ORGANIZATIONAL ROLE ANALYSIS: THE PROCESS
ORGANIZATIONAL ROLE ANALYSIS (ORA) adds to OD processes and coaching by
* eliciting creative right brain activity
* circumventing the blame game
* makes meaning of challenges on both the individual, as well as the bigger systemic level
* providing many different possibilities and opportunities for change
Organizational Role Analysis (ORA) is a process designed to develop insight and understanding into the way in which the professional role of the client is shaped by the organization and the role holder him/herself, consciously and unconsciously.
The focus is on making sense of the whole system, and of the individual’s role, which is the link between the individual himself and the organization. In other words, rather than focusing on individual’s personality traits and pathologies, ORA attends to the ‘internal map’of the role which the person has of the organization in which he/she works, and of his/her place in the organization
When working with ORA, role is regarded as follows;
- Role is more than the formal position the employee holds, or a discription of his/her tasks and duties, but it also includes an
- Invertory of shared, and hidden, expectations placed on a person within a group/organization.
- Metaphorically, role is the place / area which is the ‘interface’between the individual and the organization.
- Role is shaped by the definitions of the organisation, as well as the role holder. It is part of the psychosocial dynamics which emerge at the ‘interface’between people and onganizations,
- Thus, a role always esixt in a context, and
- The person and the role is not the same.
A CASE STUDY
The above is the impression of an experienced employee, newly appointed to middle management in a large institution, of her role.
The drawing illustrates the demands and stresses she experiences in the new role. Her association to the drawing was that she has to wear many hats, and have many arms like and octopus. Yet, as a fellow participant pointed out, even with the many arms not getting it right because an octopus has eight arms! The drawing symbolised for her that she cannot see very well (many eyes), and do not know where she is going because the territory is unknown. The many faces are associated with saving face, having a face, showing face, and the fear of losing face.
The experience is typical of that of an individual entering into a new leadership role and senior management was encouraged to consider to what measure they offered and provided containment for this colleagues’ challenge, which also appears to be fragmenting her.