Organisation development


Organisation development is about helping your orgnisation to grow and your people to thrive.


A simple diagnostic questionnaire or focus groups with a cross section of employees will tell you, for example, whether everyone is clear about your purpose and values or whether they haven't gone further than being a poster on the wall.


Purpose and values give direction, energy and life to an organisation.  In his thought provoking book "Start with Why" Simon Sinek makes the point that people don't buy what you do.  They buy your why - your purpose, cause or belief.


Purpose and values sit at the heart of organisation culture - "the way that things get done around here".  They are part of the answers to two questions to which every organisation has to find answers:


  • How do we deal with the world around us?
  • How do we relate to and deal with each other?


The answers to these questions become what gets taught to new recruits as the way to think, feel and behave and what gets reinforced for better or worse in the conversations that existing employees have with each other and the stories they tell.  


Exploring Culture

Culture matters and the right culture will support an organisation in delivering its aims and objectives.  In just the same way a poor culture will diminish its chances of success.


Is your culture what you want it to be?  Is it helping you to succeed?  If you said "no" to these questions or "I'm not sure", I can work with you to analyse where you are now and what you could change to get you to where you would like to be.


  • What are the stories that people tell, who are the heroes and the villians and what does this tell you about what matters to people?


  • What is the leadership style and how are leaders setting an example and shaping the culture?


  • How effectively does the organisation fit together and work together?  How do relationships work within and across the different parts of your business?


  • Who exerts influence in the organisation and who feels excluded even when they have something important to say?


  • What's the promise that you make to your customers and how are you viewed by your stakeholders?


Managing change

An Appreciative Inquiry approach to change management


Organisation development is about change.  Research tells us that the majority of change initiatives fail to deliver what is expected of them.  Typically, that's not because people can't do what is expected, but because they aren't on board with what they need to do differently.


Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to change management that helps organisations to grow by building on what already works and where the life and energy of the organisation is.



Discovery - is about finding what is working well.  What are your key strengths?  What are the quailities that have got you to where you are now?  What is it that gives life and energy to what you do?


Dream - What's your dream for the future - or what could be?  This is about imagination, creativity and possibilities, but it's not about building castles in the air.  Your dream will be built on the resources that you have discovered as part of the discovery phase


Design - is about what needs to happen to deliver the dream


Destiny - What's the plan.  Who will do what?  When will it be done by?  How will you know that you have succeeded?