‘Organization Development’ (OD) is the science of facilitating an organization to effectiveness and sustainability, through its principal resource: “People”.

OD’s roots can be traced to the late 1940s.

It is an Applied Behavioral Science which has drawn from several behavioral sciences, viz. Organizational Behavior, Economics, Political Science, Cultural Anthropology….

Over the years OD practitioners have applied it to a variety of Organizational situations and challenges, in various geographic locations and time-lines (and by corollary to varying social milieu).

True to its nature, OD while contributing to organizational well-being has in turn been richly influenced... some distinctive threads of influence in OD practice are: 
• Laboratory Training (T-groups-->Team Building),
• Action Research/Survey Feedback (cycle of: data collection-->data feedback-->action planning--> implementation…),
• Participative Management (application of Likert’s Participative group systems model to organizations, using survey-feedback process),
• Quality of Work Life (approaches for: integrating technology and people; improving work design),
• Productivity (process mapping the organization’s work thereby linking it to the desired outcome of quality of products/services and using statistical techniques for continuous improvement),
• Strategic Change (using ‘open systems’ approach).

In India, there are several people trained in OD. Most of them work in organizations and a few are OD practitioners. Most OD work tends to get clubbed with HR, HRM, Management Consulting areas.

In practical terms, Management Consulting includes the practice of OD Consulting, i.e. Management Consulting is a super set that includes OD Consulting along with other business consulting approaches. However, OD’s people emphatic, total systems approach, with a strong feedback loop and facilitative nature… to deliver results to an organization, distinguishes itself significantly from Management Consulting, which draws richly on its expertise (pre-dominantly financial) roots for offering its business consulting services.

According to Wikipedia.org, “In general, various approaches to consulting can be thought of as lying somewhere along a continuum, with an 'expert' or prescriptive approach at one end, and a facilitative approach at the other. In the expert approach, the consultant takes the role of expert, and provides expert advice or assistance to the client, with, compared to the facilitative approach, less input from, and fewer collaborations with, the client(s). With a facilitative approach, the consultant focuses less on specific or technical expert knowledge, and more on the process of consultation itself...”

Quite clearly, OD lies at the facilitative end of continuum, while the rest of management consulting is pre-dominantly on the expertise side of the continuum.

OD benefits clients with its ‘no-competition’, ‘non-intrusive’, ‘people friendly’, ‘open systems’, ‘facilitative’, gentle albeit firm approach, in evolving organizational effectiveness and sustainability.

Organization Effectiveness, Sustainability, Renewal/Focus, Alignment of resources, leading to synergy.

‘Experiential Learning’ is the process of making meaning/sense from direct experiences.

The participants in our training programs are engaged through activity, games, exercises, role-plays, case discussions. .. And the consequent experiences they have, are then examined, reflected on, through our facilitation.

Our attempt as facilitators is to create experiences during our training sessions – this is accomplished by engaging participants in activity, games, exercises, role-plays, case discussions… In a way, we are creating an artificial, temporary environment in the minds of the participants, akin to back-at-work situations. The training session experiences are then processed together to make sense of them (whys and whereto for) and develop appropriate responses (key takeaways/ guidance), in order to achieve desired objectives. 

 The learning emanating from such an approach is highly 'sticky' and hence, powerful in evolving skills/ competencies, and in contributing to enhancing organizational effectiveness and sustainability.

We facilitate Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Large Organizations as well as start-ups, as our clients.

Wherever there are people, we consider ourselves capable of facilitating as OD Consultants.

The majority of people whom we have facilitated are those who are familiar with the corporate context.

Amongst these people, we have worked most with, Promoters, Entrepreneurs, Directors, Senior Managers, Middle Managers, front-line Managers, Executives, Supervisors, Workers, in that order.

We facilitate primarily using English. However, on occasion we have drawn on our Telugu and Hindi oral skills to facilitate.

1) Initiate contact and establish credentials, credibility and references of Cosmic Management Services
2) Share challenges and problems being faced by organization
3) Share details of coordinates, contact details of organizational facilities and stakeholders
4) Jointly define ‘Terms of Reference’
5) Discuss Proposal made by Cosmic Management Services
6) Enter into Contract with Cosmic Management Services

The duration of a consulting assignment is predicated on the nature (strategic, techno-structural, systems, and human process), size (of organization, number of people), scope (comprehensive vs. specificity) of the organization challenge and (level of collective) clarity about the organizational challenge.

On a ‘Certainty-Uncertainty’ continuum, the more uncertain or complex an organizational challenge, the longer will be the duration of an intervention to be facilitated.

‘Certain’ or Straightforward Organizational Challenges
A consulting assignment’s duration can be anywhere between 3 months to 12 months, on an average, to fulfill its avowed objectives.

‘Uncertain’ or Complex Organizational Challenges
In case of more complex challenges, consulting assignments range from 1-8 years in duration.

Most of our OD Consulting assignments range from 1 to 5 years in duration.

Our training programs facilitate acquisition of knowledge, development of awareness and evolution of skills/competencies, at an individual, group and organizational level. 

Most organizations approach us for ‘one-off’ training programs. We inform them of the differing duration requirements in case of:

Training for Knowledge

• 1-2 days

Training for Skills Development

• 20-21 days over a period of 6 months – 12 months

Training for Awareness

• 2-3 days duration 

Please refer :

(1) The Answer, to the Question: "Can Skills and Competencies be developed in one training program?",  shared below, details benefits enjoyed, at the individual, group and organizational level, based on the duration of a training program

(2)  Click here to visit 'Facilitative Training' in our 'Services' page, to understand how our 'Modus Operandi' for training programs enables us to address training program time constraints, of organizations.

We facilitate movement in an Organization from its ‘present state’ to ‘desired state’, viz. we faciliate OD or OT, in a broad five phase approach :
1) Building relationships with key personnel and 'change agents' in the organization (referred to as the 'Entering and Contracting' Stage).
2) Studying, Evaluating Organizational systems to understand their relevance / dys-functionality vis a vis the organizational goals (referred to as 'Joint Diagnosis' Stage)
3) Identifying ways to improve organizational effectiveness and individual proficiency, through 'interventions'(referred to as 'Action Planning' Stage)
4) Facilitating interventions to improve Organizational Effectiveness (referred to as 'Intervention/ Implementation' stage).
5) Evaluating the effectiveness of the of intervention(s) and consequent results (referred to as 'Evaluating and Institutionalizing Change' and also as 'Termination' stage)

This comprehensive, systematic approach is accomplished through engaging with people (who need to change to a more useful state, for their own sake as well as for their organizations sake). This happens through educating people in more utile beliefs, attitudes, skills / actions, viz. competencies.

People are creatures of habit. Organizations are a consequence of their culture. It takes a long time (it can take years to change habits/culture) to give up existing ‘patterns of behavior’/culture, acquired over the years, in favor of more useful 'patterns of behavior'/ culture, to achieve the desired ‘ideal state’.

The combination of: (1) a structured,  five stage approach and, (2) the long time required to educate people (to change their habits to accommodate more utile competencies) and develop a more enabling organizational culture, to achieve the ‘ideal state’ in an organization, determines the long duration of OD and OT efforts.

Our uniqueness is based on: 

• Our fundamental premise that people are intelligent, trustworthy and are motivated through encouragement, empowerment, recognition and challenge.
• The warmth of our people orientation
• The rigor of financial analysis that we bring
• The cogency of the theory-application connect that our work reveals
• Our rich appreciation of Organizational Vibrancy
• Our innermost desire to develop and evolve Solutions for Better Enterprise.

An indicative table of the benefits enjoyed, at the individual, group and organizational level, based on the duration of a training program:
1 day: Feeling the need for: Knowledge, more Awareness, better Skills/ Competencies.
2 days: Understand Attitudes required to acquire knowledge, develop awareness, evolve skills/competencies
3-5 days: Appreciate the benefits of new knowledge, awareness, skills/ competencies, through engaging in suitable behaviors, as individuals
6-21 days: Map trajectory and work towards learning and internalizing skills/ competencies and group or organizational behaviors 

Click here to visit 'Facilitative Training' in our 'Services' page, to understand how our 'Modus Operandi' for training programs enables us to address training program time constraints, of organizations.

Yes! We deal with ‘soft’ technical topics of Life Skills, Facilitation, Management, Leadership, Organizational Effectiveness, OD, OT... in ‘hard’ technical environment.

We also deal with 'hard' technical topics, through OD's Human Process Interventions

Yes! We subscribe to the code of ethics prescribed by the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes :

• Confidentiality
  A member will treat client information as confidential and will neither take personal advantage of privileged information gathered during an assignment, nor enable others to do so.
• Unrealistic Expectations
  A member will refrain from encouraging unrealistic expectations or promising clients that benefits are certain from specific management consulting services.
• Commissions / Financial Interests
  A member will neither accept commissions, remuneration, nor other benefits from a third party in connection with recommendations to a client without the client's knowledge and consent, nor fail to disclose any financial interest in goods or services which form part of such recommendations.
• Assignments
  A member will accept only assignments which the member has the skills and knowledge to perform.
• Conflicting Assignments
  A member will avoid acting simultaneously in potentially conflicting situations without informing all parties in advance that this is intended.
• Conferring with Client
  A member will ensure that before accepting any engagement, a mutual understanding of the objectives, scope, workplan, and fee arrangements has been established, and that any personal, financial, or other interest which might influence the conduct of the work has been disclosed.
• Recruiting
  A member will refrain from inviting an employee of a client to consider alternative employment without prior discussion with the client.
• Approach
  A member will maintain a fully professional approach in all dealings with clients, the general public, and fellow members.
• Other Management Consultants
  A member will ensure that other management consultants carrying out work on behalf of the member are conversant with and abide by this Code of Professional Conduct.

Our Chief Consultant, Amar Chegu has facilitated learning in Organization Development (OD), Organizational Behavior (OB), General Management and Strategy at Administrative Staff College of India, Centre for Organization Development, University of Hyderabad, NATFM, JNIDB, NISIET, MANAGE, NIAM, VJIM amongst other institutions of learning, as a Visiting Faculty on guest lecture basis.

In MBA colleges, he has also facilitated modules on OD, OB, General Management and Strategy in tri-mester and semester mode.

Amar has also appeared on live televised educational programs on ‘Strategy’ for Dr.Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad.