Organizational Diagnostics Model Assessment: Industrial Services of America Case Study

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Hello and welcome to Brainmass. I hope you find the attached document useful in guiding your decision for which OD model best suits ISA. While Brainmass OTAs are not permitted to complete assignments for our customers, I've provided an opinion to illustrate the written format of Warrant/Position/Case.

-Benjamin

Introduction-Why Organizational Diagnosis
Organizational diagnosis (OD) provides codified methods to align an enterprise's operations with its overall strategy. Many excellent business plans have failed owing to a disconnect between strategy and tactics- OD strives to build a model of an organization which can then be diagnosed for improvements. The field has evolved over the past 50 years, with many competing models offering difference balances between simplicity and complexity, different foci varied between inputs, throughputs, and output. Regardless of the focus and scope
chosen, OD offers enterprise leadership the opportunity to objectively assess their organization
and directly apply efforts to affect change. Dr. Salvatore Falletta (2008) published an excellence
summary of the evolution of OD models, his summary provides a broad perspective on each-
with an eye to critically assessing which would be the best fit for Industrial Services of America.
Force Field Analysis
Conceived over 50 year ago by Kurt Lewin, Force Field (FF) theory seeks to analyze and
manage organizational problems, (Falletta, 2008). It is a broad, generalized theory of group
interaction that requires a great deal of customization to be useful to a specific organization. This
can be considered a strength, as it can be applied across disciplines and industries. FF Analysis
begins with an organization‟s current state. This state is the result of various forces applied at
equilibrium. Changing some combination of driving forces (those promoting change), and
restraining forces (those resisting change) allows transformation of the organization into a new,
desired equilibrium, (Falletta, 2008).
Some of the underlying assumptions of FF make its application difficult. First and most
fundamental is that an organization is ever at equilibrium. Defining the current state of affairs in
INDUSTRIAL SERVICES OF AMERICA-ORGANIZATIONAL DIAGNOSTICS 4
order to identify the differentiated fields assumes they are constant- and identifiable at all,
(Business, 2009). Modern business is likely obsolete if ever in equilibrium.
Leavitt's Model
An attempt to refine FF Analysis occurred with Leavitt‟s Model in 1965, (Falletta, 2008).
Leavitt expanded the idea of force fields into specific categories: structure, technology, people,
and task, (Harwood, n.d.). Similar to FF Analysis, all four variables are interdependent-changes
in one likely motivate subsequent changes in another, (Falletta, 2008). Leavitt‟s model cannot be
considered an improvement on FF in that it is even more generalized, lacks any specific criteria
for how each variable affects the others, and makes no attempt to consider the organization‟s
relationship- as a whole- with the surrounding environment.
Likert System Analysis
Focusing much more on how internal elements interact-and much less on defining each
internal element-Likert System Analysis focuses on the vertical integration of an organization.
Likert describes four primary types of organizations, from most to least vertically organized:
Exploitive-Authoritarian, Benevolent-Authoritarian, Consultative, and Participative Group,
(Falletta, 2008). The major improvement on previous theories was Likert‟s inclusion of an
exhaustive survey for gauging how the target organization operates. Limitations include the
dated nature of the theory (written in 1967), as well as a lack of practical application. The crux of
Likert‟s work was the idea that employees were beginning to expect a more democratic work
environment, and any movement toward a Participative Group would result in beneficial change
throughout the organization, (Likert, 2006). Likert offers more a process for statistical
categorization-applicable across disciplines-than specific organizational diagnostic tools,
(QuickMBA, 1999).
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Weisbord's Six-Box Model
In 1976, Marvin Weisbord developed his six-box model to assess the functionality of
organizations, (Reflectlearn.org, n.d.). He divided an organization into six segments, and sought
to survey participants in order to optimize relationships between each segment (see Figure 2).
The result was a true improvement over previous OD tools- for example, the fields of FF are at
least subdivided into specific categories for further study, and the resulting interactions can be
summed to categorize how hierarchical the organization operates akin to Likert. Additionally,
(not reflected in Figure 1), is Weisbord‟s notion of formal and informal systems of interactions,
(Falletta, 2008). This model would be useful for an enterprise operating in an extremely ...