Organizational Diagnosis

Introduction

In the field of organizational development, there are a number of disciplines and activities that needs to be undertaken. One of these areas is the organizational diagnosis and the application of structured organizational diagnostic tools. Organization diagnosis can be termed as a systematic approach that builds understanding and description of the present state of the organization. Diagnosis as a business term is a method of analyzing the problems within an organization and learning new patterns of behaviors which helps in enhancing the organization's capacity to assess and change its culture by proving an opportunity for organizational members to learn new things with the aim of ensuring that the organization remains engaged in a process of continuous improvement (Marvin, 2008).

Marvin (2008) asserts that an organization needs to survive or be successful in the rapidly growing society; it must therefore have flexible and capability for rapid transformation. For instance, Restructuring and downsizing are some off the ways of making the organization more effective, and before the organization is downsized and restructured, it needs to diagnose its departments to see the problems they have and to look for the solutions to these problems. In the process of developing a high performance within the organization, it is crucial to identify the problem areas for improvement.

Since the beginning of organizational development as a profession, organizational diagnosis has moved from the purely behavioral towards a strategic and holistic diagnostic approach. It has therefore moved away from looking at human interventions in isolation, to exploring the interactions of individuals in the context in which they operate. Conversely, as the organizations are increasingly becoming collaborative in nature, the traditional silo approach to diagnostic is becoming very rare. Organizational development and particularly the diagnostic phase of activities is spreading from occupational psychologist towards the main stream of business and this has been viewed as very essential for OD practitioners as the role is increasingly holistic.

However, according to debate-synthesis models, there are opposing sides that develop conflict within the organization. When the conflict is resolved then synthesis equilibrium is maintained until the moment another conflict arises. Organizational diagnosis is a chief practitioner skill. It usually examines two broad areas and the first area comprises of several interacting sub-elements that make up the organization such as the divisions, departments, products, and the relationships between them. The Organizational diagnosis may also include a comparison of the top middle, and lower levels of management in the organization. The second area of diagnosis concerns the organizational processes such as team problem-solving, decision-making, leadership and authority styles, communication networks, goal-setting and planning methods, and finally the management of conflict and competition (Marvin, 2008).

However, goal setting change involves defining gaps between where the organization is and where the contributing individuals wants it to be, setting goals and taking actions to reduce these gaps is one crucial element in measuring the results to identify new gaps. Because of environmental changes, there is a recurring pattern of goal setting that is usually followed with action and therefore many performance management systems are based on a gap analysis/goal setting/ action frame. The framework that is employed therefore capture how the organizations' change, or at least how we think concerning such changes within the organization. In this process, there is what we refer to as diagnostic cycle which defines the purpose of diagnosis which is to identify problems that face the organization and also determine their cause so as to help management to plan solutions. Research reveals that an organization diagnosis process is a powerful consciousness raising activities in its own right and usefulness depends on the actions that it induces. The major steps of a diagnostic cycle include the following: orientation, feedback, data gathering, implementation, goal setting, action planning, monitoring, and finally evaluation (Marvin, 2008).

Since the organization is made up of individuals who coordinate activities with others to carry out business transactions; the process of involving people leads to a number of areas getting affected, and must also be taken into account. Why an organization may not take such an initiative? There are a number of reasons: For one, most companies are simply willing to take their time to conduct an organizational diagnosis and for another, some companies are not sure of how to account for all the interconnected parts. Up to that point, I believe that it is vital for organizations to comprehend and take advantage of an organizational diagnosis since this process can: help confirm what you are aware of and remove blind spots, help laser in on other very essential; information, and finally reveal certain activities that they were not aware of (Marvin, 2008).

Conclusion

Marvin (2008) affirms that the organizational diagnosis is extremely important since organizations face new challenges in the global world. Since business has a number of interconnected activities; they are therefore interdependent to one another but not independent of one another. So when one unit acts on even one piece of the business, invariably, there are implications for other units or areas. In other words, a change in one part of your business may lead to impacting of entire business and this is why organization diagnosis is vital. Moreover, the effective diagnosis of organizational culture, structure, and operational strengths and weaknesses are therefore fundamental to any successful business organizational development intervention.

I would recommend that managerial department within the organization carry the following tasks: gather more data to confirm or disprove initial diagnosis, check the regional employment data to determine if data-processing personnel are being paid competitively, use diagnosis models as force-field analysis to understand problems better, and finally hold departmental meetings to explain bank procedures and rationale for how pay level needs to be set.