Organizational Development: Challenging Questions about Interventions

When an intervention fails the consultant can use this opportunity to just reexamine the situation and use that data to reconstruct a better intervention or an entirely new one that is better suited or the client’s organization. I believe that an intervention although can have negative effects if it is one of multiple failed interventions that have been implemented in a short amount of time, thereby ruining the credibility of the consultant and possibly lowering the percentage of engagement of the stakeholders.

Also, if the employees of the organization feel that the intervention does not have a positive impact on their professional development it may cause resistance or an increase in the organization’s turnover rate.

Were there any interventions or changes in procedures in the organization that you are presently with that occurred for only a short amount of time, only to go back to the “way thing was”? In your professional experience, have you seen coworkers become disgruntled by organizational changes that they simply resisted the change until it was repealed, or they left the organization because of it?

Organizational Clarity: Whether an Intervention is working

Excerpt from an Old OD posting

We know that to intervene means to change something in an organization. With change comes responsibility. How do we know for sure that our intervention will work? What do we do if it causes more harm than good?

When it comes to an intervention working I believe if some of the goals outlined in the initial planning and contract stages achieved would be an indicator. Also, I think that if the client could accomplish and grow in their roles outlined in the contract and if there is an actual change in the system and methodology of the organization to achieve increase productivity and streamline the services they provide.

If there is still resistance to the organization change set by the objectives and a consensus of what needs to be accomplished or unrealistic expectations with an illogical timeframe to complete them remain then we know that the intervention has not worked. “Clearing the weeds” or making sure that the client is fully committed to the change and all the employees are on the same page with minimal or no resistance remain on a long-term basis towards the program, could also be a benchmark that the interventions had worked.

The possible way that we are causing more harm than good is if we use the wrong intervention, based on the information the client gives us, we as consultants can just change the focus of the intervention. For example, if we are lead to believe that the issue is team based than an organization based on the client during the initial meeting, we can take the data gathered by the failed intervention to illustrate to the client the need for a directional change of the intervention. The last thing we want to do is cause more stress or further embed resistance to future interventions or lose the engagement of the members of the organization.

With the new data gathered the consultant can narrow down the focus of what is the best option(s) to solve the problem, and it can be touted to the members of the failed intervention as a step in the overall process for change management.  Meeting this hurdle with positive psychology instead of being negative towards this situation, the consultant can easily begin the buy-in process again. 
By using this as a starting point (or reason) for the need to have increased communication between members or for the client to commit to their roles, if there was a measure of resistance in these areas. The consultant can use this failure as the focal point to reenergize, refocus the members of the organization and demand resources in areas where they were previously limited.