Barriers to Organizational Development

Why do you believe organizational development is so difficult?

Our text states that there is a natural degradation (entropy) of the organizational systems that leads to disorganization (Kreps, 2011). This is due to the fact that the major cause is human processes (Kreps, 2011). Humans are not perfect or infallible which brings about many problems within an organization. If a machine breaks down causing production to slow down, you get the parts and fix it. When there is a human breakdown that causes problems it is not so easily solved. Especially today when there is new politically correct ways to communicate with employees so as not to offend anyone. Working with human problems is more time consuming and challenging.



A barrier to organizational development that I have personally experienced as an employee or that stands out to me as being common.
Our text states that sometimes organizations spend all of their time on stability issues which leaves less time for innovation of an organization (Kreps, 2011). An example of that is the organization I work for has a very large turnover of employees, especially at the front desk and management roles. When you are constantly having to train new employees to do just the basic parts of their job, there is no time to initiate new policies and expect effective collection of feedback. As our text states getting the "right" information from a variety of people within and outside the organization—becomes a key aspect of organizational development (Kreps, 2011).

Every time the organization I work for comes out with a new policy, the comment is made, that the changes will be in effect for a few days then it will go back to the way it was. This is because there is no follow through after the policy change or information gathered before the change, to see if it is something that will be beneficial or not.

Why I believe this barrier is challenging for organizations.

Organizations spend a lot of time and hard work making sure there is stability in the everyday operations of their organization as it is often hard to achieve. Due to the time consuming nature of making and enforcing the rules and regulations that have been developed to keep order in all the organizations activities, less time is available for innovations (Kreps, 2011).

Think of your organization and what happens every time someone quits and a new person is hired. We discussed in previous chapters about the culture of an organization and how it takes time for new people to blend in with the culture of that organization (Kreps, 2011).
Sometimes people fit in quickly and learn how to thrive in this new environment, other times it is a struggle. When I was interviewed for a position at the other organization I work for, the non-franchised business, the owner made the statement that they try to keep the drama out of the work place. As I was sitting in the breakroom, talking to other employees about stability and innovation while working on this assignment, a great example came to me. We were discussing how negativity and drama can cause an organization to stagnate and not move forward and grow. This is like a plant. When a plant is exposed to sunlight and loving care it grows and flourishes, unlike when it is cloudy, stormy, and neglected, it withers and dies. This is also true of organizations. One of the hairstylists told me that the problem that caused the last place she worked to close down, was that the management was so busy with internal problems and no longer made information and classes available that helped the hairstylists become better at their trade and increase customer satisfaction. Innovation taking the back seat to stability is a barrier that is very common in a lot of organizations.

What I would do to overcome it, if I was faced with change in my organization.

A balance between working on stability issues and innovative ideas needs to be present. If the employees are continuing to develop and grow, then your company with also. Making everyone feel like they are an important part of the team and listening to their input and individual needs will help an organization be more innovative and less worried about stability issues. Change is good, but innovation, like ambition and great ideas, aren’t enough; you have to be able to communicate with people in order to be successful (Bovée & Thill, 2014).

References
Bovée, C. L., & Thill, J. V. (2014). Business communication today (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Kreps, G.L. (2011). Communication in organizations. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.