Читать книгу Organization Development - Donald L. Anderson - Страница 36

While Lewin and his colleagues were developing the T-group methodology, an effort was taking place at the University of Michigan, where a Survey Research Center was founded in 1946 under the direction of Rensis Likert. In his Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia in 1932, Likert had developed a 5-point scale for measuring attitudes (a scale known today as the Likert scale). One of the first “clients” brought to Michigan was that of the Office of Naval Research, which was “focused on the underlying principles of organizing and managing human activity and on researching techniques to increase productivity and job satisfaction” (Frantilla, 1998, p. 21). The contract with the Office of Naval Research provided needed and important funding for Likert’s work on management practices in particular, culminating in a 1961 book, New Patterns of Management, which reported the results of his funded research. (These findings are discussed in the next section.)

The Survey Research Center’s goal was to create a hub for social science research, specifically with survey research expertise. Sensing an opportunity to improve their organizations, derive economic success, and develop a competitive advantage, some organizations proposed survey research projects to the center but were denied because the center aimed to focus on larger projects of significant importance beyond a single organization and to share the results publicly. These two criteria (addressing questions of larger significance and making the results known to other researchers and practitioners) formed the core of the action research process. One such project that met these criteria was a survey feedback project at Detroit Edison.

Members of the Survey Research Center conducted a 2-year study at Detroit Edison from 1948 to 1950. The survey of 8,000 employees and managers was administered to understand perceptions, opinions, and attitudes about a variety of aspects of the company, such as career progression and opportunities for advancement, opinions about managers and colleagues, and the work content and work environment itself. The survey also asked supervisors specifically about their opinions about managing at the company, and invited senior leaders and executives to offer additional perceptions from the perspective of top management. The researchers sought to understand not only how employees at Detroit Edison felt about the organization but also how the results of this project could be used to understand, instigate, and lead change in other organizations. There were four objectives of the research project:

1 To develop through first-hand experience an understanding of the problems of producing change

2 To improve relationships

3 To identify factors that affected the extent of the change

4 To develop working hypotheses for later, more directed research. (Mann, 1957, p. 158)

Following the initial data collection, feedback was given to leaders and organizational members about the survey results. Mann (1957) described the process of sharing this feedback as an “interlocking chain of conferences” (p. 158) in which initially the results were shared with the top management, assisted by a member of the research team. At this meeting, participants discussed the results, possible actions, and how the results would be shared with the next level of the organization. Next, each of those participants led a feedback discussion with his or her team about the research results, also conducting action planning and discussing how the results would be shared with the next level. This pattern continued throughout the organization. At each level, the data relevant to that specific group were discussed. Mann noted that the leaders in each case had the responsibility of presenting the data, prioritizing tasks, taking action, and reporting to their supervisors when they had reached an impasse and needed additional assistance to produce change. The researchers observed that this series of feedback meetings had a very positive influence on initiating and leading change in the organization, but they had been unable to substantiate this observation with data.

In 1950 that changed with a second study conducted in eight accounting departments at Detroit Edison that had participated in the first survey. In four of the eight departments, after the initial feedback meeting, no action was taken based on the survey results (two intentionally as “control” departments; two due to personnel changes that made it impossible to continue to include them in the experiment). In the four departments that did take action, managers developed action planning programs that differed significantly from one another. Some programs took as long as 33 weeks, while others took 13; some departments met as frequently as 65 times, while others met as few as 9. Some department action programs involved all employees, while others were limited to the management team. Almost 2 years after the programs were initiated, a third survey was conducted in 1952 to compare the data for groups that had taken significant action and those that had taken no action.

The researchers found that among the groups that had taken action based on the survey results, employees reported a positive change in perceptions about their jobs (such as how important it was and how interested they were in the job), their supervisors (such as the manager’s ability to supervise and give praise), and the company work environment (such as opportunities for promotion or the group’s productivity) compared to the groups that had taken no action. Moreover, Mann (1957) reported,

Employees in the experimental departments saw changes in (1) how well the supervisors in their department got along together; (2) how often their supervisors held meetings; (3) how effective these meetings were; (4) how much their supervisor understood the way employees looked at and felt about things. (p. 161)

Mann added that the change was even stronger in groups that involved all levels and employees in the action planning process. The researchers then could conclude that the conference feedback model they had developed was an effective one, in which data were collected and fed back to organizational members who took action to initiate changes based on the data and discussion of it.

Today, action research, following a model similar to what was done at Detroit Edison, is the foundation and underlying philosophy of the majority of OD work, particularly survey feedback methodologies. This model forms the basis of the OD process that we will discuss in greater detail in Chapter 5. Employee surveys are now a common strategy in almost all large organizations, and action research feedback programs have become one of the most prevalent OD interventions (Church, Burke, & Van Eynde, 1994). We will discuss the use of survey methodologies specifically as a data gathering strategy again in Chapter 7.