Grid Training

Definition: The Grid Training is the comprehensive organization development programme developed by Blake and Mouton, which focuses on the overall development of individuals, groups and the organization as a whole.

The Grid Training programme is designed in such a way that it enables the individuals as well as the groups to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses and focus on their skills, knowledge and processes that are essential to perform effectively at different levels in the organization.

The Grid Development Programme includes six phases:

1. Managerial Grid: This aspect of Grid training programme lay emphasis on identifying the managerial styles, teamwork and communication skills prevailing within the organization.
2. Teamwork Development: Here, the focus is on developing the teamwork by analyzing the tradition and culture existing within the organization. Also, the planning skills, objective-setting skills, and problem-solving skills are developed in this phase.
3. Intergroup Development: This aspect deals with maintaining the cordial intergroup relationships. The focus is on increasing the cooperation among the group members and ruling out the conflicts, if any.
4. Developing Ideal Strategic Corporate Model: Here the focus shifts towards the organization as a whole, where the skills necessary for the organizational excellence are inculcated into the members through training.
5. Implementing the Ideal Strategic Model: This aspect of the programme focuses on building the organization on the grounds of an ideal organization as perceived in the previous phase. Here, each group is assigned a task to evolve a strategy that helps in making an ideal organization, with the help of consultants. Once the strategies are evolved the best one gets implemented.
6. Systematic Critique: Here, organization development programme is critically evaluated on the grounds of efforts made and the shortcomings encountered while running the programme. In case, the shortcomings are severe; the programme may be redesigned.

Thus, the major objective behind the grid training is to consider the entire organization as an interactive system where the analysis techniques could be applied to diagnose the problems and understand the reasons behind the changes in the organization. Also, it helps in determining the leadership styles and techniques of participation to help in producing the desirable results.