Introduction
Organisation development(OD) is a planned process of change in an organisation’s culture through the utilization of behavioral science technology, research and theory (Warner Burke, 1982).
It also refers to a long range effort to improve an organisation’s problem solving capabilities and its ability to cope with changes in its external environment with the help of external or internal behavioral-scientist consultant or change agents (Wandell French, 1969).
Organisation transformation(OT) is a term referring collectively to such activities as re-engineering, redesigning and redefining business systems. It is often used when there is existing issue faced by the organisation.
Organisation development is the preferred choice that an organisation wants to be in and continually improve their products and service in an incremental manner. In order to achieve OD, organisation need internal or external change agents to aid them. However, after assessing the advantages and disadvantages of the change agents (Appendix 1 & 2), internal change agent will be better for organisation to achieve OD as compared to external change agent.
Internal and External Change Leadership
External change agents are consultants who are temporary employed in the organization to remain engaged only for the duration of the change process. An internal change agent is a staff person who has expertise in the behavioural sciences to help in the OD. Various reviewers of change management argue that OD applied by managers, rather than OD professionals has grown rapidly. It has been suggested that the faster pace of change affection organisation today is highlighting the centrality of the manager in the managing change. Therefore, OD must become a general management skill. Many managerial staffs in an organisation are equipped with this relevant skill.
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Internal Change Leadership in the Action Research Model
The Action Research model focuses on planned change as a cyclical process in which initially research about the organisation provides information to guide subsequent action. The model emphasises on data gathering and diagnosis pior to action planning and implementation. The result will be carefully evaluated after action has been taken.
Data gathering and preliminary diagnosis: Although Internal change agents are often limited by perceptions and position in the organization, but they have the value of in-depth knowledge of the business, the organisation and the management. This in-depth knowledge makes them particularly valuable on sensitive implementation of strategic change projects or culture transformation initiatives, managing processes or projects, and integrating or leveraging initiatives across the organisation. It can also help to reduce the time spent on data gathering as internal change agents will have intimate knowledge of the organisation and its dynamics, culture and informal practices.
Being part of the organisation, internal change agents are able to interact more freely with the fellow employees. This enable the internal change agents to gather a more reliable information as compared to external change agents. Feedback to client: In this step, clients are given the information gathered by the change agent to help them determining the strengths and weakness of the organisation. Internal change agents are employees and they have a better understanding to the organisational structure. Thus, after gathering the relevant information, it will be easier for them to feedback to the client as the client need not afraid that information on the organisation’s weakness will be exposed.
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Internal change agents have the knowledge of the politics in the organisation, this will enable to effectively establish rapport and trust better than external change agent. Organisation may be also wary of the external change agents as the organisation may fear that confidential information will be exposed. Joint diagnosis of problem: At this point, fellow employees discuss the feedback and diagnosis with the internal change agents whether they want to work on the identified issues. Strong inter-relationship between internal change agents, the fellow employees and clients can help in the understanding of the result gathered in the earlier steps. This is important as the failure to establish a common frame of reference in this relationship will lead to faulty diagnosis or to a communication gap whereby client become unwillingly to believe the diagnosis. By using internal change agents, organisations are more likely to have the trust in the diagnosis as compare to external change agents because internal change agents have the more sense of ownership to the OD as compare to external change agents.
Joint action planning: At this stage, further action for the OD had been decided. Internal change agents will have the advantage of getting hold of the first hand information. Any immediate follow up action can be access and rectify Action: This stage involves the actual change from one organisation state to another. It may include installing new methods and procedures, reorganising structures and work designs, and reinforcing new behaviour. This stage may also take a long period to reach the ideal outcome. Although external change agents are often viewed as professional and has more credibility, internal change agents have the advantage of the sense of ownership to the change. Internal change agents are viewed as part of the organisation and fellow employee will trust them and will result in a smoother transition period. Data gathering after action: This research action model is a cyclical process.
Therefore, internal change agents can more effectively gather the output of the change result and feedback to the client. The result obtained will also most likely be more accurate and timely. This will enhance the effectiveness of the process of rectification and also to stop OD if the result obtained is deem as a failure. This will help the organisation to cut cost if the change is a failure. Circumstances whereby Internal change leadership were preferred Planned change can be contrasted across situations on 2 key dimensions, namely the magnitude of organisational change and the degree to which client system is organised. One of the planned change is magnitude of organisational change. Planned change can be either incremental or quantum. Under incremental change, OD practitioners help to solve specific problems in particulars organisational systems.
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Example of such problem are poor communication between inter-departments, low productivity and continuous improvement as a quality management process etc. These issues are mostly solved by internal change agents because of the nature of the problems. Most of these issues are smaller problems faced by the organisation. By hiring external change agent for these problems are too expensive and time consuming. Under the quantum change, OD practitioners help to create a vision of a desired future and energise movements in that direction. Examples of quantum change are changing an organization’s structure and culture from the traditional top-down, hierarchical structure to a large amount of self-directing teams. Another example might be Business Process Re-engineering, which tries to take apart the major parts and processes of the organization and then put them back together in a more optimal fashion.
These changes are more complex. Therefore, more people are involved in the change. The advantage of using internal change agents in this scenario will be the fact internal change agents have more in-depth knowledge of the structure of the organisation. By hiring external change agent, employee may have ‘fear’ to the outcome of the change. This can affect the morale of the organisation and data obtained from employees of the organisation may be untrue. Although quantum is a complex change, a more professional change agent is needed and more professional change agents should be involved in the process.
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However, by having different internal change agents from department of the organisation to work together can also have the same result of hiring the external change agents as mentioned earlier that more employees are equipped with the knowledge of OD. By having internal change agents, not only they have the ownership of the change and also it is cheap for the organisation. This could be useful for some smaller organisation. The 2nd dimension of planned change is the degree of organisation of the company. The system of a company can vary between overorganised situations to under-organised manner. In an overorganised system, the structure and leadership style of the company is usually bureaucratic and rigid. Most organisation that are in such organised manner usually have conducted OD before. Thus, having internal change agents should be sufficient for the organisation.
Conclusion
Internal change agent are preferred to External change agent for various reasons as mentioned as above. Internal change agents are closer to the organisation and have the ownership to the change and organisation. They are most likely to understand what is require and have a clearer picture of the change. However, if the change is drastic, organisations should consider hire a small group of external change agent as consultant for the internal change agent as external change agents are more experienced in OD. Organisations should not depend only on external change agent for OD because it may expose the weakness of the organisation and endanger the competitive edge of the organisation.
