The context of organizational design and development for non-profits in India: the importance of individual stories of change

On average, each of us will work for over 90,000 hours in our lifetime. That is almost a third of our lifetime.

This time and effort spent at work is amplified when working within the broader civil society or non-profit sector. There are complex challenges that need to be addressed. There is also a need to work with multiple stakeholders and constantly deal with emergent issues. All of these aspects mean that people in the NGO sector often work more than the 45.7 hours (according to ILO) an average Indian spends at work.

So, an enormous amount of our time and effort is spent in workplaces. But workplaces are not merely marketplaces where we barter our time and effort for money. They are powerful, influential ecosystems that shape us. They influence who we are and who we become. They actively influence our identities, values, and behaviors. They shape and reshape our relationships with people who significantly influence our thinking, decision making, values, emotions, learning, and growth. Through structures, social interactions, habits and routines, cultural practices, and distribution of power and agency amongst people, organizations act as formative agents that socialize us into particular ways of thinking and being.

In the non-profit sector, a great deal of time and effort is spent in designing and curating programs and interventions. However, very little time is spent reflecting on how to design this ‘social container’ that we all spend so much time in. Often, this design work is seen as unnecessary or complicated. Or it is perceived to be too time-consuming and slow for non-profit leaders to address. The assumption that it is too hard to do, means that it is left unaddressed or partially addressed. This leaves organizations fractured, and people left to deal with dysfunctional teamwork, poor decision making, stress, and burnout.

A simple analogy to understand this may help. Think of an athlete attempting to become a world-class marathon runner. What would it require for her to be able to compete with the best in the world? A desire and motivation to run of course but also a regular fitness routine, a nutritional diet that supports her body’s requirements, a good coach, a team of medical experts supporting her, good training facilities, a support group that cheers and motivates her and opportunities to compete and learn from other athletes so that she keeps improving. Now imagine that this athlete has great motivation and practices everyday but has no other supporting ecosystem elements to help her on her journey. What would you rate her chances of success to be?

Like the athlete who places all her hopes of success on her own aspirations, motivations and dreams and her ability to turn up for practice every day, non-profits often focus all their attention on ‘running’ their interventions on the ground and drawing their inspiration from their purpose. Yet by leaving unaddressed the requirements of the internal ecosystem in which they work, non-profits reduce their chances of impact and have employees who are frustrated, demotivated, stressed, and burnt out.

Understanding how to create an internal ecosystem (the organization) through which non-profits and CSOs can achieve their purpose while enabling people to flourish is the foundation of Organizational Design and Development (OD&D).

At its core, OD&D is simple yet powerful.

It starts with a mindset and a belief that it is possible for people to work together functionally and harmoniously and that people have a desire to participate in meaningful work. Based on this belief, OD&D provides a set of tools, practices, design orientations, and actions. These can get people to come together and ideate on what kind of organization they would like to work in and to design the structures, processes, and habits of the organization that make that imagination of the organization come true.

However, unlike designing a program or product from scratch, OD&D work involves changing an existing entity. It is like redesigning a car while it is in motion. The work is complex. It involves bringing people together and addressing fears and concerns around change. It also entails creating safe spaces for people to be honest and open about their hopes and aspirations, being open to emergence, and working within organizational resource constraints.

The most challenging part of OD&D is unearthing the belief systems, values and mindsets of people working in organizations. If we are able to deeply reflect on our own belief systems and what we believe of others, and enable others to do the same, we can collectively move toward designing organizations that are effective, mission driven and purposeful.

And leaders play a central role in role modeling the behaviors and creating the structures that make collective organizational design possible. A great deal of the success of an OD&D intervention lies in the internal work that leaders need to do to prepare for and support OD&D initiatives in their organizations. But this leadership journey is difficult and challenging, if unsupported. It requires capacity building in facilitating group work, understanding of organizational design elements, understanding of the ‘self’ and working on procedural aspects of designing an organization in practice.

Recognizing this need, the WIPRO Organizational Design and Development (OD&D) Fellowship was started in 2020. CSOs interested in working on their internal organizational design nominated individuals in leadership positions (referred to as ‘internal’ fellows) who were partnered with ‘external’ fellows who supported them in the redesign process. The ‘external’ fellows were all individuals with a keen interest (and some experience) in OD&D work. The hope was that they would have a year-long immersive learning experience. In the process, it was envisaged that they would receive support from their peer partners and program coordinators, and organizational leaders (internal fellows) would work toward organizational change and redesign in their own organizations.

The program and the participants in the program have helped us develop a deeper understanding of changes that accompany any OD&D journey. Changes that occur at the level of individuals (the fellows, individuals in organizations), changes that occur at the level of organizational structures and processes, changes in organizational cultures and habits, and changes that occur in the stories and narratives in and about organizations. And these discoveries are truly meaningful in the context of organizational design and development work, particularly in the context of India.

The literature and resources around OD&D concentrate around techno-rational solutions for organizational challenges, or techno-managerial solutions that do not highlight the very human journeys of change in OD&D. Rarely do we hear the story of change from the people who are experiencing the change. Subtle changes that have deep, ripple impacts are often ignored or overlooked in case studies of change. The messiness, emergence, conflicts, confusions, insights, and reflections that accompany all change journeys are rarely revealed in management literature around organizational change. The OD&D Fellowship Program has offered us these unique insights.

Over the course of the next few months, Samuhik Pahal will feature seven stories of change from fellows in the OD&D Fellowship Program. They are both internal fellows (leaders of organizations) as well as external fellows (OD&D enthusiasts who supported these leaders in the change process). Through their narratives we have the unique opportunity to understand what change is really like in organizations and how purposeful and reflective change practices can bring about fundamental changes in organizations. These stories are also human stories of change—a reflection of how the responsibility of bringing about changes in an organization impacts individuals, their motivations and ability to act, and lead.

We invite you to participate in their journeys and immerse yourselves in the complex, dynamic world of individual and organizational change! And reflect on your own organization and its internal design, its continuous development and your own challenges and aspirations for your organization’s continued success. And through these stories, sense the immense potential of purposeful organizational design and development for your own organization’s growth and flourishing.