Transformative Organisation Design with Julian Chender Accenture Kates Kessler - OrgDev Episode 29

In this week's interview, we're looking at Organisation Design. How do you do it in way that helps build healthier organisations and ultimately a society that works for all?

We're joined by the excellent Julian Chender, Principal for Operating Model and Organisation Design for the global consulting firm Accenture. Julian was a pleasure to interview and is passionate about creating ways in which people can learn about and advance in the field of OD.

Editors Footnote:
In the podcast we discussed the Zeigarnik effect theory, named after Bluma Zeigarnik. Rather than Olga has mentioned in the video.

💼 About our Guest
Julian Chender MSOD, ACC
Principal, Operating Model & Organization Design
Accenture | Kates Kessler

Connect with Julian or follow his work here:
  / julianchender 

Julian Chender is a dedicated consultant  at Accenture, driven by a lifelong commitment to fostering a healthier society that benefits everyone. This mission has been a guiding force for Julian since childhood, influenced by a unique upbringing that embraced two rich traditions: the Jewish principle of "tikkun olam," meaning to repair the world, and the Buddhist aspiration of creating "a good human society."

Julian's professional journey led him to specialize in organization design, development, and coaching, where he collaborates with human systems—encompassing individuals, teams, organizations, and communities—to cultivate optimal conditions for success. His extensive consulting career spans a diverse range of environments, from Fortune 10 companies to the smallest nonprofits, and from intergovernmental European organizations to political offices in New York City.

Central to Julian's work is the belief in the profound impact of human connection and the power of shaping behavior for the better. His approach is grounded in creating meaningful change and fostering environments where individuals and organizations can thrive. 

Previously Julian held Consultancy and OD roles at Veldhoen and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Di

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Transcript

(00:00) hi and welcome to the orgdev podcast so how do you shape and develop the Ultimate Team the team of teams yesterday we're looking at organization design the aim of organization design is to shape group Behavior but how do you do it in a way that helps build healthy organizations and ultimately a society that works for all so with that in mind we're absolutely delighted to introduce and invite today Julian chender who's joining us from New York today Julian is principal for the global consulting firm
(00:30) EX Venture so Julian has been in the field of OD since 2013 and he's passionate about creating ways which people can learn about in advance in the field of OD so in 2020 Julian joined katees Keesler part of Accenture as an organization design fellow and recently transferred to accenture's thought leadership and expert track as principal prior to his time at case Keesler and Accenture he was in consultancy roles at Bel H and the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases as well so outside of work Julian's a real
(01:03) driver and is always looking to create better work and improve standards in the OD profession so he's been an Advisory Board member and leant to the board director of organization design Forum he's a guest lecture at various universities including Cornell and he's also founder of the OD salon and also coffee and Cocktails as well so we're absolutely delighted to have Julian join us today and Danny and I have been looking forward to this call all week long haven't we Danny absolutely yeah
(01:28) it's going to be the highlight of the week for us so so thank you so much for joining us Julian absolutely a pleasure I think I've been looking forward to this for a few months now brilliant it's lovely to have you with us so just to kick us off just tell us a bit about your work what does it involve so a lot of my work is led by the Sea suite and that could be a SE Suite of foundation of a nonprofit which is where I spend most of my time it could be a public sector organization state or federal government which is
(01:54) also a place to spend most of my time or a fortune 10 where I've worked in the past and that work is about topown planned organizational change so we're going back to to Dick Beard's you know 1960s definition of organization development it's diagnostic it's LED with diagnosis and it's developing the organization from the point of view of galra's star model so it's thinking about how do we align structure processes and governance metrics and rewards and talent practices to the
(02:25) organization's strategy so to sum it up what I say is I do strategy Le organization design so it's organization design rather than organization development or how do you differentiate between the two that is a question that I'm still wrestling with um I would say organization development says organization design is one of the things we do in organization development and organization design would say we a distinct field that uses a lot from organization development I don't really care which one it is as long as your
(02:54) practice is informed by both because I think that's where this work shines so I would say where I work is in organization design from the point of view of it's a design methodology it's a design framework it's specifically spent in my time is spent in organization design forums and communities but all of my work is informed by years and years of training in the organization development space and so the methodology that I work with the case Caster methodology is based on work by the axle rods and Conference model and based on
(03:31) future search um Marv and Sandra and so it's really about bringing large groups together to co-create the Future so it's diagnostic upfront dialogic throughout and really really um messy in the right places if you could do it right sounds fascinating and just to sort of help people that just get an introduction to this if I was an organization how would I know that I would need to engage an organization like you what might be some of the the symptoms or needs that might sort driving there usually it's people
(04:03) come to organization design from a question of structure most of the time they say our structure is wrong and I say maybe but that's only part of organization design and they say well we want to fix the structure I say okay we can do that and we would have to do X Y and Z Etc because if you just fix the structure you don't have any way of working across the structure you have no way of activating the structure you have no way of of understanding what that structure is supposed to accomplish so one of my mentors says that looking at
(04:33) an org chart you immediately lose about 150 IQ points it's really really really a place to go to forget everything you know about how organizations work so we do or design with very little or chart work there it's involved it's necessary to to get to the end result but there's a whole lot upfront that's about how do we translate the strategy into how we organize ourselves intellectually and and I think the another mentor of mine Amy K says we we create invisible edifices so when we build the
(05:04) organization the organization chart is something you can see and so people go right to that they're like I understand that this person reports to this person reports to this person and that makes me feel secure because I get how that works and we say well most of or design is stuff you can't see and you can't touch and so it's really the invisible organization it's the whole of it it's the gal that we design and then to answer your other question about org development org development is about
(05:29) living in that on the day-to-day so there is sometimes in or design and or development a bit of a handoff where the designers will work up front to create structure visible and invisible to create the processes visible and invisible uh design the metrics and set the talent strategy and or developers will go and work with the teams to actually figure out how that how that's lived on a day-to-day basis and I would say my work crosses that boundary and the more it crosses that boundary the better my work ends up being that's
(05:58) fascinating and we'll ask you some questions about how you came to be where you are because I think that's just such an interesting question you said at the beginning that you do like a sort of a diagnostic so to sort of understand and appreciate what is what what kind of steps would you take a client through with that in terms of to understand it's very very old school it's it's serious interviews and document review so if we're doing an Enterprise of 6,000 people we would interview you know a
(06:26) cross-section of 35 maybe 40 if if we have a lot of space and time time and those would be about 45 minutes and there'd be questions based on galre star model so we'd ask about strategy we'd ask about capabilities we ask about structure process metrics how they tal the talent how they live what's working well it's not working well and we would collate that but it's not just about feeding back the data you know it's not just saying here's what we see where a mirror there's Insight that's that's
(06:57) that's how we drive into the design is what do we as designers understand about their organization that they might not understand what can we offer on top of feeding back what they they may or may not see of themselves how do we digest that for them and then that's what gets into the design so from there we say okay do we need to start aligning on strategy usually we're hired after a strategy is complete we're not strategists we're designers and the the design the operating model is the gap
(07:27) between strategy and results or strategy and implementation or intention and impact whatever you want to say and so the operating model is all that goes into creating the organization that's going and how it's going to run and so the diagnostic is about what do we need to do better than our competitors or best in our field to really differentiate ourselves and make that difference so that our organization stands out if you look at some of the work like is it Richard rumal where he talks about strategy and often what it
(07:56) doesn't do is it doesn't look at really what is what are the real challenges we're facing so we have these strategies which are you know they're wonderfully elegant documents but sometimes they're not always correlated with reality or our true capability so if you're picking things up at the strategy phase are there often gaps between where the strategy wishes it to be and where the organization is right now and is a lot of work to try and bridge that Gap I mean that's the foundation of the work
(08:21) is to bridge that Gap so so I would say that's absolutely true strategy is already future focused it's it's where do we want to be in five years and then there's the well where are we now and how do we get to that 5-year Mark that's where I come in and that's that's where the operating model work comes in I think the best is when the organization design and operating model work is done based on current problems to solve that we're not just doing an operating model to achieve the strategy but to solve the
(08:48) problems right now that are preventing you from achieving that strategy even if that strategy was built yesterday there's something that's not there if it was built it two years ago and you're not achieving it we have even more questions so what is the problem to solve is so important I think so many so much of my life right now is about asking the right questions so I don't want to solve a problem without knowing what the problem is I'm solving and it's a disservice to the client to design a
(09:14) wonderful organization that doesn't solve their problems now someone would say well that's not an appreciative approach we want to we want to take their strengths and build on what is and we do that that's a huge part of what we do and that's in the what of this organization do we need to preserve and grow that's part of the diagn IC saying what is so special here that we we need to actually build into the design that we wouldn't build into a design of company X over here because they don't
(09:38) have that so we we do highlight the special and the capabilities are about what do we do well and what do we need to do really well so there is a positive approach but to ignore the problems to solve would be a disservice to the client because then you're you're designing something that doesn't actually fix the problems that are in implementing strategy and that's what we're here to do just for people watching this and they're just starting to get introduced to things like uh the operating model so we're not looking for
(10:05) an Oxford Collins Dictionary definition of it but but what is like an operating model to to you guys like what does it contain the fun part about the operating model is that there's a lot of conversation about what is an operating model and there's no answer so everyone everyone watching this just going okay everyone everyone has a different definition of the operating model and in fact it's a competitive differentiator among Consulting companies to have different versions of an operating model model that they prescribe to clients so
(10:32) Accenture has theirs deoe has theirs BCG has theirs so in this big space we're all competing on our operating model is the right one and the answer is they're all cuts of the same pie which is what are the things that go from strategy to results and the way Accentra developed its operating model and organization design practice was through the acquisition of katees Kesler and Kates Kesler was the hereditary result of of the star model from Jay GTH Jay had the star model he said I want to write a book he said Amy Kates Diane Downey I'm
(11:07) working with you do you want to write the book with me then Diane passed away you wanted to write a second book Amy wrote the second book with Jay then Amy met Greg Kesler and they are now the holders of the star model and the star model is not theirs but they they are the ones who've given it the most thought and so that's my now lineage is the star model and so for me design is is about the star model and therefore the operating model is about how do you get all those points of the star to align what are the things you need and
(11:37) and some people talk about workspace and some people talk about teams and networks and they're all relevant depending on the client so I would say RIT large to to kind of round this out and maybe have a a clear definition the operating model is anything that takes you from strategy to results my basis for that is the star model so that could be people Pro systems than anything in between as well right a question we' we'd really like to ask is so what was your journey into the field of OD did it find you did did it something you come
(12:11) across like so what was your sort of your journey and and how did you come to be where you are today it found me and I was looking for it at the same time so I had the good good fortune of graduating with a liberal arts degree in 2009 during the financial crisis where my marketable skills were reading and writing um occasionally research so I was not ready for a job um and I thought I really want to help people and so I'm going to go to social work school and I lasted about six weeks I thought I would be a therapist and I realized within the
(12:46) six weeks that I was far too young far too immature and far too scared to be a therapist um so I thought well I have to figure out another way to help people and needed work so I found found a job uh tutoring for the SAT and ACT which are our college entrance exams here in the states and thought huh this is really interesting because I'm not teaching trigonometry for more than 10 minutes of the hour I'm doing a lot of helping the student figure out how to feel successful and feel confident and manage the fact that her parents want
(13:20) her to go to one school but she wants to go to another because she's actually interested in something that they're not interested in her being interested in and then how do we pay for it well then that has has to factor in so I'm dealing with individuals family systems and the education system and I thought huh I really like systems I didn't have a word for it I didn't have the word systems but that that was really interesting to me and then I had kind of a a moment where I realized seeing 17year olds and
(13:45) their parents for my entire career was probably not the longevity that I wanted out of out of life um so moved wanted to get out of New York moved to Washington DC took a job in the federal government doing Freedom of Information Act requests so really a a government paper pusher for three years and that's where I I kind of thought about what I wanted to do ended up going to the authentic leadership and action Institute with my uncle which was one of the early dialogic OD gatherings in Halifax Nova Scotia so encountered presencing
(14:18) encountered appreciative inquiry encountered Dharma arts and I thought I said to him this is what I want to do I met I met Glend doang and and human systems Dynamics there and I said to him this is what I want to do what is this because this is called organization development and I said never heard of it it's a thing people have jobs to do there's a career Well turns out there not only that there's a graduate program in the city I live in at American University that's actually quite good and so I
(14:47) within a year ended up in the American University Masters of Science and organization development from there found my way into the National Institute of allergy and infectious disease which was our our Co response place for the US it was that's that's Tony fouche's organization and I was there doing Enterprise strategy work and team development and individual leadership development so playing at multiple levels of system for three and a half years during Ebola and zika and we we talked about the culture of this
(15:17) institute versus other institutes within the National Institutes of Health and they said look infectious disease is fast cancer is slow like cancer research isn't going to H change overnight but when we have a bull outbreak we're getting on a plane and we're flying to to Liberia or S Leo and I thought that changes how we have to develop leaders here that changes how we have to structure our organization that changes how we have to develop people that changes how we have to set our strategy and so from there I really understood
(15:46) that the unique capabilities of an organization are based on what they're supposed to be doing love took me back to New York found a job with fun and Company which was my first external Consulting experience did a lot of work on on workplace strategy so the intersection of tech culture and physical space spent a lot of time in Pharma in New Jersey and then um thought I'm designing physical spaces with culture in mind so what is the actual organization that goes with this physical space and I thought I remember
(16:16) I had one class in graduate school where I learned about the star model for about two hours and that class I wrote my paper on the star model and it just came to me as like that's what I want to be doing and so I found Amy Kates also living in New York the inheritor of the star model and I asked her for coffee and I think I bought her a cup of coffee on a quasa and it was the best return on investment I've ever amazing and what was your sort of introduction into Kate's Kesler because it's got a particular kind of approach a
(16:47) perspective like a methodology like what was your kind of sort of entrance into the organization into the world OD and D Consulting Amy was very generous so we we really hit it off that morning and she invited me to her public class at Cornell um which was happening in I think six weeks and I was all ready to go you know sit in a room with 20 org designers and learn her methodology and then Co hit so it was immediately online and what that did was it gave me time because it was spaced out instead of two days it gave me time to actually really
(17:20) settle it and and play with the material and I must have asked enough good questions for her to think I had something T because she had me work with one of her colleagues in a tutoring capacity for about six more months so we weren't working together I was still working at at Fon and she hadn't been acquired yet by Accenture there was a mutual cording where she was teaching me her methodology I was digesting it and I was interested and then as soon as she got acquired she was able to hire me in sort of after a short period uh into
(17:50) Accenture so my org design career has been with katees Kesler but the Accenture version of Kate kler yeah and and accent helped katees Kesler could kind of grow quite explosively hasn't it it's gone from like a practice of 30 I think last time I heard was around about 100 and imagine it's got some form of global footprint as well now yeah so the numbers are actually a bit more Stark it was 10 people who came over with the acquisition and were 150 globally we have three three practices North America
(18:19) Europe and growth markets and we have a teams chat that's very live with lots of interesting questions across the globe all at all hours and you do lots of things around kind of your your day job don't you you kind of involved in lots of kind of OD related things do you want to T us a bit more about some of those sure so I spend a lot of time um with the organization design Forum which I really enjoy so we just had the conference last week and I host a monthly Gathering there called the coffee to cocktails club which is based
(18:49) on the OD Salon which I had founded when I moved to New York and I'll explain that in a second but the the coffee to cocktails Club is what is Julian interested in this month can he ask two questions about it and form enough people to get together into breakout groups and the answer continuously seems to be yes to my to my great pleasure and it's it's more about learning through social learning than it is about any other teaching quality so there's no there's no lecture there's no I mean I
(19:19) think the slide I share is the questions that you're supposed to talk about in your groups and half the groups don't even talk about the questions so really a social place to Network and and and just share what we're doing because I think there's so many people doing this work in so many different Pockets that aren't talking to each other as as much as we could and I think that the more we talk to each other the stronger the field becomes so what you're doing here is phenomenal for the field and what
(19:45) you're doing with um cipd is phenomenal for the field so that for me is is that's my version of that the OD Salon was was a bit of a of an experiment because in in Washington DC there was an American University alumni group and we would get together for a happy hour about once a month and we we it was mostly just hanging out with people who understood what you did there wasn't a lot of talking about work but just to be with people who understood this bizarre thing we do called org design and development was really a relaxing time
(20:16) and a place of great great friendship and when I moved to New York I spent about eight months interviewing for jobs in New York and I got pretty far in some got a couple offers and got turned down by many my takeaway was that no one knew each other so the the SVP of OD at MasterCard didn't know the SVP of OD at Citybank and I thought well that's a problem and I liked both of you and I think you'd like each other so let's have a happy hour and it started with a happy hour on a snowy March day I think
(20:46) we had eight people and it it scaled into monthly Gatherings of 120 people in New York and then in Co went online and so we we had a water reach um but as I transitioned more into focusing with the org design Forum I passed it on to kaai Stowers who's now running the OD Salon but I kept kind of that that Gathering Community quality in in the org designed Forum coffee to cocktails Club so that's a lot of what I do um in terms of convening that that warms our heart to know that you're building an OD and D
(21:18) Community because it's so true though isn't it because as capable as these people are it means there's a lot of learning curves that are far steeper than they probably need to be and we all do it on our own particular way but just that little bit of knowhow and and often normalizing it and I guess everything about being an OD and person doing it in an organization is you don't really have a space to when you're not on stage and you're not being visible so it is quite good to have time out with your sort of
(21:45) your peers isn't it I find it's the the nourishment we need to go out there one of the things we like to do with this podcast is just demystify kind of the field of OD and d a little bit for the audience and because it can feel quite mysterious to people a typical week is I usually have one client at a time that's that's kind of how I'm structured at Accenture um right now I'll I'll I'm working with a nonprofit in California that's about 6,000 people that does um Extended Learning so before school
(22:14) education after school education summer education anything that the public school system doesn't do and the weeks vary because of the stages of the project so in the diagnostic stage it's very intense because we're talking to people all day trying to collate the data trying to gather insights then we have a big Workshop where we have the highlevel design where we say what are the capabilities that we need to build for and what is the organization model so the picture on a page not boxes and lines in terms of an orc chart but
(22:45) actually the big buckets of work the Strategic group and so we we flew out to California did three days with them and that was a very that that was a week unlike any other so I would say there there isn't a standard week because now we're doing detail design where we have a lot of online sessions to do the different departments in a lot more detail where we're getting into our charts and we're getting into sort of processes and then there's going to be the the change implementation and the
(23:14) activation of that which will be a lot more sitting in on meetings helping them figure out how they're going to actually work this system that we've designed in any week I have that client work which has its own stages I then have um writing so I I I like to write um working on a couple things right now and and trying to find the time I think I could use a bit more discipline to be quite honest being away at that um I spend a lot of time mentoring and coaching uh I quite like that so I have people inside
(23:45) and outside Accenture who who I spend time with talking about what we do and how we do it and making sense of challenges that we're facing and it's it's quite collaborative and your writing is how you came on our radar actually because we have seen we saw a number of articles that you'd written and they just kind of sort of struck a cord with us and we liked how sort of provocative and thought-provoking and how you were sort of finding meaning in just everyday life to sort of articulate different points about organization
(24:11) development is is the writing something that's quite important for you it's it is because it's it's it's my way of making sense of my experience and it challenges me to articulate what I do and I think for the longevity of the field and the growth of the field we need to be able as professionals to say why we do what we do otherwise there's really no way to teach it so this is an attempt to teach and share the the little I'm learning every day so my ahas are just mine if I sit there and watch
(24:48) television or do something else but my ahas could be many others if I codify them and it's in and write them and it's in the process of doing that that I actually understand what the AA really means I think if I have the AHA it feels lovely but when I write it it starts to say did I really understand that properly am I really making sense of this how could I use this and and what do I need to be doing differently so it's it's a bit of a self-challenge which is probably why I also avoid it occasionally for people that are
(25:15) watching we really want people to follow Julian's work so feel free in the show notes there will be a link to able to actually follow Julian's work as well so you start to touch on things that you actually enjoy what what is it you enjoy most about your role in od I think it's the idea that we are in a place to ask continuously the right questions and continuously perfect what those right questions are so I had dinner with a a a friend last night who's a bassist and we were talking about craft the craft that
(25:47) we do and I consider or design and development a craft I I I'm a trades person without with with tools that you can't see and results that you can't see but I'm a trades person nonetheless and and I think the continuous Perfection of The Craft is really really what lights me up because the craft is always changing as organizations change as people change as Society changes so the craft is never complete and and the story that really stuck with me from dinner last night was my friend we were talking about the Perfection of a craft
(26:18) and he said that um there was a chalis called Pablo Cal who was in his 80s and was not performing anymore and but he was teaching and someone came to his house to take a lesson and heard him practicing before the lesson and and was very surprised that someone so accomplished and basically retired would be practicing and the story as I heard it was that the the student said Maestro I'm I'm so sorry but why are you practicing and practicing such a simple piece and cassol said because I think I'm making progress and that stood out
(26:51) to me as exactly why it's important to focus on the because it's the pursuit for perfection that is perfection not getting there which gives me this great feeling of always learning which I think is a bit new for me I think I've always wanted to know and I've only become halfway decent when I started to want to learn not want to know that's when my my practice actually changed and I think he making that a shift that you you can't know we're always learning and there's never you're never going to get there
(27:21) and know and be done be the finished article right which is little depressing and and of itself but quite freeing yeah you look at it another question I wanted to ask you so participation and participative you know engagement of of people is at the heart of kind of a lot of the OD work that we do do you have a preferred tool or process that you love to use to involve and kind of engage people in the work that you do I love making my clients do the work and not just because it means I do less because I don't actually making the clients do
(27:51) the work is is an art in and of itself but I think people own what they help create you know people people will will there's an ownership if I if and I've seen so many so many other org designers do this where they say okay I'll do the diagnostic and then I'll come back in a month with a complete or design for you and you'll go implement it and it never happened because it's a beautiful slide deck and nothing more now the result I have in three times that time is still a beautiful slide deck and if it is if it
(28:26) stops there it's nothing more but the difference is that I didn't create those slides I might have drawn them but I didn't create the content the client created the content so when we get to implementation they own that it's their organization and it goes back to the fundamental understanding of us as marginal cons marginal consultant that we don't know the organization as well as they do now they also don't know organization design and development as well as we do so we need to come
(28:55) together to create the process and system by which we can come up with a co-created design that we can then stand up and and live and the living we talk about in Gates kuster's work as practicing so thinking about this never really quite perfecting it you're always practicing the organization you're always practicing how to live in it and you're always making slight adjustments as the environment changes as internal systems change as regulations change so it's never complete either so the idea
(29:24) that I can give you a complete organization design that is then implementable is also a f narrative yeah it sounds like there's like a big education element of this or at least a challenging of their mental models isn't it because it's like okay the the client present with it's a Box's challenge you're like it's not a Box's challenge it's something else you guys do the work because we're used to traditional consultancy coming in actually know you'll be doing the work uh because you
(29:46) need to have a sense of ownership and that it's also that it's not just about design it's about development as well like how how much effort do you have to put into sort of challenging sort of clients pre Concepts about about what the work is and sometimes clients that just can't seem to to get it and and then struggle they may need to work with another Organization for example yes we have lost bids because people say we don't want to participate and we say great I'm really glad we figured that
(30:12) out now now rather than before you bought before you bought this the project because that would be really tough if we were three weeks in and you so why are we here you should be doing this that's a very different conversation so we make very clear in our pitches and our proposals in in our bids and I just I just did a very big one where we spent most of the time talking about how much time it's going to take from you to do this work and how you really have to want to do it in in a way that we think and our experience
(30:41) shows us is going to make the difference and if you don't want that that's fine no harm no foul but then we're not the right fit for you so it's a bit it's a bit about being the right fit for the client and being very clear up front and in the Contracting and I don't mean Contracting just from the document but I mean the Entre ire process of entry and the discussions and how can we meet your needs to to what this really takes and and do they really want to do it and is it really what they need because I think
(31:09) more and more people are asking for design because it's something that's a little easier to understand and buy in their minds than development and so when I'm I'm very clear in my writing to talk about or design and development as linked when my clients call me they're looking for design they'll get both there's no way I can do one without the other but they they think they know what they're buying when they're buying design so there's a whole checking quality of like well when I say design
(31:37) what do you mean and what do I mean and how are we actually on the same page or not if you want to restructure it's a very different thing than doing a design yeah it's it's about getting informed consent isn't it because it's going to take a lot of them there's a lot of reputational risk Social Capital political Capital that expended isn't it it's really important that they understand up front one thing you mentioned just earlier because I'm intrigued about one thing so again
(31:59) another concept that gets lost we often get called in after the design and it's when they're trying to operationalize it and the attention of the organization has gone elsewhere and that's where it often gets quite difficult you talk about the activation phase so often when the design is done there's a big snagging list of things that don't fit or whatever once it starts to how important is that part of it and what what do what do clients get wrong about it potentially I mean I'm I'm struck by
(32:25) the question because it's that's where it it works or it doesn't I mean that that to me is did we just waste six months and x amount of money or are we going to make good on it and that's I think the hardest part too for both the client and the consultant because that's when people are like ah we've arrived we did the design and the answer is now the hard part begins that was the easy part now we have to live it and you know what frankly I'm terrified of that face that's where it gets really rough and so
(33:02) do I like passing that on to somebody else yes but I'm challenging myself now and my practice to continue into that because I think knowing how the design came to be and having been part of that and having built that trust in those relationships you can't really pass off the implementation all that well it's like okay my work is done now someone else is going to carry you through the rough patches and there's there's a little bit of well we did this together and so I'm alling myself to be in it
(33:30) together with the client I was going to say yeah implementation for us I think when we work with client it starts right back at the beginning doesn't it the foundations you lay at the beginning and as you're doing the design and the diagnostic you're already laying the groundwork for the the implementation that's coming well I think that's where the participatory process comes in you know I I'm I'm very aware that McKenzie has what I call a cave and it's it's it's where they go and do their designs
(33:53) and their designs might be flashier and even even better than mine but are they implementable no because the client wasn't part of it it's not grounded in the organization's understanding of itself and their self-concept so is it a great design you know I design logic phenomenal are their slides wonderful absolutely can I make sense of it and then go implement it no and I've been asked to do that I've been given a 100 page McKenzie deck on strategy implementation from a design point of view and been like can you help me make
(34:22) sense of this and figure this out and I'm like there are a couple things here that I think resonate with your organization but I'm not sure it all does and then we start from scratch and they're like oh this is actually fitting and um and but it's a lot more work than it was with Mackenzie and I say and then a year later they call back and they say we're using it we're just starting to use it even a year later but you know now we're ready and now we can do it and that to me was the best the best work I
(34:47) ever did at Accenture was was that that refresh because they were involved and so they're stand like I'm not even there to stand it up I think a couple colleagues are there doing a couple other small design but the big strategy design work the the real operating model translation is is being stood up by them OB I was just going to say it's one of the frustrations of the type of work that we do that sometimes an organization has to go through that kind of McKenzie experience where they've gone for the thing that looks like it's
(35:15) going to do the job and it's going to be straightforward and simple and have it not work and then that's when we can go in and do the work that we want to do and the work that you know kind of really works for the organization it's you is there a way of short circuiting that process so people don't go go through the pain of a failed approach Danny you're doing it this podcast is it you're getting the word out I mean what what the two of you are doing is is sharing how we do this work
(35:43) and I think if people call you and say I liked what I watched I liked what I read I liked going to that event that you put together then there's already an entry point and maybe they're saying I like it better than the Mackenzie work I did already or maybe they're they're saying this just resonates with me and then they don't start with the other one but I would say this what what you do what I do to to forward the field it's in some ways it's marketing it's and and marketing is I think a form of
(36:12) generosity in our field like the time it takes you to put together this podcast the time it takes you to post these events the energy behind it is is a form of generosity to to practitioners to clients to you know you're you're really helping people and and I think that's that's where the dedication to craft comes that that we believe so clearly in what we do why we do it and how we do it and there's a set of principles there are values behind it there's an understanding of the process there's
(36:41) theory of 80 years here that we can really rest on and that is what makes it different there's so much writing you've done that we've just really enjoyed but there was one particular one that stood out for me that I'm I'm allowed one question that I really want to ask each session so this is my question so is there I can never pronounce this the zy zonic effect where basically people have a greater memory for unfinished tasks rather than the completed ones is is that a phenomenon that you see in
(37:07) organizations and and and why is it such a prevailing thing yeah so this is this is early gestal research that is out of the um Berlin Institute of psychology when Kurt Luen in the 20s and early 30s very early 30s so mostly 20s I think this was like 1927 was teaching there graduate students and most of his graduate students were International so he had a couple Japanese a couple Russian and um Olga zenar was one of the the Russian women who he was teaching and he would take them every week to a cafe and they
(37:41) would sit for hours and hours in one of these wonderful Berlin cafes with all the delicious coffee and cakes and they would order rounds and rounds of coffee and cakes and talk about their research and it was kind of an informal Salon setting which he continued at the University of Iowa when he came to the US I think the coffee and cake were probably less good but he did that and Olo was talking about memory as a tension system that there's something there that holds it and releases it and Kurt Luen thought I wonder about these
(38:12) waiters because they can hold our individual orders and give Separate Checks after five hours of us sitting here to the item per person by memory I wonder what would happen if we asked them to repeat it after we've paid the bill and so they paid their bills and 10 minutes later they said could you tally that up again and the waiter was incredibly offended how could you ask me to do that of course I don't remember and it was just this assumption that I remember when I need to and I don't when I don't and that's when they then took
(38:43) it to the lab and did the research to say that actually memory is aention system and that an unfinished business an unclosed cycle of experience will stay in memory which is really the foundation for gal therapy that it's about closing those cycles of experience from the past that haven't been closed and doing it in the present so this idea of closing a cycle of experience as ending memory or or putting memory from front of Mind back of mind I think it really sits in organizations because organizations can get stuck on something
(39:14) that happened and Trauma points and I see this a lot especially in nonprofits that lose funding and where is like we do a we do the the future search timeline with every client and it's like where are the trauma points that that you're stuck in where are the points that are the unfinished business that haven't been closed where are you still remembering every coffee and cake that was ordered in 2014 and therefore aren't paying attention to 2024 it's so true isn't it because you you know you go
(39:41) through change and all of the previous traumas often come up don't they and people with sort of the longer term mem can often they have to process it almost isn't it there there's often a lot of hurt in organizations that is actually unprocessed and sometimes naming it is enough and some sometimes it's not sometimes saying bringing it to awareness is like oh now we can let it go and sometimes it's okay now we have to unpack it which is why I think it's so hard to contract for this work
(40:08) because if you say well we're going to do the organization design in three months and everything and then you hit one of these these trauma snags in the very beginning of the of the design process and you think well we have to process this in order to get to the design how do you then Rec contract and that's a question on wrestling if you look back at all the work you've done so far what would you say the biggest lessons that you've learn learned so far in your OD career and work are these are
(40:31) this is a lesson I'm learning now which is it's important to know what you know and it's important to know what you don't know and I am on the cusp of knowing more and the more I know the more I realize I don't know and that is a very very humbling experience so the process I'm in now is how to not know without losing confidence in what I do know and that is an energetic experience that's it's it's it's it's a use of energy with clients how do you lean in where you know and and say when you
(41:01) don't know I have someone or I have a colleague or let me find out or let me ask or this is just not something that I'm well versed in because to pretend you know when you don't in a field of helping is Mal practice but when you get to know a little bit you get very excited and you think you know a lot or at least I did so I'll speak for myself when you when you when you get good at something you think you good I thought I was pretty good at everything and found out that maybe I I'm good at the thing I
(41:28) was good at and I need to double down on that but also be aware of all the things that I need to learn still and and seeing this as an ongoing experience as we were talking about earlier about the the the act of perfecting being the Perfection itself rather than actually getting there is really the learning here and learning is lifelong isn't it for all of us in this profession I think so what what does your own Learning and Development look like now how are you investing in yourself and building that knowledge or skills or capability or
(41:55) whatever that is I've been longing to go to Ry park for a long time and so planning to do the human systems Dynamics um certification program in December there I did that that I did that before I took my masters in od that was the first OD learning I did after the authentic leadership and action Institute I went to Fort Worth Texas with Glenda and Rey and Griff and a bunch of others and learned human systems Dynamics and then I think I use the principles but I've forgotten all of the content and it's been 11 years now
(42:29) so I'm thinking I actually instead of progressing want to go back because that was so fun fundamental but I know so much more now about the field and how it can be used that I think I will understand it very differently plus trip to rfy park would be lovely I enjoy it I love I've been to rfy park a couple of times and the it's one of my favorite places yeah and and we've got Dr Graham Curtis going to be joining us in a few weeks time isn't he who is yeah who runs the Masters there as well so that's
(42:58) going to be really interesting and then final question because you've got such an interesting career we were absolutely compelled when you were sharing your your journey we're trying to inspire the next generation of OD and practitioners whether you're internal external uh whether you're practicing it fulltime or whether you practice as an element of your role what advice would you give to someone who's starting out or just at the very early stages in their career in od now be a lot more patient than I was
(43:25) that's the fundamental advice I think what we're doing in our respective circles is trying to lower the barrier to entry to a very very difficult field um if we think about how this field grew in the 60s 70s and 80s there weren't many masters programs but there were a lot of good people doing good work who you could Apprentice with really with no understanding at all of the field you met them they they liked you and all of a sudden you had a job with a living wage doing the work and you learned on
(43:58) the job and you were taught by people who had been there since the beginning who knew curtlo and that doesn't exist in the way it used to we went in we kind of swung as a field into really codifying this into masters programs and at least in the United States now a lot of those masters programs are we're losing a lot of that so there's this huge gap where I'm thinking that apprenticeship needs to come back or we need a new model so I would say the best way to grow in this field is is to learn
(44:28) from someone who's doing the work and is to do the work as much as you can it's a field where the the unfortunate saying is you need experience to get experience and so the way to get experience is to try it out my first OD gig was calling my University and saying I'm trying this out would you like it for one of some of your student groups and they said sure and I I think it was a total flop but boy did I I learn and have something under my belt that I could talk about at my first job interview so there's a quality of getting out
(45:00) there and doing it that I think you know don't don't wait for permission but also know that it takes a long time to learn this and that the ways of learning are changing in our field so I think be patient being and be engaged is is the best advice I have I was very impatient I thought I should be I should be able to do this work without even a master's and then I started my masters and I thought what was I thinking Julian I want to say a huge thank you on behalf of Dan I we've well I can't speak for
(45:27) but I've really enjoyed this conversation AB you you've taken our questions and just really answered them with like a an openness and a Precision that we really appreciated as well and it's really sort of expanded our thinking which is exactly why we set out on this journey of podcasts originally and it's just so refreshing to know exactly you know give us a little bit of an Insight in terms of what's happening with OD in terms of like large consultancies and also what's happening over in the states as well and some of
(45:52) the challenges that you're having are quite similar to the ones that we're having here as well so please keep doing what you're doing and being generous and building your community over there as well we really appreciate it just some of the takeaways I'm there's so many but I'm going to I'm only allow three so three Prim we takeway me is is is trauma snagging I love it that is a concept that needs to be talked about a lot more and the importance of writing to make sense of things to actually process all
(46:18) the different things that we we see consistently and then also the the really powerful part that you were saying which is you know really being very clear and working through through the client terms of how you work and making sure that there's a fit as early on in the process so that you can actually get their informed consent to make sure you can work well together Danny how about you what stands out for you so much lots of what you said but I think three things for me I think the thing you said near the beginning about
(46:44) being really clear on the problem that we're trying to solve kind of really digging into that before we start doing any work because it's critical we understand that before we start I think the importance of as a community of OD practitioners convening meeting with each other supporting each other sharing our learning continuing those conversations dialogue and also that people own the they own what they help create so the importance of participative involvement from everybody I could go on for hours because there
(47:09) was loads I get to edit this so I get to replay it again which is great Julian we really want people to follow your work and follow your writing because people will learn a lot from it what's the best way for people to reach out to you and and to to follow you yes please reach out on LinkedIn I think that's that's where I'm posting everything now I don't know what that will look like if I ever decide to put up a one-page website with everything but as my bibliography grows LinkedIn is the best place to to to read
(47:37) and also to write me because I love having these conversations with as many people as I can so please do reach out and uh would love to meet everybody brilliant thank you so much well well Julian now joins our growing portfolio of distinguished practitioners that we've met and that sort of shared their practice as well so if you're watching this we really do appreciate and hopefully You' earned your like feel free to subscribe to the channel or if you catch this on audio on one of the platforms that you're listening to as
(48:03) well um Julian thank you so much for your time thank you for being so generous as well with it and just wishing you lots of luck and keep us posted all the new your musings and and insights as you go through your journey thank you thank you both this has been lovely thank you [Music] he [Music]