Organization Development. Donald L. Anderson

motivate change (the individual component), manage transitions, and pay attention to political dynamics of change as well.

      The Burke-Litwin Model of Organizational Performance and Change

      Burke and Litwin (1992) praised many of the models of organizational change that had been developed up to the early 1990s, but they also saw them as overly simplistic. Many of these models had real-world proven utility and had been developed from practitioners’ own experiences. Some prior models could not, however, predict the impact of an organizational change with certainty on other elements of the organization, and other models lacked empirical testing. Burke and Litwin developed their model of organizational performance and change as a causal model that could be empirically tested, that would specify the variables that would be affected by a given change, and that would take into account both first-order (transactional) and second-order (transformational) change (see Figure 4.4). Theirs is explicitly a model of organizational change based in systems theory that is intended to follow from its basic tenets.

      Description

      Figure 4.4 The Burke-Litwin Model of Organizational Performance and Change

      Source: Burke, W. W., & Litwin, G. H. (1992). A causal mode of organizational performance and change. Journal of Management, 18, 523–545. Reprinted with permission from SAGE Publications, Inc.

      Many observers have remarked on the complexity of this model and express confusion about the number and direction of the arrows. Burke and Litwin acknowledge that the model is complex but state that change is such a complex phenomenon, the model is still likely a simplified version of what actually occurs during change. Similar to systems theory, the external environment at the top of the model represents inputs, the individual and organizational performance box at the bottom of the model represents the output, and all other boxes between these represent the throughput processes. Arrows indicate the greatest directions of influence among the variables, but the downward arrows, they believe, have greater influence on lower boxes than do the upward arrows to the variables above them. Burke and Litwin write that all boxes generally affect all others, but the arrows in the model represent the most important causal links. They define each component as follows:

       External environment. Any outside condition or situation that influences the performance of the organization

       Mission and strategy. What employees believe is the central purpose of the organization and how the organization intends to achieve that purpose over an extended period of time

       Leadership. Executive behavior that provides direction and encourages others to take needed action

       Culture. “The way we do things around here”; culture is the collection of overt and covert rules, values, and principles that guide organizational behavior and that have been strongly influenced by history, custom, and practice

       Structure. The arrangement of functions and people into specific areas and levels of responsibility, decision-making authority, and relationships

       Management practices. What managers do in the normal course of events to use the human and material resources at their disposal to carry out the organization’s strategy

       Systems. Standardized policies and mechanisms that are designed to facilitate work

       Climate. The collective current impressions, expectations, and feelings of the members of local work units

       Task requirements and individual skills/abilities. The behavior required for task effectiveness, including specific skills and knowledge required for people to accomplish the work assigned and for which they feel directly responsible

       Individual needs and values. The specific psychological factors that provide desire and worth for individual actions or thoughts

       Motivation. Aroused behavioral tendencies to move toward goals, take needed action, and persist until satisfaction is attained

       Individual and organizational performance. The outcomes or results, with indicators of effort and achievement; such indicators might include productivity, customer or staff satisfaction, profit, and service quality (Burke, 1993, pp. 130–132)

      Burke and Litwin write that the model attempts to integrate notions of transformational and transactional change. The factors most influential in transformational change are due to environmental causes, so the top four boxes (external environment, mission and strategy, leadership, and organization culture) have the greatest influence on performance. During transactional change, the other boxes below this level (structure, management practices, and so on) are the major factors of interest. Burke (2002) has described several cases in which applications of the model have been successfully tested.

      Profiles in Organization Development

       W. Warner Burke

      E. L. Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education

      W. Warner Burke, Ph.D., is the E.L. Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he has been since 1979. He teaches leadership and organization change and development. His research focuses on learning agility, multi-rater feedback, and leadership. He has authored, co-authored, edited, and co-edited 21 books and written over 200 articles and book chapters. He has received several lifetime achievement awards and NASA’s Public Service Medal, The Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the U.S. Army, the Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner Award from the Academy of Management, and the Distinguished Professional Contributions Award from the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

      1 What kind of OD work do you do?Large-scale organization change such as the transition of British Airways (BA) from a government owned and operated airline to a private enterprise. The change, including the culture of BA, took five years starting with a costly drain on the British government, i.e., hemorrhaging money, to the most profitable airline in the world by 1990. A primary intervention was multi-rater feedback followed with coaching. I worked closely with the head of HR and the CEO.Another example would be the merger of Smithkline Pharmaceuticals based in Philadelphia and Beecham, Ltd based in London. Two primary interventions were teambuilding with the newly formed C Suite of the merged companies and application of the Burke-Litwin Model and survey—time 1 compared with time 2 about 18 months later showed significant performance increases.

      2 Why do you find it a compelling profession of research and/or practice?With more than a 70% failure rate regarding organization change efforts—defined as not accomplishing the goals established for the change—OD is highly relevant and a much-needed profession of applied research and practice. Few endeavors in the so-called “real world” are more compelling. Yes, medical practice saves lives, yet OD saves the livelihood of work life. Moreover, OD is a way to humanize capitalism and augment democracy.

      3 What first drew you to the field of OD?In the summer of 1965 I was awarded an NIMH scholarship to attend the “Applied Behavioral Science Intern Program” of eight weeks in Bethel, Maine, sponsored by the National Training Laboratories (NTL) to learn about the T-Group (T for training) and how to conduct one. The T-Group is all about becoming more interpersonally sensitive and thereby increasing one’s self-awareness and emotional intelligence. The vehicle for this training comprises having adults in a small group combined with a trainer/facilitator. My learning objective was to become a proficient T-Group facilitator. This form of training, later perfected by Edgar Schein, became known as “process consultation,” a bedrock of OD work. I had become so enamored with this form of adult learning that when offered a full-time job with NTL (then an arm of NEA, the National Education Association), I never looked back and stayed for eight years, the most significant learning and growth period of my life. NTL also spawned the beginnings of OD built heavily on process consultation. Thus I was involved in OD almost at its beginning.