through training have traditionally emphasized the  training of group leadership. And frequently this training has been directed toward the improvement of the skills of the leader in transmitting information and in manipulating groups.

Impact of Organizational Intervention

As our knowledge increases, it begins to be apparent that these competing change strategies are not really different ways of doing the same thing-some more effective and some less effective-but rather that they are different ways of doing different things. They touch the individual, the group, or the organization in different aspects of their functioning. They require differing kinds and amounts of commitment on the part of the client for them to be successful, and they demand different varieties and levels of skills and abilities on the part of the practitioner. Strategies which touch the more deep, personal, private, and central aspects of the individual or his relationships with others fall toward the deeper end of this continuum. Strategies which deal with more external aspects of the individual and which focus on the more formal and public aspects of role behavior tend to fall toward the surface end of the depth dimension. This dimension has the advantage that it is relatively easy to rank change strategies upon it and to get fairly close consensus as to the ranking.

OD Techniques

Major Techniques of Planned change

Planned Change

Planned organizational change is normally targeted at improving effectiveness at one or more of four different levels : human resources, functional resources, technological capabilities, and organizational capabilities.

Human Resources : Human resources are an organization’s most important asset. Ultimately, an organization’s distinctive competencies lie in the skills and abilities of its employees. Because these skills and abilities give an organization a competitive advantage, organizations must continually monitor their structures to find the most effective way of motivating and organizing human resources to acquire and use their skills. Typical kinds of change efforts directed at human resources include : (i) new investment in training and development activities so that employees acquire new skills and abilities; (ii) socializing employees into the organizational culture so that they learn the new routines on which organizational performance depends; (iii) changing organizational norms and values to motivate a multi-cultural and diverse work force; (iv) ongoing examination of the way in which promotion and reward systems operate in a diverse work force; and (v) changing the composition of the top-management team to improve organizational learning and decision making.

Functional Resources : Each organizational function needs to develop procedures that allow it to manage the particular environment it faces. As the environment changes, organizations often transfer resources to the functions where the most value can be created. Critical functions grow in importance, while those whose usefulness is declining shrink. An organization can improve the value that its functions create by changing its structure, culture, and technology. The change from a functional to a product team structure, for example, may speed the new product development process. Alterations in functional structure can help provide a setting in which people are motivated to perform. The change from traditional mass production to a manufacturing operation based on self-managed work teams often allows companies to increase product quality and productivity if employees can share in the gains from the new work system.

Technological Capabilities : Technological capabilities give an organization an enormous capacity to change itself in order to exploit market opportunities. The ability to develop a constant stream of new products or to modify existing products so that they continue to attract customers is one of an organization’s core competencies. Similarly, the ability to improve the way goods and services are produced in order to increase their quality and reliability is a crucial organizational capability. At the organizational level, an organization has to provide the context that allows it to translate its technological competencies into

value for its stakeholders. This task often involves the redesign of organizational activities. IBM, for example, has recently moved to change its organizational structure to better capitalize on its strengths in providing IT consulting. Previously, it was unable to translate its technical capabilities into commercial opportunities because its structure was not focused on consulting, but on making and selling computer hardware and software rather than providing advice.

Organizational Capabilities : Through the design of organizational structure and culture an organization can harness its human and functional resources to take advantage of  technological opportunities. Organizational change often involves changing the relationship between people and functions to increase their ability to create value. Changes in structure and culture take place at all levels of the organization and include changing the routines an individual uses to greet customers, changing work group relationships, improving integration

between divisions, and changing corporate culture by changing the topmanagement team.

These four levels at which change can take place are obviously interdependent, it is often impossible to change one without changing another. Suppose an organization invests resources and recruits a team of scientists who are experts in a new technology – for example, biotechnology. If successful, this human resource change will lead to the emergence of a new functional resource and a new technological capability. Top management will be forced to reevaluate its organizational structure and the way it integrates and coordinates its other functions, to ensure that they support its new functional resources. Effectively utilizing the new resources may require a move to a product team

structure. It may even require downsizing and the elimination of functions that are no longer central to the organization’s mission.

Change Agents

Organizations and their managers must recognize that change, in itself, is not necessarily a problem. The problem often lies in an inability to effectively manage change : not only can the adopted process be wrong, but also the conceptual framework may lack vision and understanding. Why is this the case? Possibly, and many practicing managers would concur, the problem may be traced to the managers’ growing inability to approximately develop and

reinforce their role and purpose within complex, dynamic and challenging organizations. Change is now a way of life; organizations, and more importantly their managers, must recognize the need to adopt strategic approaches when facing transformation situations. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s organizations, both national and international, strived to develop sustainable advantage in both volatile and competitive operating environments. Those that have survived, and/or developed, have often found that the creative and market driven management of their human resources can produce the much needed competitive

‘cushion’.

This is not surprising : people manage change, and well-managed people manage change more effectively. Managing change is a multi-disciplinary activity. Those responsible, whatever their designation, must possess or have access to a wide range of skills, resources, support and knowledge. For example

1.    Communication skills are essential and must be applied for managing teams.

2.    Maintaining motivation and providing leadership to all concerned is necessary.

3.    The ability to facilitate and orchestrate group and individual activities is crucial.

4.    Negotiation and influencing skills are invaluable.

5.    It is essential that both planning and control procedures are employed.

6.    The ability to manage on all planes, upward, downword and within the peer group, must be acquired.

7.    Knowledge of, and the facility to influence, the rationale for change is essential.

There are many terms that have been used to denote those responsible for the effective implementation of change : for example, change agents, problem owners, facilitators, project managers or masters of change. The focal point of a change needs not to be an individual; a work group could quite easily be designated as a special task force responsible for managing the change. However, generally within, or above, any work group there is still someone who ultimately is accountable and responsible. What are the essential attributes of a change agent/master and are there any guidelines for them? The need to encourage participation and involvement in the management of the change by those who are to be affected has been suggested. The aim is to stimulate interest and commitment and minimize fears, thus reducing opposition. It may also be necessary to provide facilitating and support services. These could assist in promoting an individual’s awareness for the need for

change, while counseling and therapy could be offered to help overcome fears. Management must engage in a process of negotiation, striving towards agreement. This is essential where those opposing have the power, and influence, to resist and ultimately block the change. If consensus fails then one has little alternative but to move on to explicit and implicit coercion.

Somewhere in between the two extremes, the management may attempt to manipulate events in an effort to sidestep sources of resistance. For example, they may play interested parties off against each other or create galvanizing crisis to divert attention. The techniques need not be employed in isolation. They may be most effective when utilized in combination. The core tasks facing a change agent or project manager are to reduce the uncertainty associated with the change situation and then encourage positive action. Some of the steps to assist are :

1. Identify and manage stakeholders (Gainsvisible commitment).

2. Work on objectives (Clear, concise and understandable)

3. Set a full agenda (Take a hostile view and highlight potential difficulties)

4. Build appropriate control systems (Communication is a two-way process, feedback is required).

5. Plan the process of change (Pay attention to : establishing roles – clarity of purpose; build a team –

do not leave it to choice; nurture coalitions of support – fight apathy and   resistance; communicate relentlessly – manage the process;

recognize power – make the best use of supporting power bases;

handing over – ensure that the change is maintained).

The change agents exist throughout the organization (but are crucial at the top)

and constitute in effect a latent force. They have ability to :

Question the past and challenge old assumptions and beliefs

• Leap from operational and process issues to the strategic picture

• Think creativity and avoid becoming bogged down in the ‘how-to’

• Manipulate and exploit triggers for change Further, some of the traits of change agents as business athletes are :

1. able to work independently without the power and sanction of the management hierarchy.

2. effective collaborators, able to compete in the ways that enhance rather than destroy cooperation.

3. able to develop high trust relations with high ethical standards.

4. possess self-confidence tempered with humility.

5. respectful of the process of change as well as the substance.

6. able to work across business functions and units – ‘multi-faceted and multi-dextrous’.

7. willing to take rewards on results and gain satisfaction from success.

To summarize, an effective change agent must be capable of orchestrating events; socializing within the network of stakeholders; and managing the communication process. There is a need for competent internal change agents to be assigned to the project so as to ensure cooperation, effective implementation and successful handover upon completion. The role envisaged for the external change agent includes : to assist in fully defining the problem; to help in determining the cause and suggesting potential solutions; to stimulate

debate and broaden the horizons; and to encourage the client to learn from the experience and be ready to handle future situations internally; is complementary to that of the internal problem owner. It is the responsibility of the potential clients to establish the need for an objective outsider, by considering their own internal competencies and awareness of the external opportunities. The principal problem with using internal change agents is that other

members of the organization may perceive them as being politically involved in the changes and biased toward certain groups. External change agents, in contrast, are likely to be perceived as less influenced by internal polities. Another reason for employing external change agents is that as outsiders they have a detached view of the organization’s problems and can distinguish between the “forest and the trees”. Insiders can be so involved in what is going on that they cannot see the true source of the problems. Management consultants

for Mckinsey and Co. are frequently brought in by large organizations to help the top-management team diagnose an organization’s problems and suggest solutions. Many consultants specialize in certain types of organizational change, such as restructuring, re-engineering or implementing total quality management.

Unplanned Change

Not all the forces for change are the results of strategic planning. Indeed organizations often are responsive to changes that are unplanned – especially those derived from the factors internal to the organization. Two such forces are the changes in the demographic composition of the workforce and performance gaps.

1. Changing Employee Demographics : It is easy to see, even within our own lifetimes, how the composition of the workforce has changed. The percentage of women in the workforce is greater than ever before. More and more women with professional qualifications are joining the organization at the junior and the middle management levels. In addition to these, the workforce is getting older. Many of the old retired employees from government and public sector are joining the private sector, thereby changing the employee demographics. With the opening up of the economy and globalization, the workforce is also continually becoming more diverse.

To people concerned with the long-term operation of organizations, these are not simply curious sociological trends, but shifting conditions will force organizations to change. Questions regarding the number of people who will be working, what skills and attitudes they will bring to the job, and what new influences they will bring to the workplace are of

key interest to human resource managers.

2.Performance Gaps : If you have ever head the phrase, “It is isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” you already have a good idea of one of the potent sources of unplanned internal changes in organizations – performance gaps. A product line that isn’t moving, a vanishing profit margin, a level of sales that is not up to corporate expectations – these are examples of gaps between real and expected levels of organizational performance. Few things force change more than sudden unexpected information about poor performance. Organizations usually stay with a winning course of action and change in response to failure; in other words, they

follow a win-stay/lose-change rule. Indeed several studies have shown that a performance gap is one of the key factors providing an impetus for organizational innovations. Those organizations that are best prepared to mobilize change in response to expected downturns are expected to be the ones that succeed. Further, one of the greatest challenges faced by an organization is its ability to respond to changes from outside, something over which it has little or no control. As the environment changes, organizations must follow the suit.

Research has shown that organizations that can best adapt to changing conditions tend to survive. Two of the most important unplanned external factors are governmental regulation and economic competition.

3. Government Regulation : One of the most commonly witnessed unplanned organizational changes results from government regulation. With the opening up of the economy and various laws passed by the government about delicensing, full or partial convertibility of the currency, etc., the ways in which the organizations need to operate

change swiftly. These activities greatly influence the way business is to be conducted in organizations. With more foreign players in the competitive market, Indian industries have to find ways and mechanisms to safely and profitably run their business.

4.Economic Competition in the Global Arena : It happens every day : someone builds a better mousetrap – or at least a chapter one. As a result, companies must often fight to maintain their share of market, advertise more effectively, and produce products more inexpensively. This kind of economic competition not only forces organizations to change, but also demands that they change effectively if they are to survive. On some occasions, competition can become so fierce that the parties involved would actually be more effective if they buried the hatchet and joined forces. It was this ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’ reasoning that was responsible for the announced alliance dubbed “the deal of the decade” by one financial analyst. Although competition has always been crucial to organizational success, today competition comes from around the globe. As it has become increasingly

less expensive to transport materials throughout the world, the industrialized nations have found themselves competing with each other for shares of the international marketplace. Extensive globalization presents a formidable challenge to all organizations wishing to compete in the world economy. The primary challenge is to meet the ever-present need for change i.e., to be innovative. It can be stated that organizations change in many ways and for many reasons. The norm of pervasive change brings problems, challenges and

opportunities. Those individual managers and organizations that recognize the inevitability of change and learn to innovate or adapt to and manage it while focused on creating world class best value will be most successful. But people and organizations frequently resist change, even if it is in their best interest, especially in large and established organizations.

Organization Development Steps

Organization development is an effort (1) planned, (2) organizationwide, and (3) managed from the top, to (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned interventions in the organization’s “processes,” using behavioral-science knowledge – Richard Beckhand Organization development (OD) is a response to change, a complex

educational strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values, and structure of organizations so that they can better adapt to new technologies, markets and challenges, and the dizzying rate of change itself.  Organization renewal is the process of initiating, creating and confronting needed changes so as to make it possible for organizations to

become or remain viable, to adapt to new conditions, to solve problems, to learn from experiences, and to move toward greater organizational maturity.

Organization development (OD) is a prescription for a process of planned change in organizations in which the key prescriptive elements relate to (1) the nature of the effort or program (it is a long-range, planned, systemwide process); (2) the nature of the change activities (they utilize behavioral science interventions of an educational, reflexive, self-examining, learn-to-do it-yourself nature); (3) the targets of the change activities (they are directed toward the human and social processes of organizations, specifically individuals’ beliefs, attitudes, and values, the culture and processes of work groups-viewed as basic

building blocks of the organization (4) desired outcomes of the change activeities (the goals are needed changes in the target of the interventions that cause the organization to be better able to adapt, cope, solve its problems, and renew itself). Organization development thus represents a unique strategy for system change, a strategy largely based in the theory and research of the behavioural sciences, and a strategy having a substantial prescriptive character. There are eight characteristics of organization development interventions

from more traditional interventions:

1. An emphasis, although not exclusively so, on group and organizational processes in contrast to substantive content.

2. An emphasis on the work team as the key unit for learning more effective modes of organizational behavior.

3. An emphasis on the collaborative management of work-team culture.

4. An emphasis on the management of the culture of the total system.

5. Attention to the management of system ramifications.

6. The use of the action research model.

7. The use of a behavioral scientist-change agent, sometimes referred to

as a “catalyst” or “facilitator.”

8. A view of the change effort as an ongoing process.

Another characteristic, number9, a primary emphasis on human and social relationships, does not necessarily differentiate OD from other change efforts, but it is nevertheless an important feature

Emerging concept: Organization Transformation (OT)

Over the years the practice of OD has evolved and matured, clarifying its values, theories, methods, and interventions, as well as adding new values, theories, and so forth. These paradigm-shifting changes were referred to as “organization transformation” or Organizational Transformation.” Some authors believe OT is an extension of OD; others believe OT represents a new discipline in its own right. It is too early to categorize organization transformation; for now, we see it as an extension of OD. Some forces leading to the emergence of OT can be identified. Organization transformations can occur in response to or in anticipation of major changes in the organization’s environment or technology. In addition, these changes are often associated with significant alterations in the firm’s business strategy, which, in turn, may require modifying corporate culture as well as internal structures and processes to support the new direction. Such fundamental change entails a new paradigm for organizing and managing organizations. It involves qualitatively different ways of perceiving, thinking, and behaving in organizations

The Laboratory Training Stem

Laboratory training, essentially unstructured small-group situations in which participants learn from their own actions. It began to develop about 1946 from various experiments in using discussion groups to achieve changes in behavior in back-home situations. In particular, an Inter-Group Relations workshop held at the State Teachers College in New Britain, Connecticut, in the summer of 1946 influenced the emergence of laboratory training. This workshop was sponsored by the Connecticut Interracial Commission and the Research

Center for Group Dynamics, then at MIT.

Survey Research and Feedback

Survey research and feedback, a specialized form of action research constitutes the second major stem in the history of organization development. It revolves around the techniques and approach developed over a period of years by staff members at the Survey Research Center (SRC) of University of Michigan. The results of this experimental study lend support to the idea that an intensive, group discussion procedure for utilizing the results of an employee

questionnaire survey can be an effective tool for introducing positive change in a business organization. It deals with the system of human relationships as a whole (superior and subordinate can change together) and it deals with each manager, supervisor, and employee in the context of his own job, his own problems, and his own work relationships.

Action Research Stem

Participant action research, is used with the most frequency in OD. The laboratory training stem in the history of OD has a heavy component of action research; the survey feedback stem is the history of a specialized form of action research; and Tavistock projects have had a strong action research thrust, William F.Whyte and Edith L.Hamilton used action research in their work with Chicago’s Tremont Hotel in 1945 publication; Kurt Lewin and his students

conducted numerous action research projects in the mid-1940s and early 1950s.the work of these and other scholars and practitioners in inventing and utilizing action research was basic in the evolution of OD.

Sociotechnical and Socioclinical Stem

A fourth stem in the history of OD is the evolution of socioclinical and sociotechnical approaches to helping groups and organizations. The clinic was founded in 1920 as an outpatient facility to provide psychotherapy and insights from the treatment of battle neurosis in World War I. A group focus emerged early in the work of Tavistock in the context of family therapy in which the child and the parent received treatment simultaneously. The action research mode also emerged at Tavistock in attempts to give practical help to families,

organizations, and communities.

Second-Generation OD

Practitioners and researchers are giving consider able attention to emerging concepts, interventions, and areas of application that might be called second-generation OD. Each, to some extent, overlaps with some or all of the others. Second generation OD, in particular, has focus on organizational transformation. Increasingly, OD professionals distinguish between the more modest, or evolutionary, efforts toward organization improvement and those that are massive and, in a sense, revolutionary. Smith, and Wilemon differentiate “incremental” change strategies and “fundamental” change strategies. Organizational transformation is seen as requiring more demands on top leadership, more visioning, more experimenting, more time, and the simultaneous management of many additional variables.

Managed teams and cross-functional teams get started. In addition, as selfmanaged

teams have assumed many functions previously performed by management, supervisors and middle managers have used team-building approaches within their own ranks to help reconceptualize their own roles.

Counseling Skills

Approaches to counseling; Counseling Process – Beginning, Developing and Terminating a Counseling Relationship and Follow up

What is Counseling?

Counseling is a process through which one person helps another by purposeful conversation in an understanding atmosphere. It seeks to establish a helping relationship in which the one counseled can express their thoughts and feelings in such a way as to clarify their own situation, come to terms with some new experience, see their difficulty more objectively, and so face their problem with less anxiety and tension. Its basic purpose is to assist the individual to make their own decision from among the choices available to them.

Counseling is discussion of an employee’s problem that usually has an emotional content to it, in order to help the employee cope with the situation better. Counseling seeks to improve employee’s mental health. People feel comfortable about themselves and about other people and are able to meet the demands of life when they are in good mental health.

Why is Counseling Needed?

“HR initiatives only look at the organizational perspective, but the well being of the workforce depends just as much on the individual’s well being. And stress, from home or from the routine of work affects not just the individual, but the workplace in turn,” says Dr Samir Parikh, consultant psychiatrist at Max Healthcare

What are the objectives of Counselling?

According to Eisenberg & Delaney, the aims of Counselling are as follows:

1. Understanding self
2. Making impersonal decisions
3. Setting achievable goals which enhance growth
4. Planning in the present to bring about desired future
5. Effective solutions to personal and interpersonal problems.
6. Coping with difficult situations
7. Controlling self defeating emotions
8. Acquiring effective transaction skills.
9. Acquiring ‘positive self-regard’ and a sense of optimism about one’s own ability to satisfy one’s basic needs.

When to counsel?

An employee should be counseled when he or she has personal problems that affect job performance. Some signs of a troubled employee include
• Sudden change of behavior
• Preoccupation
• Irritability
• Increased accidents
• Increased fatigue
• Excessive drinking
• Reduced production
• Waste
• Difficulty in absorbing training

What are the traits of a good counsellor?

The set of attitudes required for an efficient counsellor are:
• Respect i.e. High esteem for human dignity, recognition of a person’s freedom & rights and faith in human potential to grow.
• Sincerity, authenticity.
• Understanding
• Non-judgmental approach towards the counselee.

The set of skills required for an efficient counsellor are:
• Decency skills i.e. social etiquettes, warm manners
• Excellent communication skills which also include non-verbal communication and listening skills
• Objectivity
• Maintaining confidentiality
• Empathy

What’s the process of counselling?

Types of counseling processes are Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic Therapy; Carl Roger’s Client Centered Therapy; Carkhuff Model of Personal Counseling; Gestalt approach to counseling; Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy by Albert Ellis.

The Counseling Process
Step 1. Describe the changed behavior. Let the employee know that the organization is concerned with work performance. The supervisor maintains work standards by being consistent in dealing with troubled employees. Explain in very specific terms what the employee needs to do in order to perform up to the organization’s expectations. Don’t moralize. Restrict the confrontation to job performance.
Step 2. Get employee comments on the changed behavior and the reason for it. Confine any negative comments to the employee’s job performance. Don’t diagnose; you are not an expert. Listen and protect confidentiality.
Step 3. Agree on a solution. Emphasize confidentiality. Don’t be swayed or misled by emotional please, sympathy tactics, or “hard-luck” stories. Explain that going for help does not exclude the employee from standard disciplinary procedures and that it does not open the door for special privileges.
Step 4. Summarize and get a commitment to change. Seek commitment from the employee to meet work standards and to get help, if necessary, with the problem.
Step 5. Follow up. Once the problem is resolved and a productive relationship is established, follow up is needed

Counseling Strategy

COUNSELING is defined as discussion of an emotional problem with an employee, with the general objective of decreasing it. Therefore, Counseling: 

• Deals with an emotional problem.
• Is an act of communication.
• Is generally to understand and/or decrease an employee’s emotional disorder.
• Can be done by both, the managers and the professionally trained counselors. 

It is generally observed that nine out of every ten people suffer from a mental or emotional disorder. We recognize them as people who are high-strung, over sensitive, and angry with the world.  Others include alcoholics and the drug addicts.  Many others still have temporary upsets due to certain events.
Counseling is warranted when one notices an inability to cope with the environment. This inability manifests in behaviour disorder which in turn  does  lead  to  harm  to  self,   the organization  and  others working therein. Feelings can not be ignored.  They are facts and more so to the individual concerned.   Managers desire the employees to maintain a reasonable emotional equilibrium and to chanelize the emotions to constructive activities.
Any condition, on or off the job, may need counseling.  These conditions can be from:  

• Job dissatisfaction,
• Resistance to change, or,
• Alienation, Disorientation etc.  

Other major conditions that must be clearly understood are:  

• Frustrations,
• Conflicts, or,
• Stress.  

Frustration occurs when the motivation is blocked preventing one from reaching the desired goal. Frustration can be short term-event related or long term-aspiration related. The longer the frustration, greater the problem. Frustration usually is reacted to in any of the following ways. 

• Aggression,
• Apathy,
• Withdrawal,
• Regression,  
• Fixation,
• Physical disorders, or,
• Substituted goals.  

Counseling can help reduce frustration, by helping the employees to choose a mature course of action to remove blockages preventing goal accomplishment, or by helping them to reconcile with the reality. Counselors will have to work with both, the employee and the Management.  
Conflicts: Both the interpersonal and inter-group conflicts may cause emotional disorders. When people of different backgrounds, points of view, values, needs and personalities interact a variety of conflicts may arise.  
Conflicts are not always bad. We must, while handling conflicts, try to reduce the disadvantages and to increase the benefits. Conflicts stimulate people to look for better approaches for improved results. Often, hidden problems surface and a deeper understanding may develop.  
On the other hand, cooperation and teamwork may suffer, distrust may grow, and the loser may attempt continuance of the conflicts to settle the score. The organization’s basic goal is to move the conflicts into a win-win possibility, so that no one feels lost and in fact all feel having won.  
Counseling assists conflict resolution by reducing emotional blockages.
Other effective approaches are Organization Development, Supportive Leadership styles, sensitivity training, and job and organization design.
Stress:  It is condition of strain on one’s emotions, thought process and/or physical condition that seems to threaten one’s ability to cope with the environment.
What counseling can do: General objective is to assist the employees in dealing with their emotional problems, so that they grow in self-confidence, understanding, self-control  & the ability to work in the given organizational environment.  

Counseling objectives are achieved through performing one of the following counseling functions: 

• Advise.
• Reassure,
• Communicate,
• Release of emotional tensions,
• Clarified thinking, and,
• Reorientation. 

Types of Counseling: 

Directive, Non-directive, and Cooperative.

Who should do the counseling?

Supervisors/Managers or (Superiors in hierarchy), Specialists, and Professional counselors.

Cautions in Counseling:  

The counselor’s approach depends upon his own assessment of the situation, and the personality of the counselee.  

A counselor may:  

• Identify himself with the counselee and help him  decide, motivate him to do what is jointly decided, OR,
• Do the most of the above but help him  make  up  his  mind to  act  as  he   thinks fit.

BUT, in any case, in the counseling relationship, the following conditions are essential:

•  Counselee should psychologically accept the counselor.
•  Counselor must be able to listen well and communicate effectively.
•  An atmosphere of trust and confidence.
•  Credibility & Sensitivity of the counselor.

This in nutshell is what counseling is about. It is upto us how, we can use these skills as a strategy in Work Places.

In the strictest sense of the term, counseling to be considered as a strategy may meet raised eyebrows!   But, applied innovatively, conducting inter-personal relations with a counseling approach will have a positive effect on blocked or inadequate performance by the employee. It will also help generate a climate of comprehension of reality, acceptance of mutual roles alongwith their relationships and interdependence. It can and does achieve an organizational need of ensuring uniformly high, accurate and enthusiastic performance levels, by building and strengthening the superior-subordinate relationships as also help create an atmosphere conducive of stable, positive relationships and strong work culture.

An emotional problem, like any other problem, disturbs the mental equilibrium of a person, making him disgruntled, and producing an affected behaviour on and off work.

Let us now consider the process of Inter-personal Relations. For the sake of simplicity, we define this process as “Work related Inter-personal relationship exercises within an organization necessary to achieve coordinated, high level, collective performance, to achieve organizational goals”.

We know that the Behaviour is a function of Personality and Environment.

Affected Behaviour (in this case, misdirected efforts, shoddy, below par performance,  a kind of carelessness that is unmindful of consequences to self and to the organization) and indicates a need for assistance.  Mostly assistance can be offered in the area of the environmental factors (like training, nature of assignment etc.) and not in the Personality factors (like advice, healthy discussions, counseling etc.), even though attributes of the Personality are amenable to such treatment.

Behaviour can be considered as an individual or collective phenomenon.  A sum total of the outcomes of the relationship transactions at individual levels help us predict the shape of collective performance at the organizational level.

Problems of grow out of many roots.  Every affected behaviour whether on or off the job, has the potential to influence the Collective Performance of the organization. 

Commonalty of objectives so very essential to the growth and success of the organization is virtually lost sight of and attempts are made to pursue limited (individual) goals at the cost of the larger (organizational) goals.

Role gets precedence over the Goal.

Parties usually end up in a situation that despite knowing that there is no alternative to working together, they are forced to accept a state of strained relationships, tensions, suspicions and many such undesirable ingredients in the situation that continue to affect individual and collective performance..

It does not require any special expertise to realize that this state of affairs is obtained invariably where the process of managing people is defective.

We all know many approaches to managing people. At one extreme is to equate people with the machines and on the other extreme is accept that in any matter people alone will justify management action. All extremes are bad. But we do seem to be going to extremes when the conventional methods or the methods that we believe in do not produce the desired results. We must accept the fundamental truth of the matter that people need to be managed.  One can not manage anything without understanding it. So we must understand the people!

People represent the only animate resource-capable of feelings, thinking and acting independently sometimes even at variance with the organizational objectives.

We as managers of men do not have an absolute control over human behaviour to be able to influence, modify or predict behaviour either by itself or in the industrial-technological system. When it comes to human behaviour, we always find a state of flux and that is what makes our job more and more difficult. The one significant factor that we should learn more and more about is the phenomenon of change and the way it tends to influences human behaviour.

The profile of an average employee over the years has undergone great changes.  The basic tenets of behaviour that were valid yesterday are generally invalid to day. Let us take a closer look at some of the significant points of the profile and the changes they have undergone.

These are as follows: 

Sr.	Trait	Old Patterns	New Patterns
1	Education	Low	Better
2	Exposure	Low	Greater
3	Authority	High	Low
4	Respect	High	Low
5	Previous Training	NIL	Good
6	Abilities	Less	More
7	Cultural Orientation	Rural	Urban
8	Values	Conservative	Modernistic
9	Receptivity	Low	OK
10	Ambitions	Limited	High

This is an effort to understand the difference between the people belonging to the two different generations. Understanding these will give us better insights into the psyche of the people we are dealing with.

In the ultimate analysis, we have various approaches in which to deal with people in typical Industrial situations. To sum up, these are:

• Institutional-Transactional.  
• Paternalistic.
• Legal-Impersonal.              
• Benevolent, and,
• Human Resource Development.
• Counseling.

Whatever the choice, the understanding of people will always give us an advantage to influence the situation in favour of the desired goals.