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Large System Interventions - my first understandings

I would like to use this post and the further threads to help us get a clarity on the Term LSI and a bit into what interventions are?


Large system intervention, why do we call it as such?

Large - The term large here refers to groups or units that are beyond the scope of an individual's understanding. When we say Large it means that it is not the capability of one person to work on the unit/entity because one person cannot grasps its magnitude,


System - we use the term system here because large units or entities interact wth their environments and also interact internally with their parts. In large entities there are two aspects that become part  of the change
1) The interaction with and balance with the external environment
2) the fit of all its internal parts
A large system intervention aims to take up two  key aspects,the organisation environment relationship and the interaction of its internal components



Interventions - Intervention means to identify the pain points that the entity is facing and looking at how to help overcome that pain point. What we should remember though about interventions though is that they need to help the organisations learn. As an interventionist our aim is to equip organisations to learn thereby helping them become their own change agents .




What is unique about large system interventions?
  • They are triggered by environmental changes
  • They nudge the organisation to make large scale changes
  • they will always be led by senior executives
  • They require the organisation to develop a learning system




Diagnostic and Dialogic Approaches to LSI
within the OD literature there is a lot of work on the Dialogic and Diagnostic approaches.
Dialogic intervention lay moe emphasis on using the entire system and its members. The consultant is part of the intervention, and the change is aimed through bringing about a change in mindsets and thoughts. 

Diagnostic on the other hand is a more rapid intervention. here the consultant is keen on working as the expert while he guides the organisation to the change. The consultant isn't an active participant and he/she will drive the change rather than guide the change.

Whether dialogic and diagnostic approaches can wrk together or not is a mater of discussion that we can take forward here




Complexity theory
Complexity theory has in recent time taken over form systems theory. it will be interesting if we can bring this to discussion in class and understand what exactly is the complexity theory and complex adaptive systems

Comments

  1. AnuAugust 12, 2019 at 6:25 AM

    Adding to the uniqueness of Large, System and Interventions as explained in the class, In case of Large: complexity increases as people cannot see the big picture and past success and habits constrains unlearning.
    In case of System: Effectiveness is not a function of one individual or department or process but, it is sum of individual characters
    In case of Intervention: It is surgical or/and Evolving, Internal or/and External, Top down or/and Bottom up or/and Horizontal, Big band or pilot, Reactive or/and Proactive

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  2. Shashank Vihari_MSVSeptember 2, 2019 at 8:48 PM

    An interesting point that came up during the discussion was if - dialogic and diagnostic follow a continuum. That idea implied dialogic OD is something that keeps happening in an organisation, but when it becomes insufficient(due it being incremental and its need to bring about a change in mindsets and thoughts) Diagnostic OD comes into play with its ability to enable rapid transformation.
    While I was reflecting on this idea post the class, I felt that is not the case. The examples of Adobe and Microsoft who moved away from the Annual Performance Cycle to Continuous Performance Cycle is an example of how dialogic OD, wherein small steps like Donna Morris(CHRO of Adobe) posting a blog with the title "Its time to radically rethink the annual performance review" which started off the mindset and perspective change within the people in the organisation. People started posting their concurrence and ideas to implement this thought. Encouraged by this within few months, a new system was launched, now called the"Check in".
    The idea that a bog could really be the start of radical transformation and that we are starting out this intervention of putting our thoughts on a blog makes me wonder where this dialogic OD intervention(of writing a blog) is going to take us.

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