#CIPDOD15 Doing Digital OD

Karen Dumain from the NHS Leadership Academy.

Talking about achieving cultural shift through tech – how can practitioners make use of tech?

Karen’s background in Behavioural Science and feels like OD is coming home.  Joined the NHS a bit over 2 years ago.  Karen and Paul Taylor lead ‘Do OD’.  They link with the Leadership Academy to spread OD capability across and above the system of the organisation.  Focus on Dialogic OD.

Context for NHS – the world is complex, decreasing resources, higher expectations of patients, changing demographics, a need to shift to prevention rather than cure – how do we respond to these and to the need to change?  Digital is just a constant for the young people coming into the workforce now and in the coming years.  If you’re talking about ‘getting online’ then you’re behind the curve!

NHS – worlds largest publicly funded health system, provides for 54 million people, a patient every 36 hours.

Do OD focus on putting theory into practice – Connect > Share > Learn > Grow.  Paul and Karen hold the frame, they’re the container.  They work with the NHS OD community – the system – to understand their challenges to create new solutions & resources together.  They enable conversations at all different places and levels.

7 challenges came back from the OD Community with Culture, Values and Behaviours as the top 3 – what do we do with these, how do we measure the difference, how will it impact patients?  Looking ahead to 2015-16 they’re focusing on Systems Thinking, Building OD Capability, Integration, Culture Change, Evaluating OD.

Now a focus on Culture…..What can we do to evolve culture?

At the same time that the NHS was being celebrated in the Olympics opening ceremony, the Mid Staffs investigation was coming out.  There was a call to action about changing culture.  Conversations about the culture wanted in the NHS – Happy, Caring, Compassion…as a few key words.

When they started Do OD they asked for people to put their trusts forward to share what they’d already done (with acknowledgement that it was a beginning rather than a ‘job done’ situation), and others who wanted to be pilots for new stuff.

People thought they’d get a magic tool or solution but quickly realised it wasn’t that.  The dialogic OD approach used was underpinned by Appreciative Inquiry. A move away from Diagnostic, linear OD.  Also used Bushe – What we think > leads to Decisions and Actions > that evoke Shared attitudes & assumptions > which forms Culture.

Digital came out in an emergent way from the conversations and they started to develop an app (launched in Nov 14).  Anybody can download the app and it allows you to dip in and out because everyone’s starting point will be different.  You can go in at level of You, Team, Org, Partners & Stakeholders.  When you go into one of these areas there are questions to prompt thinking and conversations.  Based on your answers it summarises where you’ve made progress and where there might be more to do.  Recent update – Space to Think cards to enable creative thinking.

With over 1000 downloads, just starting to do formal evaluation but informal has been very positive – Practitioners have said very helpful.

This post has been live-blogged from #CIPDOD15.  I’ve done my best to represent the content accurately and fairly but some errors may exist.  Most of it is the speakers’ content and I aim to show the bits that are my opinion.

#CIPDOD15 Aligning Org Capability and Culture to the Org Plan

Inji Duducu, Group People Director of Benenden.

Talking about using Appreciative Inquiry to identify the org’s true values, and developing engagement and comms strategy to sustain commitment across the org.

Benenden is a healthcare provider (mutual, not-for-profit) – they’re a single product, single price healthcare provider.  80% of spending member funds is finding a fast route to diagnosis via private.  Do lots of cataracts, varicose veins,… and offer helplines at a single flat rate at £8.45 a month with no restrictions – the most under-priced product ever!  And available for corporate schemes 🙂

Their challenge?  Used to only be able to join if in public sector or civil service (started for the Post Office originally) people would sign up and they easily got to a million members.  More recently had a decline in members so now about 900k – and aging.  First answer was that anyone could join Benenden.  Concern at the time was that they’d be swamped with interest.  But of course nobody had heard of them and their product was unusual.

2 years ago, new CEO, acknowledgement that open access hasn’t worked.  Talked about partnerships, new channels, new products…. In 10 years time we’ll be unrecognisable.

Inji joined for that reason – 108 year old business, average length of service 25 years  how do you take that org through that level of change?

When started, the strategy had been put in a bullet point list & left on people’s desks – it didn’t work! (Building blocks, New IT system, New product launch underway, First acquisition strategy underway, Hospital redevelopment signed off, Digital channel being built).

All this started or happening – and no thought to the people and how they fitted into this plan!

When Inji joined her challenge was to do 12 mths change in 6 – with an org that had never really changed.

Split the change into 3 buckets – 1 bucket of ‘how we do stuff’, shared services, structure.  1 of capability, roadmap (what you’ll need for your team in next 3-5 yrs), behaviours & l’ship capability (much more needed than technical knowledge).  And 1 of culture, values, action plan.

A very friendly helpful culture.  If in 2024 we’ve become just another insurance company then we’ve failed.  Our culture is special.  Understanding what really makes us special was essential to future success.

There was low leadership visibility – e.g. the leadership team hadn’t been involved at all in the launch of new insurance at the time when Inji joined.  They’re now front & centre, quarterly update on progress from CEO, any chance to get them visible & approachable – servant leadership e.g. a summer party with leaders welcoming people, handing out drinks, etc.  Recognised & appreciated by the team.

Big focus on celebrating successes – much to celebrate.  They’ve won Most Trusted Healthcare Provider 5 years in a row!  Entirely down to the people.  Don’t take it for granted.  Really want to be that & strive for it.

These things don’t have to take a lot of money – the symbolism of directors handing out pizza and saying thank you to people face to face has a big impact.

Values has always been evident as the heart of the business.  But they didn’t feel special – Integrity, Respect, Professional Service Excellence, Respond flexibly and positively to change, Fair & supportive employer of staff.

To capture the ‘specialness’ they did workshops with volunteers to explore the future culture they want – and the values that are fixed in their heritage.  Used Appreciative Inquiry to understand the values – talked about why people joined, what their high points have been, what their most audacious dreams are for the org.  Never fail to be surprised at the power of focussing on the positive.

AI – a change methodology used to focus on the positive rather than problem solve.  And believing the system has the knowledge, insights, resources needed to create what’s needed.

AI > Discovery – Dream – Design – Destiny.

Their values are now – Care, Mutuality, Sustainability, Wellbeing.

Nobody needs to be convinced of these.  They recognise them as what Benenden stand for.  They don’t need ‘selling in’.

As part of review of Performance Mgmt they’ve created a Behavioural Framework – How we work with each other, How we honour our heritage, How we work through change, How we deliver results.  Each has a summary statement e.g. We respect, trust & value the contribution from everyone and we inspire others through great leadership.  Then 4 statements below that e.g. We communicate openly & honestly & have a positive impact on others.

When thinking about alignment, not sure you can get everything absolutely aligned, but can gradually shift one part at a time.  Inji’s experience is that it takes about a year to have people realise things have shifted.  And that at the point you are so bored hearing yourself say the same thing, is about the time that it’s really filtered out into the org.

There’s been huge change in nearly all people practices & policies in the last 18 months including making the call centre like an actual call centre – knowing when calls are coming in, flexing staff, knowing how much cover you need & have at any time… etc.  Rather than drip feed they waited and packaged it up into a picture (co-created by people, not briefed by Inji) to communicate it – people respond better to images than words.  Gave facilitators of the story some training (just an hour) so they could take others through it.  Part of that role was about listening to what these things meant to them, to ask questions, to share concerns.

Achieved a 5% uplift in survey results like understanding the business plan and where I fit in it.

In the CEOs ‘town hall meetings’ people now ask how we’re doing in certain areas rather than waiting to be told.

Learnings > Communication + Co-creation + Celebration = More capacity for change than you might ever have thought!

This post has been live-blogged from #CIPDOD15.  I’ve done my best to represent the content accurately and fairly but some errors may exist.  Most of it is the speakers’ content and I aim to show the bits that are my opinion.

#CIPDOD15 Beyond OD Orthordoxy: dialogic and networked change approaches

This is with Prof Cliff Oswick of Cass Business School at City Uni London.

It’s going to be a fairly quick look at moving away from problem-centred change and to discursive approaches to OD.  Shifting from top-down to emergent, network forms of change.

Traditional vs Dialogic vs Emergent OD

1900s to present – orgs as machines.  1960’s to present – orgs as systems.  1980s to present – interpretive meaning-making systems, 1990s to present – complex adaptive systems.  The last 2 acknowledge the complexity, subjectivity, emergent, chaotic nature of OD.

We’ve come to realise that it’s the discursive construction and context of something that frames what we think of it.  It’s how we frame the problem that matters.

New dialogic OD is solutions-driven, proactive & rhizomatic (that means non-linear!), generative, complex & emergent, abstract & intangible, multi-directional (not constrained by hierarchy).  In the past OD took a problem-centred, concrete & tangible, reactive, linear approach.

All new CEOs come into an org and restructure within 6 mths.  Even though they won’t really know enough about the best structure to create.  All you do is move the pieces around.  Mark their territory.  Prove to the shareholders that they’re ‘doing’ something.  We still like to hold onto tangible.  But who you report to doesn’t really matter.  The power isn’t located in the hierarchy.  However people are structured won’t change the culture.

If interested in OD practices – book recommendation – Dialogic OD: a theory of practice (G. R. Bushe)

Traditional OD – change as a scentific process, great for linear, tangible problems and solutions, top-down e.g. job design, teamwork and structural intervention

Dialogic / Diagnostic / Contemporary OD – change as a discursive process, emergent, fluid, focus on positive and future – always trying to create better e.g. AI, Future Search, World Café

Emerging OD – change as a political process, a neutral focus on change – what will be different now rather than what will be better in the future, turbulent & socially connected, change with employees e.g. Employee activism, Constructive deviance

Talking about a play where the audience can choose to follow different characters acting out different scenes which shows the characters for who they really are.  Doesn’t work now because people tweet it / text it / fb message it so the other audience members find out about the back story they’d never have found out about before.  Just like in work.  There’s nowhere to hide your true self!

Bottom-up is the way forward!  Hierarchy will become less important and leaders will emerge at all levels – they’ve always been there but they’ll now be overt.  Internal crowdsourcing with leaders facilitating the conversations (not heroically leading) will increase into the future.  Decisions made outside of the boardroom – engages and brings people with you. Co-creating change.  Viral change – start by infecting one or two until everyone’s caught the bug!

This post has been live-blogged from #CIPDOD15.  I’ve done my best to represent the content accurately and fairly but some errors may exist.  Most of it is the speakers’ content and I aim to show the bits that are my opinion.

#CIPDOD15 Creating an Enabling Mindset to Become Agile & Future-Focused

Steve Morton Head of People and OD at Virgin Money.

The VUCA got a mention!  *klaxon*  But yes, change is happening all the time, it’s just that it feels a lot faster these days.

We all have a different response to the word ‘change’.  As we do to most things in life.  We all have different baggage we bring based on previous experiences.

Steve likes to move away from ‘change’ and more into thinking about what you want to become – Virgin Money wants, and Steve says sincerely wants, to be a bank where everyone’s better off.  Steve has the CEO on his side, she really cares about what they do.

There was a key criteria to keep the language the same as change began – the language in Virgin Money is simple and transparent and that needed to be maintained.  Doing that helps maintain trust.

Monumental moment when Virgin Money and Northern Rock combined.  When Steve joined the language was still ‘heritage Northern Rock’ or ‘heritage Virgin Money’.  You can’t move forward until you accept those two things need to be something different in the future.

To support change requires consistency of words and actions to build trust and belief that this is really happening and that people believe in it.

At a big event with CEO announced that only 51% felt they got what they needed to do their job.  This was Steve’s challenge.  He took a standback, big approach to reflect a strategy that says everyone’s better off (EBO).

For leadership development they’ve got a social media platform to manage learning, invitations sent through the post, creating an experience for colleagues to make it feel EBO.  Role modelling what’s needed because creating an experience is what managers and their teams need to do for their customers – creating advocates of the brand in employees and customers.

Next step was thinking about developing talent.  The 9 box doesn’t fit with EBO.  He wanted a story to show an EBO approach that would include every single colleague and help them wherever they are.  They’ve got a 4 box and a circle model! – Core Performers – help them be the best they can be, Protect & Grow – key players, Honest Action – it’s just not working, Square Peg Round Hole – help back on track, Future Business Leaders – development stretch.  Whatever type of box-model you want to use, for me the key is the attitude towards the people in the boxes.  Respect for them and their needs.

They’ve brought in apprenticeships to help local and younger community.

Steve’s key – don’t talk up change – the word scares people.  Talk up the things that are most important to your org.  Talk about the reality in real language.

This post has been live-blogged from #CIPDOD15.  I’ve done my best to represent the content accurately and fairly but some errors may exist.  Most of it is the speakers’ content and I aim to show the bits that are my opinion.

#CIPDOD15 Delivering and Embedding Organisational Transformation

This is Transport for London with Alexandra Bode-Tunji who’s Programme Lead Skills & Capabilities.  It’s going to look at some of the obstacles, engaging sponsors, stakeholders and employees, and the transition process.

Didn’t know TFL was the 7th most recognised brand!

Context for change – rising customer expectations, pressure on costs, new technology and changes in regulatory.  This will be a familiar story in many organisations – private and public.  And the change to an improved experience at lower cost had to be done while taking employees on the journey.

Aim to embed customer-focussed behaviours through leadership, ticket hall transformation (people and tech) and a new staffing model.  We all know about this part from the strikes!

The roster changes will lead to 4000 people moving their station!  A huge change.

The work started with development of leaders.  Without that nothing changes.  This was based on the McKinsey 7s Model to diagnose – Structure, Systems, Style, Staff, Skills, Strategy, Shared Values.

And to put it in place Alexandra used the Naomi Stanford (2005) model of Discover – Design – Deliver – Transition – Integrate.

There’s a huge mindset shift needed from safety and asset management to managing people.  Plus there are a lot of families and relationships within teams in TFL so there’s a big challenge for people in, and stepping into, supervisor roles.

To support this, they’re adopting coaching into their leadership approach.

Some of the challenges Alexandra’s had are – 1) Complex Trade Union envmt and no major change in 25 years, 2) No compulsory redundancies allowed, no selection into roles allowed – mapped people in – some don’t want to be in there or might not be capable, with average 25 years length of service and 1.5% turnover, 3) 4 COO’s in 2 years – each needing to be engaged in the change – Alexandra has faith in the new guy!, 4) Critical people issues and learning on the job – low priority  Much more focused on safety and assets, 5) Inconsistent change leadership and local ownership, 6) 100 different stakeholder groups!

They’re taking a strategic approach to sustain and embed the changes – considering blended learning, performance management, recognising and celebrating success, recruitment and selection, change network groups, coaching/team effectiveness.

Alexandra’s biggest learning is to use simple English to describe what you want to do – get away from HR speak!  And my build, if you don’t know if you’re an HR-speaker – ask people!  She’s also learnt the power of having insights and information to show and track how things are progressing.  She’s now got people asking HER how things are going and what they can do to improve.

Video at the end showing about customer service development – that story you so often hear – ‘it’s great to know it’s not just me / us who have these challenges day to day’ – people get great benefits from feeling part of something bigger by coming together, both for the good stuff that goes on, the human connection and to voice challenges.

This post has been live-blogged from #CIPDOD15.  I’ve done my best to represent the content accurately and fairly but some errors may exist.  Most of it is the speakers’ content and I aim to show the bits that are my opinion.

#CIPDOD15 Transitioning Target Culture into Behavioural Expectation

This session is from Zurich Life – James Sutherland (Interim Business Consultant) and Kirsty Knight (HR Business Consultant) – they’re going to be talking about embedding change through employee involvement and centrally organised initiatives.  These two sound opposing positions so I’m intrigued to learn how they’ve made this work. I’m wondering if this is Polarity Thinking in play where it can’t be one or the other and success comes from balancing both.

Context – 2 parts – general and life insurance.  2012, major change structural programme that split Life into Retail, Corporate and …..sorry missed the last one!  They play a role as responsibility for our futures and being financially OK through that has been increasingly shifted to the individual from the state.  Since 2009 they’ve had a lot of change in the top team (especially CEOs and COOs).  They’ve also had a lot of change in regulatory, pension legislation and industry overall.

They appointed PACE Champions to facilitate change (Passion, Agile, Collaboration, Externally focussed – they worked together on what their role needed of them.  Brought to the role – purposefully – from different ages, genders, grades in the org.  She was looking for people who would be bold enough to hold their own with influencing senior leaders and directors.  Was tough at the start but they’re on it now!

They meet monthly to agree what their next focus needs to be.  They link responses rom the employee survey back into the actions / initiatives being taken.

1. One initiative – PACE Awards to recognise those whose behaviour matches the culture.  Anyone can nominate themselves to be on the judging panel for the quarter.  £75 of vouchers for an individual or £250 for a team.  Used to be 4 individuals and 2 teams that would be recognised.  Feedback was that people wanted more ‘winners’ and that was more important than retaining level of reward.  It’s not the financial reward that’s the key driver – it’s the recognition in front of their friends and peers.  At the end of the year there’s an awards dinner for all winners.

2. Another initiative – A whole week focused on change.  Monday was called Disturbed Monday – anything to break the patterns and routines we follow.  Put your watch on the other wrist.  Walk a different way round the office.  Prizes for people who found the most novel ways to break habits.

Tuesday was about identifying areas to change – what do they like, what don’t they. what would they change

Wednesday – recognise the triggers for change

Thursday – supporting them with info on change curve and supporting them through change

Friday – celebrating changes being made

3. Next one was That’s Life – with a challenge of silo working, each dept could go and showcase what they did using a stand or stall – ran at lunchtime and at the Start of Year event.  e.g. Legal & Compliance talking about what a career in that area looks like.

4. Learning Week – plays into Passion and Collaboration.  Involves all levels.  One week we ran 60 sessions and encouraged everyone to take one hour to undertake some development.  They had some interns delivering something on Prezzi.  The COO delivering on Introverted Leadership.

5. Ride the Subway – big disconnect between regional and head office teams.  Initiative to get office people out into the field to see the impact of what the office creates.  People brought things back to the office that could be changed to improve things for the regional teams and customers.  Loads of process improvements, ditched a lot of things, and most importantly build collaboration between field and office.

6. Strictly Come Dancing to encourage beliefs that trying new things and making mistakes is OK.  Did a dance show for charity with outfits, makeup everything!  Was a showcase to staff that it’s OK to be human and to make mistakes.

They’ve learnt – champions are very valuable, people need shoulder-tapping to avoid it always being the same people involved.  they need the support of their manager to see this as a valuable part of their role.

Recognition has been great to help people hear how the values can be lived in real life.  Diverse and transparent judging panel helps to get fair outcomes and help people value other’s perspectives.

Use the approach of ‘Tone from the Top’ and ‘Noise from the Bottom’ – the top sets the overall intent and direction – and they must listen to the people who are ‘on the ground’.

The majority of this has been done on little budget.  Time and desire are much more important.

This post has been live-blogged from #CIPDOD15.  I’ve done my best to represent the content accurately and fairly but some errors may exist.  Most of it is the speakers’ content and I aim to show the bits that are my opinion.

#CIPDOD15 Transitioning from HR to OD

Claire Thomas, Head of OD at Penguin Randomhouse

Claire became Head of OD when Penguin and Random House merged and was offered the challenge of bringing those two cultures together.

Claire felt it was, and still is, knitting fog.  She’d been told it was about planning and making change happen but became much more emergent and evolutionary.  She decided to stop looking outside for answers and chose to ask what the organisation needed from her.

How you go about your work in OD will depend on what your org needs.  Each is different.  For Claire this was about finding a shared purpose and shared sense of values.  She spent a lot of time learning from others about what was important to them about where they worked and the org they’d come from.  It also involved starting to create a place everyone would jointly want to be.

The values have just recently been launched by the CEO and include the desire to make a difference and to do that differently – to push the boundaries.

Examples –

1. An employee survey that asked honestly for opinions about what wasn’t working and how they can bring the two orgs closer together.
2. Enabling people, especially younger generation, to have a voice with the senior leaders.

Claire’s lessons – Seek out the gaps – not reacting to requests, Make things happen – it starts with us doing something, Play the long game – the work is less immediate and urgent which requires and patience and confidence, Find new ways to influence – things are less certain and more ambiguous – can’t rely on hierarchy to influence, Embrace the freedom – discovered new things that have broadened horizons

Next Helen Cooke from Great Ormond Street Hospital

Started as an English Grad, went overseas and taught English as a foreign language, came home and did PostGrad in HR in a variety of roles.Then moved into Great Ormond St as HR.  There was no Director of HR and everything was about hiring, firing and the bread and butter baseline stuff.  Half of her role was making sure people got paid, the other half was health & wellbeing stuff – which the org saw as a necessary evil rather than value-adding.

New CEO appointed HR Director and asked Helen to become Head of OD.  She didn’t really know what it was so went home and researched – it felt nebulous and fluffy to the point she thought she was being eased out of the org.  Turns out she wasn’t!  That was 18 months ago.

In the last 18mths Helen’s spent time on values, a substantial project which has led to things like values-based recruitment.  Talking to patients about designs for a new wing of the building.  Helen also partners with the org on the Structural Design aspects of the structure – always holding to the values.

Helen’s now done a qualification in OD which helps her feel credible and knowledgeable – especially compared to that person who had to google what it was 18 mths ago.  Especially when working with medical teams who value knowledge and research.

Helen has the benefit of a CEO who is absolutely on her side and supports with influencing the agenda.

What Helen doesn’t have is the ability to take whole teams out for days to build team effectiveness – it’s a drip feed approach because there need to be people with the kids.

Helen makes a great point at the end that OD isn’t about being better or more important than the rest of HR – no part of the HR / People world can be entirely effective without the others.  Our strength is in being brilliant together!

This post has been live-blogged from #CIPDOD15.  I’ve done my best to represent the content accurately and fairly but some errors may exist.  Most of it is the speakers’ content and I aim to show the bits that are my opinion.

#CIPDOD15 Embedding Transformational Change

First session is with Prof Julia Balogun, Associate Dean of Research at the School of Management in the Uni of Bath – wow that’s a long title!

This is a quick intro intended to inspire practitioners to consider alternative approaches to change and helping OD practitioners to drive their own capability.  Whatever impact you want to have in the world, it starts with you.

Julia’s research is about helping people put theory of change into practice.  The case study orgs were BBC Worldwide, HMRC (psnl tax), News UK and Zurich UK Life.

Julia’s been researching change for about 20 years.  What she found –

There’s a new generation of CEOs who understand there’s a need for a long-term approach that brings the various elements of change together and in the best sequence.

There’s a need to invest in the softer aspects, not just structures and systems.  Good to hear when systems and structures are created by people.  Makes people-focus pretty fundamental.

There’s more effort to get strategy to the front line so that ‘leadership rhetoric’ gets to the people who are really impacted and need to bring this to life.

They found 3 Transformational Themes –

1. Building Leadership for Change (led by a CEO with a clear agenda, expert facilitation, no need to be heroes making the change happen alone)

2. Building Understanding of and Commitment to Change (engagement events – don’t have to be one big conference thing, they can be small and local to build dialogue, comms – people in senior positions talking and role modelling for the desired future – not about news letters, clarity through detail, changing patterns of interactions – changing habits)

3. Enabling Change (creating change advocates, removing obstacles and providing tools, acting on measurements)

HR and OD need to partner with the senior team – this isn’t about one or other being able to do this alone.

Expectations in a Box

Think of yourself at work and how it feels right now.

If you imagine you’re in a box at work, what would that box be like?

Are you in a roomy box with space to spread yourself out and change position?

Are you cramped in a box that you feel you could burst out of any minute?

Do you remember once feeling like you could burst out and now you feel like you’ve shrunk to fit inside?

What about your team?  What are their boxes like?

“The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Our brains are constantly scanning for danger, these days danger isn’t usually an animal that wants to eat us, it’s a threat to our self esteem, or our ego.  We’re raised in a world where being ‘right’ and ‘good’ are the things we’re meant to strive for*.  That’s what gets us praise, good school grades, a good job, a pay rise……stuff that boosts our self esteem and positively strokes our ego.  Interactions that make us feel like this are helpful to calm our fearful brain down which improves our thinking, helps us feel more abundant and generous towards ourselves and others, helps us become more creative by connecting dots.  This then leads to a growth in confidence and the desire to try more things, to push the boundaries, to come up with new ideas.  To coin the lyricist R Kelly, we believe we can fly!

So in contrast to this, interactions that don’t boost our self-esteem and which knock our ego signal a threat situation and our brain and therefore body invoke our stress response to keep us alive.  The result is primitive, narrowed and superficial thinking. Our sense of humour and creativity are lost.  We move to a defensive, protective position where we don’t trust others and where we operate in a safe zone.  Our confidence drops, as does our performance.

In real life, we don’t often have work experiences that are explicitly threatening (although of course they do exist) what is more common though is a drip-feed effect.  Like water dripping onto a stone and gradually creating a hole or well.  The person dripping the water makes the occasional comment here, gives us the odd look there, steps across our opportunity to show what we can do, (unconsciously) sets us up for a fall to prove they’re right, tells us their answer rather than asking our opinion.  And equally they can do the opposite where their drip, drip, drip of mineral-filled water builds us up like a stalagmite of brilliance.

No matter how micro the facial movements, the inflection in tone of voice, the underlying message in the words, our brain will pick up on the subtext of either ‘you’re great or ‘you’re rubbish’ and over time will helpfully or unhelpfully influence how we feel and how we perform.

This is the stuff that means we feel like we’re capable of bursting out of our box, or makes us shrink to fit the expectations around us.

I’m sure you can think of people who have had a positive or negative impact on you and how you subsequently performed.

And I’m sure you will have a positive or negative impact on people around you.

So take this chance to think about who you think is incapable.  If you want them to grow rather than shrink, what could you do to change your perception of them?  How could you take one step to let them show you how you can believe in them? What could you think about their abilities instead that would change how you treat them?  How could you remind yourself to spot when they do something ‘right’ or ‘good’?

“The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.”

Be the leader who enables those around them to burst out of their boxes!

* I’m aware that many people are also raised with negative ego stroking and this post may not apply to them.

[Photo credit – http://chadstutzman.com/?p=1311%5D

This is me……..www.wildfigsolutions.co.uk

It’s nearly here! #CIPDOD15

I’m excited!  On 29th September I’m taking a trip down to London for the CIPD OD Conference and what a day it looks like it’s going to be!

I’m not sure how long Org Development as a term’s been around.  I first learnt about it from the imminently wise David D’Souza, back in 2013, when I found out that the job I’d been doing and known just as a change programme, was in fact OD!  Who knew!!

Whatever it’s called, we all know that change is the new normal – the shrinking globe, the pace of technology, customer expectations – and we know that organisational culture will determine whether you can adapt to those external changes or not.  So whatever the name of the discipline – developing a culture that enables your organisation to change is essential to success as we step forward from here.

My main work focus now is Exec Coaching which means helping individuals change – I guess helping them create the culture they want for their own world.  My approach is psychology- and brain-based to help clients understand what’s going on for them.  Their thoughts.  Their emotions.  When we can rationalise and understand in this way, it can help us to see an alternative way through.  This work then also leads me into working with leadership teams, enabling them to create the culture they want so on the 29th September I’m really curious to hear about what others are up to, and some of the research behind it.

For example, the first session is about Embedding Transformational Change with Julia Balogun from the Uni of Bath.  She’s going to be telling us about ‘alternative approaches to change’ – I really can’t wait to hear what these are, and whether insights about the brain are going to find their way in here.

There’s also a session with Zurich which will focus on translating the culture we desire into behavioural reality.  The brochure info says they’ll be talking about both employee involvement and centrally organised initiatives so I’m really interested to hear about how they balance those two things – and how that balance supports the culture they want.

There’s a theme I’m liking for the day which is about the reality of change – some stuff around the obstacles that can be faced, the fact that this stuff takes time, that it requires dialogue and collaboration and that we might need to develop new skills.  In fact there’s a whole session about the role of OD and how HR can transition to this.

A couple of specific areas of skill that we’re going to get a look into are Appreciative Inquiry (AI) which Inji Duducu will talk about, linked to sustaining commitment which, given that OD isn’t a quick fix, will be great.  Also there’ll be insights around the use of technology in achieving a cultural shift.  The technology bit doesn’t initially interest me so much, but the fact it’s the NHS talking about this does fascinate me.  The NHS and great tech aren’t words which go together in my current world, and I also know that there’s great stuff happening in the OD world of the NHS – possibly one of the biggest OD challenges on the planet!  So I’m really looking forward to hearing about what they’re up to.

So do you fancy joining us?  It’s going to be an amazing day!!  Book here.

#CIPDOD15

This is me……..www.wildfigsolutions.co.uk