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The effectiveness of an organization's individual members and groups is key to its success. Ability, skill, knowledge, attitude, motivation, and stress are key factors for individuals. For groups, cohesiveness, leadership, structure, status, roles, and norms are important. For the organization, key elements include economic and community environments, use of technology, strategic choices, organizational structure and process, and organizational culture. In many organizations the need for change goes unrecognized until a major catastrophe occurs. Major or minor, when an event occurs signaling the need for change, the exact nature of the problem must be diagnosed.

This FutureU module reviews the criteria for effectiveness at individual, group, and organizational levels, and surveys the diagnostic tools available to assess organizational effectiveness and identify the source of problems at their earliest stage. Several key issues are presented, including: grasping the difference between a problem and its symptoms; identifying what must be changed to solve the problem; defining the outcomes or objectives that are expected from change; and determining how those outcomes will be measured.

Participant Profile

Executives and mid- to upper-level managers who want to learn about the role of the HR function in planning for and managing organizational diagnosis and effectiveness.

Topics

• Organizational assessment in the service of change.
• Models for decision making within diagnostics.
• Types of effectiveness: individual, group, organization.
• Defining characteristics of effectiveness.
• Differentiation of problems and symptoms.
• The role of objectives.
• The role of measures and controls.
• How to apply the diagnostic approach.
• What differentiates effectiveness from efficiency in meeting objectives.
• How to understand types of effectiveness at the individual, group, and organizational levels. How to focus problem solving and decision making within the diagnostic approach. How to address change, and organizational responses to change. How to formulate and apply organizational assessment in the service of change.

Module Design

When delivered online, this module lasts two weeks when offered as part of the focused-learning program on Leadership and Human Resources. It is also available as a stand-alone, four-week online course. In either case, it requires an average of 10 hours a week of online participation and study time.

Delivery Options

Off-the-shelf or customized to meet your organization's needs. Usually delivered entirely online, via FutureU's Internet-accessible electronic campus or on your own corporate Intranet. Participants "attend class" from their own desktop or laptop computers, at home or at work, and at whatever time is most convenient to them. Such asynchronous online delivery is especially suited to geographically separated employee groups and those who find it a challenge to fit learning into an already full work schedule. Can also be adapted for on-site delivery.

Customization

Every organization faces a unique set of challenges and opportunities. The FutureU team can customize this module or any other FutureU module or program to address your real workplace concerns and integrate case study material based on your organization's experience. This course can also be modified for "blended" delivery integrating a mix of face-to-face and online work to ease those with little technology experience into the world of online learning.

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Copyright © 1997-2004 by Gail Terry Grimes and Claude Whitmyer. All rights reserved. Published by FutureU.