Mental health articles

Organizational Consultation or Development
Organizational development (OD) is the application of behavioral science knowledge in a long-range effort to improve an organization’s ability to cope with change in its external
environment and increase its problem-solving capabilities .
Massarik and Pei-Carpenter (2002) offer the following working definition of OD:
In the context of continuing natural change at all interrelated levels of environment, society, organization, group, and individual, with focus on specified client systems, OD engages people within and among human systems (organizations) in activities (interventions)
intended to bring about positive change for specifiable clients and stakeholders and directed toward improvement of the human condition—guided by humane values— by means of significant application of knowledge rooted in the social and behavioral sciences.
The National Center for Organizational Development, which is an internal consultation branch for the entire Veterans Health Administration (VHA), describes its services
as including executive coaching, leadership development and assessment, team building, strategic planning, large and small group facilitation, work redesign, survey design and analysis, and psychoeducational interventions. Schein (1969) first introduced
the idea of Process Consultation, which he defines as “a ‘set of activities’ on the consultant’s part that are aimed at helping clients understand their internal and external environments better so that they can act on the process events that occur ”.

Tags: consultation