Diagnostic Models
Diagnostic Models
Diagnostic Models
Julie A. C. Noolan
Descriptive models
With descriptive models, the role of the OD practitioner is to illuminate “what is” for
the client, and “what could be”. Within descriptive models, contingency theorists
would argue that the OD practitioner facilitates change only, not focus. The client
determines the direction of change and the OD practitioner helps the client get there.
Most diagnostic models fit under the “descriptive” category. Examples include:
Normative Models
With normative models, the practitioner recommends specific directions for change,
prior to the diagnosis – the “one best way of managing.”
Examples include:
! Blake and Mouton’s Grid [Concern for People/Concern for Productivity 9, 9].
! Likert’s Profiles
A range of well-known models are displayed on the following pages. Please note:
! Many of the same variables are contained in all the models, although not
necessarily in the same way or with the same emphasis.
! The fewest number of variables depicted in a model is four (Leavitt), the greatest
is twelve (Burke-Litwin), most are between five and seven.
! Each model leaves out variables that another school of thought might include or
emphasize. For example, only the Hanna model mentions “hard numbers,” i.e.
financial performance.
GOALS
ROLES
PROCEDURES
INTERACTIONS
Source: Richard Beckhard, Optimizing Team Building Effort, Journal of Contemporary Business,
Vol1 (3), 1972
I describe it sometimes using a sports analogy. It doesn’t make matter how well the
players on a football team like each other if they don’t know that their goal is to get
that football across the goal line or kicked between the uprights. And it doesn’t
matter how well they get along with each other, and pat each other on the back or
elsewhere, if they don’t understand what their positions or roles are on the field—
that the quarterback throws the ball and the place kicker kicks it, and so on. And it
doesn’t matter that they really trust each other, if they don’t understand the
procedures or rules of the game. And it is only when there is clarity and agreement
on the above three areas that the consultant should address interactions, either
inter-personally or inter-group.
This model is one of the templates I routinely run through in my head in working with
a group, even if it is not what I have initially been called upon to address. Without
clarity on goals, roles, and procedures, there is little long-term benefit in working at
the interaction level.
! Who we are
! What we do
! For whom do we do it
! Why we do it
GOALS OR OBJECTIVES
ROLES
PRACTICES
RELATIONSHIPS
Mission
Corporate
Key
Identity
Relationships
Ways of
Culture
Working
Source: Richard Beckhard & Wendy Pritchard, Changing the Essence: The Art of
Creating and LeadingFundamental Change in Organizations, San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1992
Concern
9
for
9,9
People
0 9
Concern for Production
Structural HR
Bolman and Deal describe their model as embracing “conceptual pluralism” – they
take the various schools or organization thought and categorize the perspectives
into four “frames” to characterize these different vantage points. As they say, frames
are windows on the world. Frames filter out some things while allowing others to
pass through easily. Frames help us to order the world and decide what actions to
take. Every manager has a personal frame, or image, of organizations to gather
information, make judgements, and get things done.
The structural frame emphasizes the importance of formal roles and relationships.
Structures – commonly depicted in organization charts – are created to fit an
organization’s environment and technology. Organizations allocate responsibilities
to participants (“division of labor”) and create rules, policies, and management
hierarchies to coordinate diverse activities. Problems arise when the structure does
not fit the situation. At that point, some form of reorganization is needed to remedy
the mismatch.
The human resource frame establishes its territory because organizations are
inhabited by people. Individuals have needs, feelings, and prejudices. They have
both skills and limitations. They have great capacity to learn and a sometimes
greater capacity to defend old attitudes and beliefs. From a human resource
perspective, the key to effectiveness is to tailor organizations to people – to find an
organizational form that will enable people to get the job done while feeling good
about what they are doing. Problems arise when human needs are throttled.
The political frame views organizations as arenas of scarce resources where power
and influence are constantly affecting the expected because of differences in needs,
perspectives, and life-styles among different individuals and groups. Bargaining,
coercion, and compromise are all part of everyday organizational life. Coalitions
form around specific interests and may change as issues come and go. Problems
may arise because power is unevenly distributed or is so broadly dispersed that it is
difficult to get anything done. Solutions are developed through political skill and
acumen – much as Machiavelli suggested centuries ago.
The symbolic frame abandons the assumptions of rationality that appear in each of
the other frames and treats the organization as theater or carnival. Organizations
NEA/NTL OD Certificate Program
Diagnosing Organizations With Impact
Kaye Craft & Arty Trost
March 29-April 1, 2004 2-10
are viewed as held together more by shared values and culture than by goals and
policies. They are propelled more by rituals, ceremonies, stories, heroes, and myths
than by rules, policies, and managerial authority. Organization is drama: the drama
engages actors inside, and outside audiences form impressions based on what they
see occurring on-stage. Problems arise when actors play their parts badly, when
symbols lose their meaning, when ceremonies and rituals lose their potency.
Improvements come through symbol, myth and magic.
Each frame has its own vision of reality. Only when managers can look at
organizations through all four frames are they likely to appreciate the depth and
complexity of organizational life. Successful managers rely intuitively on all the
different frames, blending them into a coherent, pragmatic, personal theory of
organizations. We believe than an explicit introduction to, and grounding in, all four
frames can enrich any manager’s native intuition. Success becomes possible even
for the great majority of us who were not born with the ability to understand and act
effectively in such a complicated and ambiguous world.
BURKE-LITWIN
External
Environment
Systems
Structure
(Policies and
Management Procedures)
Practices
Individual
Task Requirements
Needs and
and Individual Motivation Values
Skills/Abilities
Individual and
Organizational
Performance
Source: W. Warner Burke, in Ann Howard (ed.) Diagnosis for Organizational Change,
Guilford Press, 1994
NEA/NTL OD Certificate Program
Diagnosing Organizations With Impact
Kaye Craft & Arty Trost
March 29-April 1, 2004 2-12
THE SWAMP MODEL OF SOCIOTECHNICAL SYSTEMS
Leadership
Boundary
Management
Mechanisms
Human
Resource Structure
Management
Management
Strategic
Direction PRODUCTION
Financial
Management Technology
Feedback Loop
(Variance Analysis)
2. Production:
3. Financials:
A. Strategic H.R. Plans: Determining how to satisfy current and projected H.R.
needs for all organizational subsystems.
5. Organizational Structure:
B. Responsibilities for individuals (roles) and intact work units (charters): Tasks,
activities, and functions.
6. Technology:
8. Organizational Leadership:
B. Insure the integrity of the boundaries between the system and the external
environment:
1. Support (or perform) boundary management functions including the
development of teamwork between organizational elements or
subsystems and significant external stakeholders and constituents.
2. Represent the requirements, preferences and concerns of all parts of the
organization to their relevant, significant external stakeholders and
constituents.
3. Represent the requirements, preferences, and concerns of relevant,
significant external stakeholders and constituents to the organization’s
major subsystems and employees.
Divide group into sub-groups (teams) that represent major stakeholder groups or
constituent populations within the larger organization (e.g., “Managers,” “Labor
Union,” “Finance,” “Maintenance,” “Marketing,” “Engineering Group,” “Human
Resources”).
! What is your Vision of the world in which you must compete, operate and survive
in the future?
! What is your Mission? In what business or businesses is your group involved?
What is your market? How do you add value to your customers’ operations?
What is your competitive advantage?
! What are the Strategic Goals that you must achieve to survive and grow? What
must you do to contribute to the realization of Mission of your larger
organization?
! What is your Strategy to achieve these Goals?
! What are the Values or Philosophy that you use to guide your group’s operation
and the behavior of its members?
2. Production
! From whom does your group get its work requests? How are they originated?
How do you know what to produce? Why are you able to obtain work? How do
you attract work?
! What goods, products, or services does your group produce? What will your
group be producing in the future?
! What standards or criteria must be satisfied for these work results to be
considered acceptable? Who establishes these standards or criteria?
! How effective is your group? Are you satisfying these production standards or
criteria? Are you profitable? Are your deliveries on time? Are you efficient?
How do you know?
3. People
! How many of what types of people doe the group currently require to operate
effectively? Do you have all these people under contract now? Are your people
over- or under-qualified?
4. Structure
6. Leadership
! How does your group stay in touch with internal organizational and external
environmental events and conditions? How do you know if significant changes
are taking place that could effect your group’s business?
! How does your group ensure that its members’ activities are all oriented toward
the same common goals and purpose?
! How does the group identify, define and solve its problems – and exploit or
capitalize on emerging opportunities to improve its effectiveness?
! Which significant groups or individuals have some vested interest in this group’s
activities? Which of these suppliers, customers, regulators, investors, etc. are
internal to the group’s organization? Which are external?
! What does the group “import” from its “suppliers”?
! What does the group “export” to its “customers” or “users” or “targets”?
! By whom and how are these transactions managed?
! Through the use of which methods are these transactions managed so as to
maximize mutual satisfaction and to minimize or eliminate difficulties?
Jay R. GALBRAITH
! Decision Mechanism
! Frequency
! Diversity
! Formalization
! Difficulty
! Data Base
! Variability
Integrating Individuals
! Promotion Choice of:
! Training & Development ! Compensation System
! Transfer ! Promotion Basis
! Selection ! Leadership Style
! Job Design
DAVID P. HANNA
Structure Rewards
Tasks Decision
Making
People Information
RALPH KILMANN
Organization
Culture
Source: Ralph Kilmann, Beyond the Quick Fix, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Publishers, 1984
EMPLOYEES AND
OTHER TANGIBLE
ASSETS:
People
Plant, equipment, $, etc.
SOCIAL SYSTEM
Culture FORMAL
ORGANIZATIONAL
Social Structure
ARRANGEMENTS
Structure
Operating systems
KEY
ORGANIZATIONAL
PROCESSES
Information gathering
Communication
Decision making
Matter/energy transporting
Matter/energy conversion
DOMINANT COALITION
TECHNOLOGY Personal characteristics
Methods
Goals, strategies
Techniques
EXTERNAL
ENVIRONMENT
Task environment
Wider environment
Structure
Technology
Task
People (Actors)
McKINSEY CONSULTING
Structure
Systems
Strategy
Shared
Values
Skills Style
Staff
Source: Robert H. Waterman, Jr., Thomas J. Peters & Julien R. Philips, “Structure
is Not Organization,” Business Horizons, June 1980.
NEA/NTL OD Certificate Program
Diagnosing Organizations With Impact
Kaye Craft & Arty Trost
March 29-April 1, 2004 2-26
MCKINSEY’S 7 S’S MODEL
! Shared Values and Beliefs: A role of the vision statement is to impart to the
organization (and externally) what the organization stands for and what it
believes in.
! Strategy: States how an organization will attain its vision and respond to the
threats and opportunities of the new mediums. Capabilities are needed in:
marketing, distribution, product and service development, business requirements
analysis; creation and management of alliances & partnerships.
! Systems, including Processes: Capabilities are required in: IT & IS, sales and
service, legal, actuarial.
! Staff: HR management for developing the skills and aptitude for building lifetime
customer relationships. Needed are policies, standards and processes re:
recruitment, training & development, motivation & regards.
! Style: This refers to the management style best suited for the organization. The
challenge for management is to use appropriate styles for the situation without
confusing staff.
! Structure: Organizations will find that changes to processes and style inevitably
require changes to their structure. (e.g. centralized, decentralized, network,
matrix, process structures.)
! Skills: The degree to which necessary skills exist is the core of workforce
planning and often a major aspect in organization diagnosis. If staff and
managers are to acquire all the skills outlined above, then there needs to be an
appropriate learning environment.
GARETH MORGAN
ORGANIZATIONS AS …..
NADLER-TUSHMAN
Transformation Process
Individual
Feedback
MARVIN R. WEISBORD
PURPOSES:
What business are we
in?
STRUCTURES:
RELATIONSHIPS:
How do we divide up the
How do we manage
work?
conflict among people?
With technologies?
LEADERSHIP:
Does someone keep the
boxes in balance?
HELPFUL REWARDS:
MECHANISMS: Do all needed tasks have
Have we adequate incentives?
coordinating
technologies?
ENVIRONMENT
(Human Needs)
NOTE: The model can be seen as a radar screen. Organizational problems appear
as “blips” of varying intensity. It is management’s unending task to scan, assure
balance among the boxes, identify and close gaps between “what is” and “what
ought to be,” between “what is produced,” and “what should be produced.”
Leadership is responsible for providing a mechanism to maintain the scan.
Moreover, closing a gap always requires the use of some helpful mechanism.
Unless a mechanism exists or can be created, nothing is likely to happen.
5. Rewards help or inhibit the “fit” between individuals and organizational goals.
Ideally, organizations should offer incentives—e.g., promotions,
achievements, money—for people to do what most needs doing. In practice,
reward systems sometimes work against the organization’s best interest.
Piecework incentive plans sometimes have this unintended consequence
and, in medicine, academic promotion may hinge on research, even though a
medical center is under pressure to teach and serve patients.
7. Only Leadership can scan the entire environment and act on behalf of the
whole. This is the appropriate role for top administration—to keep the entire
organization in balance, continually creating mechanisms to articulate
Purposes (and change them as the environment changes), alter Structure,
and provide for appropriate Relationships and Rewards.
8. The model provides a vocabulary and way of thinking about these issues.
Source: Weisbord, Marvin R., Six –Box Diagnostic Model, Consultation Skills
Readings, NTL Institute, 1983