What is organisational development?
Organisational Development (OD) is defined by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development as a ‘planned and systematic approach to enabling sustained organisational performance through the involvement of its people.’ Put simply, it’s the people side of change.
Often organisations take a purely task-focused, process driven approach to transformation, defining a project plan and rolling out re-structures. Experience shows that this changes very little and usually results in widescale resistance. If you want real and lasting change, you will only achieve it with and through people.
What should you expect?
Typical OD interventions include working with senior leadership teams to define and engage employees in organisational vision, values and strategy; building leadership capacity whilst ensuring leaders are both visible across the workforce and role model organisational values; defining and embedding management behaviours and practices; supporting workforce planning and development and embedding new ways of working through a structured approach to communication and engagement of everyone involved.
My approach
For me effective OD is all about getting the balance right between strategic focus and pragmatic delivery. It’s about understanding the importance of key elements (vision, values, culture and leadership) and being clear what they mean in your organisation, where you are now, where you want to be and what are the steps that are going to take you there.
It’s about being honest and transparent in your approach to staff and being clear what’s set in stone and what’s up for debate. It’s about inspiring others, acting with integrity and working through engagement. And if that is what you’re looking for, that’s where I can help.
Please contact me for further information.
