Departmental Improvement and Organisational Change: In Practice

Let us look again at the main themes of this book. They include a description of some means to analyse and explain the behaviour that takes place in a production department, to assess performance there and to improve departmental performance. We believe the state of departmental performance is of interest for a programme of organisational change since there is a clear connection between improvements made in performance at the workface and the direction of overall processes of change in the wider organisation: changes in structure and relationships, or in control systems and decision-making processes. Our concentration on smaller and more particular areas arises from our initial view that organisational change would only be effective and lasting if it were based on improved satisfaction of the identified needs of the units where the focal activities of the organisation take place. If we could identify and bring into the open the requirements for success at the workface, and if we could then demonstrate means of improving the performance of individual units clearly to higher levels in the authority structure of the organisation, then, our initial thinking assumed, the latter would begin, either spontaneously or under pressure from middle managers involved, to provide the facilities and support needed for improved departmental effectiveness. As a result the style of management and the overall culture of the organisation might begin gradually to change and become better suited to the conditions required for higher overall performance.