Question

Power and politics in organization development

Answer 1

Organisations are made up of many different power elements; different interest groups, divisions with functional agendas, coalitions of special interests, the exercise of managerial power and various aspects of political behaviour exercised by individuals, teams and groups.

With power so inherent in the make up of an organisation it is important that the OD practitioner who is embarking on an OD programme understands what power exists, who holds the power and also the way in which power is used to influence the workings of the organisation.

OD by its nature is political.  Not because it wants to inherit the power within the organisation, but because organisation development is fundamentally about change, and change requires power to happen.  What is more OD may upset the power boundaries and political landscape of the organisation recognising and harnessing the power within the organisation prevents resistance and supports the change process.

Being skillful in our recognition and use of the power holders within the organisation will ensure that the change process is aided by those with power and supported by the political machinations rather than being used to create barriers for the OD practitioner to bump into.

The distribution of power is also useful to understand in the context of organisational diagnosis.  For instance understand how many employees feel disempowered, and don’t perceive themselves as having access to the sources of power within the organisation can inform the organisation development intervention design.   Investigating and understand who holds power, but not necessarily authority will also inform key decisions, especially over who should be included on temporary diagnostic teams, or trained as change agents.

The purpose of the OD intervention is not to eradicate power and politics within the organisation, since they are inevitable, and to do so would be to create a power vacuum which will disrupt the process of embedding the change programme.  Rather, the role of the OD practitioner is to enable power and politics to become a healthy and transformational force for good within the organisation, dedicated to creating a positive environment and healthy organisational behaviours.