Practicing Organization Development: Leading Transformation and Change, 4th Edition

Chapter TwentyOrganization Design that Transforms

Amy Kates

A foundational understanding of organization design frameworks and methods should be in the toolkit of any organization development (OD) and human resource (HR) professional. Many business leaders understand that the design of an organization is just as much a source of competitive advantage as strategy or talent. While not all OD practitioners and HR generalists will engage in the design of whole new organizations, most will be asked to help activate these changes—to bring to life the assumptions that business leaders have made about how strategy should be executed, where the power and resources lie, how decisions are made, and the behaviors that are essential to that organization's culture.

To make the right choices about what interventions and support to provide, the OD practitioner must understand how the organization has been designed if brought in after the fact, and be ready to guide leaders in making sound choices when given the opportunity. This chapter discusses the relationship between organization design and OD, highlights key frameworks and methods in the field, and suggests some of the competencies needed for those who wish to pursue a deeper practice in organization design.

The Relationship of Organization Design to Organization Development

Organization design is a decision science for selecting among competing alternatives to match the optimal organizational model to the strategy (Boudreau and Ramstad ...