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Abstract
T-Group:
T-Group training tends to be more effective in certain organizations facing dynamic environments than in other organizations facing stable environments; contingency theory,

Process consultation:
It is generally contrasted with expert consultation and is frequently seen by its advocates as a superior style of management consulting. In practice, however, almost all management consulting involves a mix of expert and process models, with the consultant frequently shifting roles to meet the needs of the situation.

MECHANISTIC ORGANIZATION::
Nearly one-half century ago, Burns and Stalker noted that mechanistic organizations are often appropriate in stable environments and for routine tasks and technologies. In some ways similar to bureaucratic structures, mechanistic organizations have clear, welldefined, centralized, vertical hierarchies of command, authority, and control. Efficiency and predictability are emphasized through specialization, standardization, and formalization. This results in rigidly defined jobs, technologies, and processes. The term mechanistic suggests that organizational structures, processes, and roles are like a machine in which each part of the organization does what it is designed to do, but little else

T-group or training group:

Referred to as 'sensitivity-training group', 'human relations training group' or 'encounter group') was pioneered in the mid 1940s by Kurt Lewin and his colleagues in what became The National Training Laboratory (now known as NTL Institute www.ntl.org) as a method of learning about human behavior. First conceived as a research technique, the t-group later became a new type of pedagogy. According to its founders, in T-groups, participants themselves (typically, between eight and 15 people) learn about themselves (and about small group processes in general) through their interaction with each other. A T-group meeting does not have an explicit agenda, structure, or express goal. Under the guidance of a facilitator, the participants are encouraged to share emotional reactions (such as, for example, anger, fear, warmth, or envy) that arise in response to their fellow participants' actions and statements. The emphasis is on sharing emotions, as opposed to judgments or conclusions. In this way, T-group participants can learn how their words and actions trigger emotional responses in the people they communicate with. Many varieties of T-groups have existed, from the initial T-groups that focused on small group dynamics, to those that aim more explicitly to develop self-understanding and interpersonal communication. Industry also widely used T-groups, particularly in the

2 1960s and 1970s, and in many ways these were predecessors of current team building and corporate culture initiatives. Carl Rogers reportedly described the T-group as "...the most significant social invention of the century." A number of experimental studies have been undertaken with the aim of determining what effects, if any, participating in a T-group has on the participants. For example, a 1975 article by Nancy E. Adler and Daniel Goleman concluded that "Students who had participated in a T Group showed significantly more change toward their selected goal than those who had not." This zone has been designed by The Windsor Group to provide employers with the latest research and information on business training needs and the benefits of maintaining a training development strategy. New research will be added as it is published.

Advantages :
The T-Group is intended to provide you the opportunity to:

Increase your understanding of group development and dynamics. Gaining a better understanding of the underlying social processes at work within a group (looking under the tip of the iceberg) Increase your skill in facilitating group effectiveness. Increase interpersonal skills Experiment with changes in your behavior Increase your awareness of your own feelings in the moment; and offer you the opportunity to accept responsibility for your feelings. Increase your understanding of the impact of your behavior on others. Increase your sensitivity to others' feelings. Increase your ability to give and receive feedback. Increase your ability to learn from your own and a group's experience. Increase your ability to manage and utilize conflict.

Success in these goals depends, to a large extent, on the implied contract that each participant is willing to disclose feelings that she or he may have, in the moment, about others in the group, and to solicit feedback from the others about herself or himself. The focus is upon individual learning; some participants may learn a great deal in most of the above areas, others learn relatively little.

Method
One way of describing what may happen for a participant is -1. Unfreezing habitual responses to situations -- this is facilitated by the participant's own desire to explore new ways of behaving and the trainer staying non-directive, silent, and providing little structure or task agenda 2. Self generated and chosen change by the participant - Experiment with new behaviors description not evaluation of -Practice

3. Reinforce new behavior by positive feedback, participants own assessment of whether what is happening is closer to what she/he intends, supportive environment, trust development Sources of Change in Groups

Self-observation - participants give more attention to their own intentions, feelings, etc. Feedback - participants receive information on the impact they have on others Insight - participants expand self-knowledge Self-disclosure - participants exposes more of themselves to others Universality - participants experience that others share their difficulties, concerns or hopes Group Cohesion - participants experience trust, acceptance & understanding) Hope - participant see others learn, achieve their goals, improve, and cope more effectively Vicarious Learning - participants pick up skills and attitudes from others Catharsis - participants experience a sense of release or breakthrough

A Description The T-group provides participants with an opportunity to learn about themselves, their impact on others and how to function more effectively in group and interpersonal situations. It facilitates this learning by bringing together a small group of people for the express purpose of studying their own behavior when they interact within a small group.

4 A T-Group is not a group discussion or a problem solving group. The group's work is primarily process rather than content oriented. The focus tends to be on the feelings and the communication of feelings, rather than on the communication of information, opinions, or concepts. This is accomplished by focusing on the 'here and now' behavior in the group. Attention is paid to particular behaviors of participants not on the "whole person", feedback is non-evaluative and reports on the impact of the behavior on others. The participant has the opportunity to become a more authentic self in relation to others through self disclosure and receiving feedback from others. The Johari Window is a model that looks at that process. The training is not structured in the manner you might experience in an academic program or a meeting with an agenda or a team with a task to accomplish. The lack of structure and limited involvement of the trainers provides space for the participants to decide what they want to talk about. No one tells them what they ought to talk about. The lack of direction results in certain characteristic responses; participants are silent or aggressive or struggle to start discussions or attempt to structure the group. In the beginning of a T-Group participants are usually focused on what they experience as a need for structure, individual emotional safety, predictability, and something to do in common. These needs are what amount to the tip of the iceberg in most groups in their back home situation. By not filling the group's time with answers to these needs, the TGroup eventually begins to notice what is under the tip of the iceberg. It is what is always there in any group but often unseen and not responsibly engaged . So, participants experience anxiety about authority and power, being include and accepted in the group, and intimacy. Depending on forces, such as, the dynamics of the group, the past experience and competence of participants, and the skill of the trainers -- the group, to some extent, usually develops a sense of itself as a group, with feelings of group loyalty. This can cause groups to resist learning opportunities if they are seen as threatening to the group's self-image. It also provides some of the climate of trust, support and permission needed for individuals to try new behavior. As an individual participant begins to experience some degree of trust (in themselves, the group and the trainers) several things become possible -

The participant may notice that his/her feelings and judgments about the behavior of others is not always shared by others. That what he/she found supportive or threatening was not experience in that way by others in the group. That how one responded to authority, acceptance and affection issues different from that of others (more related to ones family of origin than to what is happening in the group). Individual differences emerge in how experiences are understood. The participant may begin to try on new behavior. For example, someone who has always felt a need to fill silence with noise and activity tries being quieter and still. Participants begin to ask for feedback from the group about how their behavior is

5 impacting others.

Participants may find that they are really rather independent and have a relatively low level of anxiety about what is happening in the group. They will exhibit a broader range of behavior and emotions during the life of the group. In fact their leadership is part of what helps the group develop.

The role of the trainers

To help the group and individuals analyze and learn from what is happening in the group. The trainer may draw attention to events and behavior in the group and invite the group to look at its experience. At times the trainer may offer tentative interpretations. To offer theory, a model or research that seems related to what the group is looking at. To encourage the group to follow norms that tend to serve the learning process, e.g., focusing on "here & now" rather than the "then & there". To offer training and coaching in skills that tend to help the learning process, e.g., feedback skills, EIAG, etc. To not offer structure or an agenda. To remain silent, allowing the group to experience its anxiety about acceptance, influence, etc. To be willing to disclose oneself, to be open with the group. On occasion being willing to offer feedback and challenge a participant To avoid becoming too directive, clinical, or personally involved.

Possible Problems

T-Group methods usually encourage self-disclosure and openness, which may be inappropriate or even punished in organizations. This was an early learning. When managers thought they could take the T-group method into the back home organization, they discovered that the methods and the assumptions of a T-group did not fit. T-groups consisted of participants who were strangers. They didn't have a history or a future together and could more easily focus on here and now behavior. Another issue was that in the organization there were objectives, deadlines and schedules related to accomplishing the work of the company or group. Groups with a task to accomplish could not take the same time that would be used in a T-Group. These difficulties helped lead to the development of Organization Development and team building. What had been learned in TGroups was combined with other knowledge and these new disciplines emerged as ways to address the values raised by the T-Group experience. The T-Group experience can open up a web of questioning in a participant. Ways

6 of behaving that the person has used for many years may be called into question by others in the group and oneself. This has in some cases brought the participant to question relationships in the family or at work. While this can be a very constructive process that leads to the renewal of relationships, it has on occasion lead to the breakdown of a relationship. While such a breakdown may have, in time, come to the relationship without participation in a T-Group, it remains a painful and possibly damaging experience.

Participants being forced or pressured to attend, by an employer or other person with influence, are on the whole less likely to have a positive learning experience. Employers or others who want to require the participation of others may enhance the chance of having a productive outcome if -- they attend a lab themselves before sending others; they speak with the lab coordinator before the event to discuss what might realistically be expected and what the leader could do to assist in the learning process when the participant returns home. Very rarely there have been situations in which a participant has a psychiatric problem. One report said "The possibility of negative psychiatric effects of ST, and especially its role in inducing psychiatric symptoms, is yet to be clarified." This reinforces the value of participation based on intrinsic motivation; a norm that discourages people in therapy from attending without the approval of their therapist; and trainers staying focused on the learning areas suited for T-Group experiences.

Process consultation and its advantages:

Be this as it may, process consultation certainly has many strengths. As compared to experts who bring packaged solutions that may have general validity, but in fact are not the best prescription for the your organization, process consultation has the powerful advantage of being by its nature specifically tailored to your situation. Some other ways in which this model of management consulting provides clear and undeniable benefits are as follows:

Partnership between client and consultant:

The consultant and the client act as equals. The client provides the knowledge of the organization's nature, business, and issues; and the consultant provides the knowledge of the techniques, ways of thinking, and practices that can solve the problem. The partnership model ensures against false solutions that may be trendy, clever, and wholesome, but are not in fact fully applicable and sufficiently relevant to the particular organizational development issue.

Proper maintenance of mutual responsibility:

The client owns the problem and determines the solution. The consultant helps the client to see the issues and find what needs to be done. By not imposing a point of view, the process consultant ensures that a real solution, not an attractive but impermanent fix, is obtained.

Increased capacity for lessons learned:

7 The "masked rider" consultant who provides a silver bullet may be widely honored and cheered by all upon riding off into the sunset. But too commonly the ammunition doesn't last, and someone has to be called in again. By providing help that learning-based, process consultation ensures increased ability by the client to continue to deal with the situation.

Better fit with current organizational need:

In the process consultation model, the concept of a learning organization is second nature. The sharing of problem diagnosis and resolution leads to shared vision. The expert consultant may have a toolkit of best practice methods, but the process consultant will ensure that the tools which are employed will best fit the organization's needs and interests.
As we enter the 21st century, in which constant change is the continual improvement is a necessity, process consultation development and modification. Indeed, given that the present since the 1970s, one can reasonably say it is time for second process consultation. norm and in which itself will undergo model has existed generation form of

This development will process upon the same lines that plot the drive of all organizational change and development. As new forms of organizations and new interactions between organizations occur, process consultation will be applied in different ways to meet new goals. Basically, one can extrapolate the strengths of this model to 21st century conditions in the following ways:

Orientation toward ongoing ability and learning:

The focus of process consultation is on solving the problem. But in a world of constant change and development, there will always be problems and particular solutions will never be lasting. In the second generation form of process consultation, there more be more emphasis on problem solving ability rather than problem solving.

More involvement and participation:

It is a whole system world; processes that look at and employ only one part of the organization are insufficient. The new generation of process consultants will increasingly work with internal consultants, teams, and all levels of the organization. By building up facilitation and consultation skills in the organization there will be development that

8 means it is able to meet new challenges and conditions, not just those which initiated the consultancy.

Wider application of techniques and methods:

As everyone becomes involved in all phases of the organization and everyone becomes responsible for the organization's development, there will be a need for more people to know and to use more principles and more practices in more situations. For example, dialogue, a staple of the process consultation effort, will be used not simply in special situations or just for team-building purposes but will be a tool of organization and not just of the consultant, resulting in dialogic communication as part of the organizational culture. Process consultation aims at improving the interpersonal and group procedures used by administrators, teachers, students, and parents to reach their educational objectives. It focuses primarily on the how of interpersonal and group interactions rather than on the what of their content. Process consultants consequently deal with such phenomena as the patterns of communication, successful and unsuccessful influence attempts, underlying tensions, and decision-making procedures. Success of process consultation would be measured in terms of how effectively the recipients--whether they are educators, students, or parents--work together in reaching their respective objectives. The consultant's success is determined by how effective the recipients are in defining their problems and goals (which may, for example, have to do with the content of a program of remedial reading), how resourceful the recipients are in devising ways to reach their goals (which may include conferring with a content consultant in reading methods), and how stable, adaptive, and effective the group's products are over time (as indicated, for example, by measuring the long-term effectiveness of a reading program). Thus, the process consultant provides help with methods of communication and problem solving and with procedures for planning, decision making, and implementing. The recipients of the consultative help provide the substantive issues, problems, goals, and plans for action. Consultation in organization development (OD) is a special kind of process consultation. The overall, abstract objective of OD is to build self-renewing schools, schools that are able to adapt to current changes within the student body, community, and world while continuing to maintain an effective educational program. Along with these definitions, this article describes some assumptions, values, strategies, and goals of OD consultation.

Links to mission, values and vision:

If a 21st century organization does not know its mission, if it does not have strong values, or if it does not have a compelling vision, it will die. The 21st practice of process consultation will increasingly make use of these variables in analysis, diagnosis, and prescription for organizational development. The goal of the consultancy will not simply be to fix a situation but the creation of a better organization.

Process consulting for change management and organizational effectiveness:

9 Process consulting is a powerful tool which is used to enhance group effectiveness, shorten meeting times, and address conflict. It helps teams to work together more effectively, and its effects can last long after the consultant has departed.

The benefits of process consulting are usually:

Shorter meetings. More productive meetings. Better decisions. Increased feelings of participation or potency. Greater satisfaction with the team or meetings.

Process consulting is carefully intervening in a group or team to help it to accomplish its goals. The consultant does not try to help the team as an expert; instead, the consultant helps the team to help itself. These skills used in process work are quite different from those used in "expertise-based" consulting, because the consultant must:

concentrate on the way the team works, rather than what it is working on. stay silent even when issues s/he knows or cares about are discussed. ask questions instead of offering expert advice. help the team solve its own problems. not make value judgements or deal with content issues. understand group dynamics, conflict resolution, and manager/leader development.

Process consulting also requires a client who is aware of their problems, and who is willing to listen and change some habits if needed. In some ways, process consulting is as difficult for the client as it is for the consultant, because they must put aside any natural defensiveness and temporarily yield their authority in some ways. However, the rewards far outweigh the efforts and risks. Overall, process consulting is an invaluable but underused service which requires an experienced consultant.

ROLE OF T-GROUPS AND PROCESS CONSULTATION IN MECHANISTIC ORGANIZATION:

It is easy to confuse mechanistic organizations with bureaucracies due to the considerable overlap between these two concepts. Yet despite the overlaps, a primary difference

10 between mechanistic organizations and bureaucracy is the rationale for utilizing each of these. A goal of bureaucratic structures is to protect lower-level administrative positions from arbitrary actions of owners and higher-level managers. For example, an individual holding the job title of vice-president of production would, in a bureaucracy, be protected from indiscriminant changes in work hours, wages, and responsibilities through formal rules, regulations, and grievance procedures. The goal of the bureaucracy is protection of positions within the organization. Mechanistic organizations, on the other hand, are utilized to increase efficiency when tasks and technologies are relatively stable. The vice-president of production in a mechanistic organization would employ production processes and techniques that minimize waste and maximize outputs for a given quantity of inputs. The goal of mechanistic structures is efficiency. Thus, the rationale for bureaucracy is protection while the rationale for mechanistic organizations is efficiency. Clearly, the two are not mutually exclusive; an organization could be structured as a bureaucracy and also be mechanistic. On the other hand, many examples of inefficient bureaucracies can quickly come to mind, suggesting that while there is overlap between the concepts, there are distinctions as well. Mechanistic structures are highly formalized, which simply means that nearly all processes and procedures have been administratively authorized. The organization considers processes and procedures out-side these established protocols as variances that must be brought under control. Such formalization is driven by efficiency; reduction in variance increases predictability, and increases in predictability allow for improvements in efficiency. Examples pertinent to product or service distribution include the processes a store clerk uses when presented with a customer's credit card or how returns of products by customers are to be handled. Examples pertinent to product or service production and assembly include how a book publisher manages the workflow from completed manuscripts to final bookbinding and how Dell Computer manages assembly of made-toorder personal computers. Decision making is largely concerned with application of the appropriate predetermined rule, policy, procedure, or criteria. Environmental and technological stability allow work to be clearly defined and differentiated. The work of the organization is divided into specific, precise tasks. Created from one or more such specific tasks, specialized job positions rigidly define skills needed, task methodology and procedures to be used, and specific responsibilities and authority. In effect, lower-level managers and other employees simply follow procedures, and while this may have the side effect of stifling creativity, it also increases efficiency of established processes. In stable environments, however, stifling creativity may be worth the improvements in efficiency. Few customers, for instance, would want a McDonald's employee to use creativity in preparing their hamburger. Instead, the repetitiveness and stability of the procedures needed to cook a hamburger are more efficient when the employee follows established procedures and customers can trust that each hamburger they purchase will taste the same. However, specialized tasks are repetitive and can sometimes be boring. For example, at a Sam's Club store, one person stands at the door to perform the single task of marking customer receipts. Because employees often work separately with little interaction, it is

11 often hard for them to see how one's small, specialized task relates to overall organizational objectives. Also, the work of mechanistic organizations tends to be impersonal. Jobs are designed around the task rather than the individual. Personnel selection, assignment, and promotion are based on the possession of skills required for specific tasks. Other people, like interchangeable parts of a machine, can replace people in a position. Specialization carries throughout the organization. Positions are grouped together into specialized work units and, ultimately, into specialized functional departments such as production, marketing, or finance. Each organizational unit has clear and specific responsibilities and objectives. Communication is primarily vertical, with more emphasis on down-ward directives than on upward communication. Thus, such matters as goals, strategies, policies, and procedures are determined by top-level management and communicated downward as instructions and decisions to be implemented. Upward communication usually involves transmittal of reports and other information for management to consider, usually at the request of management. Coordination is maintained through the chain of command. For example, top-level management is responsible for coordination across functional departments such as integrating marketing sales forecasts with production schedules. Within a department, the department manager is responsible for coordination across department subunits; production managers, for example, coordinate raw inventory requirements with work-in-process inventory. At least two criticisms are generally made about mechanistic organizations. First, while focusing on task concerns such as efficiency and standardization, mechanistic organizations tend to ignore human needs and dynamics. Second, creativity, and thus innovation, are restricted by the rigidity of standardized and formalization. Thus, the appropriate environment for mechanistic organizations is a stable environment, while rapidly changing environments require more flexibility. Highly mechanized organizations operating in rapidly changing environments run the risk of becoming obsolete as competitors sacrifice maximum efficiency in exchange for flexibility to tackle new environmental conditions.