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Total Organizational Change

John Gavares, president of The Gavares Group, has led dozens of interventions to improve the total organization. Some examples of this include strategic planning change efforts, employee attitude survey-feedback interventions, customer satisfaction survey-feedback interventions, development of employee-management partnerships, work redesign and restructuring efforts, and a variety of culture change efforts.

By the very nature of the filed, the total system is the client. Organization development efforts are a systemic or gestalt consulting approach, rather than simply focusing on the human relations subsystem of the organization.

The Gavares Group's High-Performing Organizational Model and the field of organization development is the basis for John's "interventions designed to improve the effectiveness of the total organization." The model, and the accompanying assessment instrument, helps people to diagnose their organization, develop prescriptive solutions as to areas for improvement, and also serve as an educational tool for team members about high performing organizations.

Organizations consist of number of significant interacting subsystems. These subsystems include purpose and goal subsystems, a task subsystem, a technological subsystem, a structural subsystem, an external interface subsystem and a human-social subsystem

External Interface: A subsystem of it's broader environment.
Purpose Subsystem: An overarching vision and mission provide direction and purpose.
Goals and Strategies: The key areas of focus and strategies to achieve the mission.
Systems: People's use of technology, knowledge, techniques, equipment and facilities, and the management, human resources, communication and information technology subsystems
Structural Subsystem: People working together on integrated activities in the formal and informal organization structure.
A Psycho-social Subsystem: People in social relationships. This refers to the culture and climate of the organizations.

This system model of organizations leads to several principles about organization development at the total organization level.

One can start anywhere. System-wide change may occur by introducing change in any one of the subsystems, as all organization subsystems are interdependent of each other.
The initial intervention is often at the Culture/climate subsystem and/or the Purpose subsystem While this may be the initial starting point, there will likely be direct and/or indirect impacts and follow-up interventions in the other subsystems One will end up working at the team, individual, intergroup, and external interface levels.
The focus isn't just internal, although most organization development efforts are inward-looking, such as leadership development, team development, and inter-group relations. Organization development consultants also provide outward-looking interventions for organization members. These are activities directed toward environmental analysis, customer satisfaction and strategic planning.

John has combined these subsystems in his five box model, shown below:

View the High Performing Organizational Model

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