The Levels of Organisational Development

If I was to tell you that some recent research ( Levels of organisational development ) has been able to analyse and describe exactly where an organisation is at any moment in time, and where it should be heading next? Useful eh? Well it has been done. Over the next few weeks I will delve into this research and describe each of the levels and how they impact organisations. 

The Levels of organisational development and which ones respond best to rapidly changing market conditions

Whilst the paper looks at how to ensure business continuity in engineering manufacturing in the face of change, the lessons learned have implications for every organisation facing a rapidly changing external environment, be that innovation, political upheaval, economic change etc.

The point the authors make is that changes in the market and environment put pressure on organisations to increase operating and manufacturing flexibility. The paper identifies six levels of organisational development which are a really useful formulation for many organisations.

Level 1: Formation

Distinctive features of the formation level of organisational development: –

a)    Absence of formalised goals and scorecards

b)    Absence of a formalised planning system (planning of resource requirements, development planning)

c)    Absence of a formalised organisation structure of management

d)    Absence of clearly expressed functional responsibilities for both managers and employees

e)    Absence of formalised goals, performance and efficiency indicators

f)      Absence of the necessary regulatory documents

g)    Centralisation of management (all strategic decisions tend to be made by the CEO)

h)    Absence of organisation’s development strategy

These organisations tend to be start ups and the goals of the organisation and the employees mirror each other. There a few delineations of role and the roles may be interchangeable. There tends to be a high degree of employees’ involvement in the process of decision making, which allows the organisation to use their potential in achieving the organisations goals to the maximum extent.

One of the defining characteristics of organisations in the formation level or stage is fast decision making by the management determines the high speed of response to changes in external and internal factors. These in turn, directly affect both the operation and development of the organisation.

Additionally, successful companies are based on high levels of personnel competence that is sufficient for the set operational and organisation development tasks. Low levels of competence cannot be carried or allowed with organisations at this level of operation.

In the next post I will look at level 2 the levels of organisational development – formalisation.

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