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Benchmark surveys regarding talent management assessment practices and interventions of choice for organization development (OD) practitioners have shown 360-degree feedback to be a popular tool for both development and decision-making in the field today. Although much has been written about implementing 360-degree feedback since its inception in the 1990s, few longitudinal case examples exist where interventions have been applied and their impact measured successfully. This chapter closes the gap by providing research findings and key learnings from five different implementation strategies for enhancing 360-degree feedback in a large multi-national organization. Recommendations and implications for future research are discussed.

Organization development is focused on implementing a planned process of positive humanistic change in organizations through the use of social science theory, action research, and data-based feedback methods. The role of personality in that change process, however, has historically been ignored or relegated to a limited set of interventions. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a conceptual overview of the linkages between personality and OD, discuss the current state of personality in the field including key trends in talent management, and offer a new multi-level framework for conceptualizing applications of personality for different types of OD efforts. The chapter concludes with implications for research and practice.

Formal assessment and development of executives have become standard practices in organizations. There is a need, however, to determine what levers are available to maximize the impact and return on investment of initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to present outcomes and learnings from a multi-method approach to evaluating behavior change following the implementation of PepsiCo’s Senior Leader Development Center, a comprehensive process designed to accelerate capability at the executive level.

Learnings are presented based on analyses from three independent data sources collected throughout the 18-month program: behavioral change ratings from managers, direct reports, and peers via a 360 survey; attitudinal measures from participants’ post-program completion; and third-party observations by an internal facilitator.

Overall, findings indicate that while program rigor and content do matter as baseline components, principles of participant engagement and commitment emerged as most essential to delivering programs with sustained impact.

This case is based on leaders in a high-touch multi-trait multi-method assessment and development program in one organization. Additional research is needed to explore in other settings.

Results and implications are organized by each of the four key stages of the assessment and development process: conduct data-based assessments, deliver feedback and insights, build the development plan, and take action to implement the plan. Findings and recommendations for practice regarding each stage are discussed.

Few case studies or applied research exist that focus on the execution and outcomes associated with senior executive assessment and development programs in major corporations. This paper offers findings regarding the overall impact of such a program and key learnings from its sustained effort in a complex multi-national organization. The discussion and implications in this paper may directly influence how other organizations design and manage future talent management interventions with similar types of senior-level populations.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a data-driven approach to driving accountability for behavior change at the individual level, i.e. the “Development Check-In” (DCI). It has become an accepted reality that 70 per cent of all organizational change efforts fail. The reasons cited are many and include such factors as a lack of focus on the hard and soft sides of the organization, misaligned reward systems, disengaged leadership and new interventions introduced at the expense of existing efforts. While all of these are important, we argue that accountability is the most critical element for ensuring an intervention sticks and delivers lasting results.

The DCI reflects the principles of agility and accountability, and has been used with great success in a large consumer products organization. The paper begins with an overview of the need for feedback tools to drive accountability, followed by a discussion of the design and process of the DCI.

Highlights from the authors’ use of the customized process to measure and reinforce leader capability development over time are then provided. The paper concludes with some recommendations and additional considerations.

Behavior change is not easy and requires focus, direction and a way of measuring progress. The DCI is an example of an agile multi-rater feedback accountability mechanism that provides leaders and managers with targeted and positively oriented feedback to support their continued development. This type of tool can be used beyond leadership development for a variety of types of interventions because it is based on sound organization development principles.

Data collected from 319 senior executives and 2477 of their subordinates from a global diversified organization were used to explore the impact of differences in individual personality orientation on the processes by which these individuals enable their workgroups. Personality orientation was defined in terms of self‐ratings on four distinct groupings derived from a k‐means cluster analysis of self‐ratings on the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator and the Kirton Adaptation Inventory. Perceptions of enablement and ratings of executive behavior were based on questionnaires completed by subordinates. Although no differences were found with respect to the overall degree of enablement experienced by subordinates, personality orientation did affect the specific behaviors employed by executives to enable others and the degree of managerial self‐awareness exhibited (operationalized as congruence in self vs. subordinates' ratings). Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Although a large contingency of theory and research has been conducted in the area of individual and interpersonal communication, relatively few theoreticians have focused on the broader character of communication at the organizational level of analysis. With the increasing emphases on total quality, leadership, adaptive cultures, process reengineering, and other organizational change and development efforts, however, the need to understand the process and function of organizational communication at a broader, more systemic level is paramount. The following paper attempts to address this issue by providing: (1) a comparative review and critique of three “classic” theoretical approaches to describing the importance of communication in organizations and the relationship between communication and organizational functioning (open systems theory, the information‐processing perspective, and the communication as culture framework); and (2) a new integrative framework—the CPR model of organizational communication—for conceptualizing and understanding the nature of communication in organizations based on constructs adapted from these three perspectives. The model is then used both in an applied example to help diagnose an organizational system and to stimulate suggestions for future research.

This review article focuses on the factors that affect the selection and implementation of three principles of distributive justice (i.e., equity, equality, and need) to reward systems in group and organizational settings. After presenting an overview of the assumptions, goals, and possible consequences associated with each of the three perspectives, the article then describes the moderating factors influencing distribution rule preferences across four levels of analysis: (1) the interorganizational, (2) the intraorganizational, (3) the work group, and (4) the individual. Some of the variables discussed include cross‐cultural differences, reward system implementation, task interdependency, work group climate, and individual characteristics. This material is then summarized through the use of a new conceptual model for describing allocation rule preferences. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

Allan H. Church is VP of Global Talent Development for PepsiCo, where he is responsible for leading the talent management and people development agenda for the enterprise. Previously he spent nine years as an external OD consultant working for Warner Burke Associates, and several years at IBM. On the side, he has served as Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, a Visiting Scholar at Benedictine University, and past Chair of the Mayflower Group. Allan received his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University. He is Fellow of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science.

Organization development (OD) and the business environment, more generally, have seen many changes in the last 20 years. This chapter describes findings of a research study that investigated current perceptions of the field of OD as compared to data collected in a 1993 study (published in 1994). Survey data collected from 388 OD professionals indicated findings along the following themes: (1) continued perceived weakening of traditional OD values; (2) focus on business effectiveness and fewer perceptions that OD is too “touchy feely”; (3) increase in commitment to organizations and standing against the misuse of power; (4) coaching is seen as an integral part of OD; and (5) practitioners are very optimistic about the future of OD. Implications for the current and future practice of OD are discussed.

Employee surveys are an important tool for communicating messages to employees, measuring cultural and behavioral indicators, and driving organization development and change in the workplace. This chapter expands upon prior research in this area by presenting longitudinal trends in survey action planning efforts over an 11-year period and the impact on employee attitudes at a multinational consumer products company. Results from the Survey Outcome Matrix are analyzed over time, by level, and by content area. Comments from employees are used to explore reasons why action does not occur from surveys in some contexts. The chapter concludes with implications for practice.