Organization Development DE-fined

While there are many definitions of Organization Development (OD) floating around today, we consolidated definitions from past and contemporary leaders of the field and came up with:

Organization Development (OD) is whole-system transformation and development using a values-based collaborative process. It focuses on applying positive behavioral science wisdom to perfecting, reinforcing, and measuring such organizational features as:

• Extraordinary performance
• Building of executive teams
• Aligned leadership
• Relevant strategies
• Synergistic and functional organization design
• Clear organizational structure/chart including roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities
• Cost effective business processes
• Passionate and great human cultures
• Changed behavior and mental sets
• Globalization
• Quickened learning environments
• Or whatever the executive team believes must be focused on to achieve desired results.

In essence, OD leads people to collectively learn and change to produce desired outcomes.