Organizational Diagnosis

1. Diagnosing Organizations

2. Introduction
The Open Systems (OS) approach gave rise
to a general model that can guide the
diagnosis of entire institutional
sectors, sets of organizations, individual
organizations, divisions, or units within
organizations.

4. System Components
 Inputs
 Raw, materials, money, people, equipment
 Resources
 Outputs
 Products, services and ideas
 Transfer its main outputs to public and use
other internally

5. System Components
 Organizational behaviour and processes
 Prevailing patterns of interaction between
individuals and groups
 Technology
 Refers to tools, equipment and techniques
used to process inputs and transform them
into outputs
 Environment
 External organizations and conditions

6. System Components
 Structure
 Relations between individuals, groups and
larger units
 Culture
 Shared norms, values, beliefs and
assumptions
 System dynamics
 Feedback of information and demands
within and outside organization

7. Key Features of the Model
 The model implies several important
ideas for diagnosis:
1. The OS frame can be applied at several
levels of analysis.
2. Any organizational system may be
described as being composed of
interdependent components.
3. When there is poor fit among
interdependent components or
functions, effectiveness suffers and signs
of ineffectiveness appear.

8. Key Features of the model
4. An organization’s effectiveness and
success depend heavily on its ability to
adapt to its environment, shape that
environment, or find a favourable
environment in which to operate.
5. Organization use many of their
products, services, and ideas as inputs
to organizational maintenance or growth
6. People are a vital system resource

9. Key Features of the Model
7. An organization’s effectiveness depends
substantially on its ability to meet internal
system needs – including typing people
into their roles in the
organization, conducting transformative
processes, and managing operations – as
well as on adaption to the environment.
8. Developments in and outside of
organizations produce pressures for
change as well as releasing forces for
inertia and stability.

10. The Model as a Diagnostic
Guide
 Consider all major system
components when starting a diagnosis
 Does not concentrate too soon on an
evident and easy-to-study issue
 Help assess the broad context
affecting operations within a particular
organizational function
 Also help assess the organizational
context of specific problems or
challenges

11. The Model as a Diagnostic
Guide
 By looking at the system
characteristics of the client
organization, practitioners can better
understand both immediate and more
distant forces affecting the focal
problem or issue
 Thus, can focus on those system
components and subcomponents that
are most directly related to the focal
problem

12. The Models as a Diagnostic
Guide
 The systems model also draws
attention to interactions between
system components and can guide
the assessment of fit among
components

13. SWOT Analysis
 Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Thr
eats
 Focus attention on to crucial external
challenges and ways to enhance
competitive advantage
 Can also be defined more broadly to
guide diagnosis of current success
factors and combinations of internal
conditions.

14. CASE 5
 Strengths
 Staff loyalty
 Staff connections
 Staff Shared Values
 Weaknesses
 Employees aged
 Employees being replaced

15. CASE 5
 Opportunities
 Restructuring
 Professionalize
 Threats
 Turnover was increasing
 Difficulty in recruitment

16. CASE 5
 If developments within an organization
or its environment are eroding the
basis for past successes, consultants
and clients must decide whether
incremental adjustments in one or
more system components will
preserve effectiveness or whether
more fundamental, strategic changes
are needed.

17. Example
 Customers and management of a resort hotel complain
about the quality of quest services.
 The hotel manager attributes the problem to the hotel’s
inability to recruit experienced staff which stems from
non-competitive wage rates.
 By searching for links between the presented problem
and other system components, the consultant might
find weaknesses in:
 Employee training problems
 Definitions of job responsibilities
 Use of outmoded equipment
 Inadequate coordination and control of work
 Improvement in these areas could enhance the quality
of employee service, regardless of the employees’
past work experience.

18. Redefining Presented Problems
 System model can also help practitioners
redefine problems or challenges initially.
 Redefinition occurs whenever consultants
treat problems presented as symptoms of
broader or more fundamental conditions.
 The decision to examine all system
components in a broad diagnosis
includes an assumption that the forces
behind presented problems or shaping
organizational effectiveness may lie
beyond the issues initially presented by
the client.

19. Gathering and Analyzing
Data
1. Background to diagnosis
2. Outputs
3. Goals and strategies
4. Inputs
5. Environment
6. Technology and work processes
7. Structure
8. Behaviour and processes
9. Culture
10. System dynamics

20. Basic organizational
Information
 High level managers or their assistants
 Statistics on these subjects
 Official statements of organization
goals and missions
 Charts of the organizational structure
 Organizational histories
 Site visits
 Subsequent investigations

21. Additional data
 Interviews with top managers and head of
departments or divisions whose work is
related to focal problems or challenges
 Interviews, questionnaires and focus
groups
 Will provide:
 Richer and more valid information on basic
system features and on underlying forces
affecting presented problems and challenges.
 Also reveal important differences in the ways
that people from diverse
functions, backgrounds, and levels view the
organization and its problems

22. Measurement of Data
 Abstract and difficult to measure
 Thus practitioners must content themselves with
non-rigorous measures
 Practitioners often have to settle for global
assessments of very complex conditions.
 More time consuming methods should
only be contemplated if the topic is of
particular importance to the diagnosis.
 Independent assessments
 How respondents are coloured by their own
distinctive views and experiences

23. Summarizing and Analyzing
Data
 The lists of basic organizational
information and system components can
serve as accounting schemes for
organizing and summarizing
diagnostic findings
 Straightforward approach is to make a
separate file or database entry for each
system component

24. Summarizing and Analyzing
Data
 In very small organizations, divisions
and other major subunits will probably
differ substantially from one another in
terms of system features such as
technology, structure and processes.
 Thus summaries should note the
distinctive profiles of each division
along with features common to the
whole organization.

25. Summarizing and Analyzing
Data
 Responses in interviews
 Start by grouping together responses to each
question that make the same point and number of
people giving it
 Practitioners can present the entire range of
responses to specific questions as feedback
to stimulate analysis of the operations and
suggestions for improvement
 Or they can aggregate and summarize
findings using accounting schemes such as
SWOT or one based on the categories in the
systems model.

26. Assessing effectiveness
 Effectiveness is multidimensional and
difficult to measure.
 The OS frame, when supplemented by a
view of organizations as political
arenas and a systematic approach to
concept development and
measurement, can help consultants and
decision makers make appropriate
choices among the wide range of
possible effectiveness measures.

27. Assessing effectiveness
 In deciding how to define and measure
effectiveness, practitioners of diagnosis
face choices about five topics, listed
here from the most general to the most
specific:
1. Assessment Approach
2. Domains
3. Criteria
4. Operational definitions and measures
5. Standards for analysis and evaluation

28. Assessment Approach
 Output-goal approach
 View organizations as tools for goal attainment
 This approach assesses effectiveness in terms
of attainment of clearly defined objectives and
production of specific outputs.
 Organizations pursue multiple and even
competing objectives and production of specific
outputs
 Therefore several output-goal domains and
multiple criteria specifying these domains can all
be relevant to single organization.

29. Assessment Approach
 Internal System Status
 Draws on OS and human resources frames
 Employee Satisfaction and Quality of work
 Introduce these criteria into diagnosis
because they assume that organizations
can more readily attain their output goals
when internal processes , such as
coordination and communication , operate
smoothly and efficiently and when these
processes enhance the motivations and
capacities of members.

30. Assessment Approach
 System resources and adaption
 Derive mainly from OS theories
 Evaluate effectiveness in terms of the
organization’s ability to obtain scarce and
valued resources from its
environment, adapt to external change
and obtain a favourable competitive
position within the environment.

31. Assessment Approach
 Multiple Stakeholders
 Defines effectiveness in terms of an
organization’s ability to satisfy a diverse
set of internal and external constituencies
 Research has shown that organizations
that are more responsive to the
expectations of multiple stakeholders are
generally more adaptable than
comparable organizations in which less
attention is given to stakeholders.

32. Effectiveness Domains
 Second decision
 There are many possible sources of
tension between domains that fall within
the same theoretical frame and even
among criteria drawn from a single
domain
 No matter what type of effectiveness
domains and criteria they use, people
can simultaneously favour conflicting
effectiveness and standards.

33. Criteria
 Criteria for assessing each domain
 The implications of any given
assessment domain depend directly
on the nominal definition of its criteria.

34. Operational definitions and
measurement
 The operational definition and
measurement of effectiveness criteria.
 Procedure is identical to that of
developing any kind of research
measure
 Have to define and measure
effectiveness in ways that allow them to
analyze available data or data that can
be gathered quickly and
inexpensively.

35. Standards for Analysis and
Evaluation
 Standards for analyzing and evaluating data
on effectiveness and providing feedback
 Following comparisons can be used:
 Current versus past levels of effectiveness
 Effectiveness levels among units within the same
organization
 Client organization compared to others in the same
industry or field
 Current state versus some minimum standard
 Current state compared to an ideal standard
 Feedback containing appropriate
comparisons can contribute directly to
constructive problem solving.

36. Making Choices About
Effectiveness
 Making considerations guide
practitioners and their clients as they
confront choices among effectiveness
criteria.
 These are summarised under five
guiding questions:
1. How applicable and appropriate are
particular effectiveness criteria to the focal
organization.

37. Making Choices About
Evaluation
2. How well do specific effectiveness criteria
fit the goals and setting of the diagnostic
study?
3. How relevant are effectiveness criteria to
clients?
4. Are there strong normative or value
reasons for preferring particular
criteria, measures or comparison
standards.
5. Will feedback based on the selected
criteria, contribute to constructive problem
solving.

38. Assessing feasibility of change and
choosing appropriate interventions
 The political and open systems frames
can help practitioners and their clients
decide what steps, if any, will help
clients solve problems and enhance
organizational effectiveness.
 Analytic and Process Issues:
1. Does the Organization need incremental
or strategic change?

39. Analytic and Process Issues
2. Is there a readiness for change?
3. How will internal and external
stakeholders react to proposed
interventions?
4. Does the organization have the capacity
to implement change?
5. Will the proposed interventions achieve
the desired results without having
undesirable consequences?

40. Methodological Issues
 Because it is difficult to predict behaviour
only from general attitudes, people’s broad
reactions to a proposed intervention do not
provide significant guidance as to how they will
act after the intervention is implemented.
 Peer pressure and shift in opinions might play
role
 Because of this difficulty to anticipate the
consequences of interventions and people’s
reactions to them, managers and consultants
sometimes adopt a more experimental
approach to implementation