Assessing an organization’s culture can be tedious. It involves looking at the values, beliefs, and behaviors of leaders and employees. While some cultural characteristics may be evident, others may be harder to define. It can be a challenge to analyze and transform organizational cultures, but is a worthwhile exercise because it shapes the motivation and engagement of people that may lead to empowering or hindering an organization’s success.
OD is a planned approach that enables building and sustaining new ways of working. It’s about managing change, embedding it, and reinforcing new norms or practices through aligned processes and systems. Simply put, OD can be an instrument for culture building. It’s not a matter of why OD plays an indispensable role in culture transformation, it’s a question of how.
RELATED: How to Transform Your Corporate Culture into a Progressive One
Human resource and organizational development go hand-in-hand in continuously innovating and improving the culture they disseminate to employees in the organization.
Process Observation and Analysis (POA) as “a method of confirming exactly what is occurring during any particular process [through observation],” is an interesting approach in culture assessment and transformation. The nature of process observation and analysis and its various elements are at play in any group interaction and in any particular context. POA, when properly utilized, can be an effective tool in understanding culture and change experiences.
Josephine Perez, a licensed psychologist and a faculty member of the Ateneo de Manila University’s Psychology Department, has been in the OD field since 1994. What particularly stands out in Perez’s career, aside from being a consultant to Ateneo CORD (Center for Organization Research and Development) and Senior Facilitator to its Diploma in Organization Development (DOD) Program, is her passion to transform work and community cultures through processes that help enhance organization health and sustainability as well as promote peace.
Perez will facilitate an interactive session on POA in the upcoming Organization Development Practitioners Network (ODPN) Philippines, Inc. event – . The goal of the session is to impart process observation and analysis (POA) skills to participants and describe how POA can be utilized in understanding the culture of another organization as well as in creating a ripple of change in their own organization culture.
OD Lab 2019 From Culture to Cool Chore is 3-day conference that intends to dissect, immerse, and ultimately put into practice the company culture invasion that will transpire. The speakers, Josephine Perez, licensed psychologist and Ateneo de Manila faculty and Victor L. Magdaraog, senior business advisor will propel the conference to an informative start. Culture, especially in the corporate world, can make or break an organization. The Keynote speakers will be there to dissect how culture and organization transformation through process observation and analysis (POA) happens, followed by immersion, and a summarization of learning on the last day.
It’s not too late to join this innovative immersion and learning. Check out our events page or OD Lab’s official website.
Sources:
“About GZO Peace Institute.” GZO Peace Institute. Accessed September 18, 2019. https://gzopi.wordpress.com/about-gzo-peace/
“Organizational Development.” Psychology. Accessed September 18, 2019. https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/industrial-organizational-psychology/organizational-development/
“Programme.” ODPN PH Events Website. Accessed September 18, 2019. http://www.odpnph.org/program.html
“The Art of Direct Process Observation.” MNP LLP. September 25, 2015. Accessed September 24, 2019. https://www.mnp.ca/en/posts/the-art-of-direct-process-observation-–-a-proven-technique-for-improving-manufacturing-performance
Patricia Li is a frequent contributor at WorkWise Asia and Familywise Asia. She loves to read and write, and tries to incorporate this in her career.
