Organizational
Assessment   
Example

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The organizational assessment measures the rigidity of an organization. It does this by requiring you to determine where you observe the organization along a continuum anchored on rigidity on one end and flexibility on the other.

Rigid organizations' tend to behave as closed systems i.e., they know that they know and reject new or different concepts.

Flexible organizations' tend to behave as open systems i.e., they don't know how much they know and are therefore open to new or different concepts. This assessment always rewards more flexible behavior. It has been proven that as flexibility increases productivity increases, to a point. After a certain point productivity decreases as flexibility increases because the organization become nonfunctional as it attempts to be all things to all people. Therefore, one could say that this assessment has a bias (it always favors behaviors that characterize open system behavior). However, SDS feels that there is little risk in organizations being too flexible.

Borderline organizations are difficult to work with because they may exhibit one type of behavior consistently and then without warning change for no apparent reasons. To enhance the value of this assessment it is recommended that both parties assess their counterpart.