Organizational Well-being: Beyond Psychological Safety — ⑥ Is Your Company Investing in "Organizational Development"?
Recruitment costs are properly budgeted for every year.
But what about a budget for nurturing the organization?
For example,
・The turnover rate is rising
・Managers are becoming too busy
・Human resource development is not progressing
・New ideas are not being generated
Organizations face various challenges like these.
However,
has the investment of "nurturing the organization itself"
been sufficiently discussed?
Review of the series
Let's briefly look back at what we have covered in this series,
"Organizational Well-being: Beyond Psychological Safety."
① Thinking broadly and deeply together with
Team Thinking Thinking through vague, adaptive challenges that don't have easy answers as a team.
② How to start effective
Team Thinking Visualizing processes and engaging in dialogue together about solving problems.③
Experiential Learning
from open, informal dialogue Connecting good communication to experiential learning through practice and reflection.④
Visualizing plans
and proactive problem solving "Eighty percent of success is in the preparation" doesn't mean building a plan alone, but visualizing it and having sufficient dialogue.⑤
Autonomous innovation
and business continuity Organizational well-being is a process where good experiences and learning are continuously generated.
The approaches introduced in each session
are not separate methods.
They are connected as a single flow,
forming a series of
organizational development processes that support organizational well-being.
Organizational well-being differs by hierarchy
Organizational well-being is the state of the organization as felt by the people working there.
Well-being is generally explained as being in a
good state physically, mentally, and socially.However, what one perceives as a "good state" varies depending on their position.
As shown in the diagram,
・Management has its own "good state"
・Business leaders have their own "good state"
・Managers have their own "good state"
・Frontline staff have their own "good state"
The meaning of a "good state" is different for each.
For example, for executives,
it might be a state where the business is growing and they have a clear outlook for the future.
For managers,
it might be a state where members act proactively and work progresses without them having to shoulder everything alone.
For frontline members,
it might be a state where they can speak their minds safely and feel the results and growth.
Therefore, when thinking about organizational well-being,
it is difficult to change the entire organizational process
with just one system,
one training program,
or one communication initiative.
Psychological safety is a starting point, not the goal
Psychological safety is an important foundation for establishing the quality of relationships.
Because there are good relationships, people can speak frankly.
Because they can speak frankly, everyone can think deeply together.
Because they can think deeply, they can choose better actions.
And those actions lead to results and growth.
Psychological safety is a necessary condition to start this cycle.
However, that alone is not enough.
Beyond that,
I believe there is a 4-stage process that moves from "quality of relationships" to "quality of thinking,"
from "quality of thinking" to "quality of action,"
and then to "quality of results."
Investing in organizational development
From frontline members to executives,
there are many challenges to address in creating an organization where everyone feels it is in a "good state"—a well-being organization.
For example,
・Wanting to reduce turnover
・Wanting to develop talent
・Wanting to develop managers
・Wanting to cultivate next-generation leaders
・Wanting to generate innovation
・Wanting to strengthen inter-departmental collaboration
These challenges may seem unrelated at first glance.
But they have something in common.
They are all challenges of nurturing relationships between people and how work is done—in other words, the "organizational process."
That is why I believe the concept of
"
investing in organizational development
" is important.
"Retention" is a prime example
In companies, when turnover increases,
they allocate budgets for:
・Recruitment costs
・Job advertisements
・Recruitment agency fees
These are, of course, necessary.
However, before that,
is there enough investment in nurturing an organization where people don't want to leave?
What I want to propose is "investment in retention."
Retention here does not just mean people not quitting.
It means creating a state where people can continue to work while feeling results and growth.
That investment includes:
・Time to visualize and discuss challenges and how work is done
・Time to reflect on work and learn from experience
・Time to think together about plans and problem solving
In other words, this is an "
investment in time."Also, to connect that time to high-quality dialogue and learning,
expertise in designing processes and providing continuous support is also necessary.
If it is difficult to proceed only within the company,
utilizing external expertise, such as coaches or facilitators who can support organizational development, is also an option.
It is hard to measure ROI. Still, make the investment decision
Recruitment costs are relatively easy to measure in terms of effectiveness.
On the other hand, investment in organizational development
has the difficulty that results are hard to judge by numbers alone.
Of course, you can set certain indicators, such as turnover rate, engagement, and changes in management behavior.
However, it is not easy to clearly isolate the causal relationship between a single initiative and the results.
But management, by definition,
is about
making investment decisions for an uncertain future.Organizational development is the same.Don't stop investing because results are hard to measure; instead,
define what the results are,
and continue to invest while checking for changes along the way.
Therein lies the important decision-making of well-being management.
Summary
Psychological safety is very important.
But that alone will not change the organization.
What is truly necessary is:
・People growing
・Teams growing
・Managers growing
・The organization continuing to learn
It is about running that process systematically over time.
Organizational development is not something that yields results immediately
just by introducing one method.
Dialogue, try, reflect, and try again.
You need to persistently continue that cycle.
That is the investment in a well-being organization.
I believe that decision-making is the
"first step toward well-being management."
Thank you for reading until the end.
In your company,
what kind of "investment in organizational development" are you making?
Please share your thoughts and practical examples in the comments.