Organizational Development and Productivity Questionnaire

Introduction to Organizational Development

Yes Questions | No Questions | References

Productive, profitable organizations do not just share a communal sense of direction, inter-departmental team goals, enterprise wide understanding of customer segments, or unified profit drivers. They have consistent messages. They communicate well. They are also empowered, engaged, and spiritually cohesive.

Organizational development

signs of alignment

Organizational development is (OD) is the process of improving organizations with an emphasis on systems and holistic perspectives. It is centered on improving the whole organization, as opposed to protecting or preserving coalition interests.

OD’s major opportunities remain primarily centered in five components which greatly affect performance, profitability and productivity. This statement is compounded in today’s rapidly changing environment. In today’s world organizations must view OD through the prism of continuous improvement as opposed to a project to be completed.

Astute observers will notice a strong MBO and scorecard or measurement component below. In no particular order, the five major disciplines are:

Organizational structure, roles
Compensation and incentives
Job description, development and evaluation
Communication and story telling
Power, coalition, and authority

These five disciplines are holistic in nature. Issues in the above disciplines have common signposts or tells which signal them. These five components are portions of a larger holistic experience but often treated separately with less effect. The proverbial horse may actually not be thirsty at all, but exhibit stomach problems because the bowels are not working properly. The compartmental approach then becomes part of the issue.

Organizational development buttressed by technology has the potential to double organizational productivity. Just as importantly, it offers organizations highly engaged employees with high morale and an esprit de Corps. It is not possible to directly effect these emotional states; they must be results of productive and fulfilling environments.

Productivity questionnaire

Following is a questionnaire to help you determine if your organization would benefit from a formal review and option analysis of your organizational development.

YES Questions:

Do you believe that your organization could be more effective if it realigned the five components listed above?
Does your organization tend to consider each new endeavor as a blank slate?
Does your organization find itself ignoring its business plan?
Do you have the sense the organization keeps re-inventing the wheel?
Does fire fighting define more than 20% of your management group’s time?
Is Upper management a bottle neck?
Do you often feel that departments hold each other up from getting their work done?
Do you sense that your organization jumps from one large project to another with no real sense of connectivity between them?
Do you believe organizational alignment is primarily a common sense endeavor?
Do you sense there is a process to develop or approach new ideas, if only it were roomy enough to handle a spectrum of situations and variables?
Are your project estimates often inaccurate?
Does your organization have a Management and Employee mentality, even though it may no be adversarial?
Is it common practice to work heroic hours to complete projects within budget?
Is it generally accepted that longer hours are the primary means to increase productivity?
Are your performance reviews primarily manager ratings across a broad array of topics?
Is your management group over 70% homogeneous; sharing any one of common industry, experience, or job function?
Are the challenges of your organizational alignment primarily a function of your unique organization?
Does Upper management provide new direction and policies that employees had no idea they were working on?
Is your subjective assessment of employees and potential an informal process?
Do you see one job function (e.g., sales) as dominant, and therefore heavily favored (virtually excluding all others) in promotions?
Is your turnover high?
Are your job descriptions difficult because your organization is so unique?
Does the organization’s business plan need major revisions every 6 months or so?
Do you believe high turnover is inevitable?
Is there a formal process to determine employee strengths?

NO Questions:

If you do poll others for subjective assessments of employees, do you formally record them? Do you invite employees to respond to others’ subjective assessments of them?
Is there a process to discuss, record, assimilate and communicate lessons learned for group and project activities?
Is your organization’s morale high? Have you conducted a survey lately? Was it detailed enough to give you actionable next steps?
Are your performance reviews tied to objective, measurable performance criteria?
Does your organization have extensive experience in organizational development?
Does upper management fully understand your department’s job? If you are upper management, can you unequivocally describe departmental function and their inherent conflicts?
Does your organization insist on formal participation at all levels of the organization in forming and revisiting policies and ideas? If so, does it have a process for it?

These questions are in no way exhaustive. If you saw your organization in the ‘yes’ questions, or answered ‘no’ to any number of the ‘no’ questions, your organization would benefit from professional consultation.

Significant productivity gains are possible without just working longer and harder.