QAM5034:

Organisational Development & Change

Meeting 6
Consulting

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nor Zairah Ab. Rahim

nzairah@utm.my

1
 LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain in details what consulting is in organisation development
2. Highlight the importance/ benefits of consulting in organisation development
3. Identify the phases of consulting in organisation development
4. Explain the various processes in each of the phases of organizationl development consulting
 INTRODUCTION
 As learnt in previous units, OD is an approach to implementing
modification in a company.
 It's a developing field borrowing from numerous disciplines to resolve
issues and set up for many effective results (Tolbert, 2004).

 OD consulting plays a role in bringing modification in organisations.

 By applying theoretical models and implementing specific solutions, OD consultants can help foster
development and growth among organisations and build their capacity to be prepared for sustainable
change.
 Consultants’ roles can be powerful as they assist move the consumer from an unaware unconscious
state to becoming knowledgeable, and deliberately and consciously awake to their decisions to achieve
more practical desired outcomes (Quade & Brown, 2002).
 OD consultants facilitate build capability for modification and become more practical and economical.
 CONSULTANCY IN OD
 Consulting refers to the availability of professional recommendation to a particular cluster of individuals.

 Consulting in OD involves analysing the organisation’s operations and recommending interventions for progress.

 “a sequence of fact-finding processes and actions”. It's embedded in action analysis.

 “The method of consistently collecting and analysing knowledge on a progress system relative to some
objective, goal, or want of that system; feeding these knowledge into the system; taking actions by fixing
selected variables inside the system based on the information and theory; and assessing the results” (French &
Bell 1990).

 The client and the professional work together towards delivery of inventive and innovative interventions.

 Each of them holds the competencies which are needed by the other.

 In OD, a consultant is a facilitator and not an expert. The advisor chiefly acts as a question-asker, and
secondarily as an answer-giver.

 A consultant is skilful, non-reactive and and act as an instrument of the change via attending to the client.
Characteristics of an OD consultant
The consulting process.
Nickols (2003)
Stages in the phases of OD consulting
Processes in start-up consulting phase
Procedures in the
start-up phase
Fundamental factors of the start-up phase
processes
The diagnosis process
Brown (2011)
Predominant types of interventions in OD
Actions needed for intervention
 Examples of Intervention
Level Example
Personal  Job remodelling and enrichment
 Training and management development
 Improving the quality of working life
 Management by objectives
 Career development.
Team  Team building
 Installation of self-reliant workgroups or quality control circles.
The transition stage
Entails completion, assessment and doing follow-ups.
Includes evaluating the outcomes of the intervention and managing the institutionalisation of successful
change programmes.
Feedback to enterprise members about the intervention's outcomes gives facts about whether or not the
changes be continued, modified, or suspended.
Evaluation is information gathering after an action has been taken to measure and decide the results of
the action and to feed the consequences to the organisation.
Lead to re-diagnosis and new action.

Completion is the closure of the consultancy engagement.

Disregard the outcome, consultants should not terminate the relationship

 Summary
• Consulting in organisation development plays a role in bringing change in
organisations.
• It applies theoretic models and implements specific change solutions to
help foster organisations development and growth and build their readiness for
sustainable change.
• Consultancy in OD has the characteristics of Change, Collaboration,
performance, humanistic values, systems and is scientific.
• The consulting process in OD can be compressed into 4 major phases and
each phase has 3 processes.