Leading Change in Challenging Times with Mark Stringer Birbeck University - OrgDev Episode 44

The latest OrgDev podcast with the excellent Mark Stringer was a joy to record. Mark is a dedicated academic with a passion for exploring the evolving nature of work. He leads the People, Work, and Organisational Psychology (PWOP) subject group at Birkbeck Business School. 

In this episode we cover: 

• The key mindsets for leading organisational change 
• Why self-awareness is crucial in complex systems 
• Practical tools and frameworks for facilitating transformation 
• How resilience plays a pivotal role in managing change 
• Real-world insights from Mark's career and research

💼 About our Guest
Mark Stringer MSc FRSA AFHEA CBP Chartered MCIPD
Subject Group Lead - People, Work and Organizational Psychology (PWOP), Senior Lecturer

Connect with Mark here:
  / mark-stringer-msc-frsa-afhea-cbp-chartered... 

Birkbeck Business School, University of London
https://www.bbk.ac.uk/school/business...

Mark Stringer is a dedicated academic with a passion for exploring the evolving nature of work and its significance in society. 

With a career spanning public and private sectors, Mark has held operational and HRM/HRD roles in industries including banking, retail, and the arts, before transitioning into academia. His research focuses on psychoanalytic practice and theory, as well as the role of language and semiotics in understanding work and organizations. He is deeply committed to inter-disciplinary, emancipatory, and pluralistic research, using psychoanalytic, structural, and poststructuralist discursive approaches to challenge conventional perspectives on work and organizational life.

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About Us

We’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.

Find out more at www.distinction.live

We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:
linkedin.com/in/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

Transcript

Transcript:
(00:00) hi and welcome to the org Dev podcast so leading or facilitating change in complex organizations isn't for the faint of heart it Demands a blend of the right mindset resilience self-awareness and skills So today we're diving into what it really takes to navigate The Challenge of change in organizations we've invited one of the very best to help us with this question mark Stringer Mark is subject group lead for people work organizational psychology at the leading business school at burbeck University mark both convenes and
(00:31) teaches on several modules including organizations and change perspectives HRM professional development and learning and work and well-being and he continues to supervise numerous Masters and HRM projects across the board Mark is passionate about supporting research that crosses disciplines and challenging traditional thinking and Embraces diverse perspectives he finds endless Fascination in using psychoanalytic structural and poststructuralist approaches to rethink questions and conventional views of work and
(01:01) organizations now full disclosure one of the things I do with the cipd is I chair the cipd London OD group and for our big end of year event last year we invited Mark to be a panelist so Mark's extensive academic experience is underpinned by a fascinating career that is incomp both public and private operational and HRM work within banking retail and the Arts and he's had senior roles iconic organizations that all of us will know and all of us will be fascinated so soube Danny's own place of of worship the British Library I was
(01:32) there yesterday and HMV and he understands the terrain of organizations having worked in financial accountancy product management marketing OD L&D functions and most recently of director of both HR and operations so his research projects have been really interesting as well looking at the stories of women's Journeys to reach board level positions and his experience includes an MSE in organizational behavior a PhD in organizational psychology and he's also HR magazines on on the most influential list 2023 and 2024 as well and he also
(02:07) has a deep love of Music which will hopefully play a part in today's conversation too so so welcome Mark it's really great to have you be Danny and I have really been looking forward to this conversation all week [Music] long brilliant to have you with us mark thank you for joining us so just to kick us off just tell us a bit more about what you do the work that you do in your kind of focus of of interest berck um has and in the business school it's uh the the group of people work in organizational psychology it's recently
(02:42) being expanded we've been through an organizational change ourselves over the last two years at burbeck much like um a lot of higher education organizations are having to do um the news today and yesterday kind of speaks to some of the issues that we're we're facing in that and um what what I continue to find fascinating and I think this is partly because of the the student cohort and body that we tend to have at berck which is for those students who are generally still working or have worked or have
(03:15) just begun there and in because what is what is fascinating is that is that the students we we learn as academics so much from our students as well because we we are pushed um because those who come to our classrooms uh online or of an evening are those who are you know they we they are working they are feeling and experiencing these same issues and they come to us to perhaps find a different way of reframing their own careers or maybe changing their careers or if you're if they're starting their careers to think about ways in
(03:46) which they can perhaps work in a way which is going to be beneficial for them and for the organizations they work in so just to give you a brief overview the the department um we we cover the the Masters that we offer um you know around organizational governance around organizational psychology HRM studies C coaching and counseling management consultancy and organizational change um and Business site for for undergrad so we have a lot of students who come for undergrad and then carry on uh working with us Masters and um in with
(04:21) professional doctorate and PhD the two the the module that I'm I teach this term is organizational uh organizations and change perspectives as you mentioned men um Garen and within that I think what and again it's a privilege to be able to teach it and what I've always aim to do within it is bearing in mind my own experiences in organizations is not to give the students nine weeks of stuff which they will probably have been exposed to and have experienced previously and what I mean by I'm not
(04:53) what I mean by that and I need to kind of counter that that comment which is not to say that that isn't of worth however in organizational change one of the constant refrains is that you know why does it all pretty much fail why is there such a high failure rate in organizational change now my argument for providing a different lens different view over these nine weeks for for our students is to say well if that's the case we really need to stop doing the same things that we've always done before and having the same discussions
(05:22) the same approaches and again this is a mantra which I utilize across all my kind of teaching and research which is to say well if we need change we need to do something different um so in to answer your question Danny is is really is to give the students a space to recognize that that might be slightly anxiety juicy for them because they will have come from organizations and spaces and previous learning arguably which says if you want to change an organization then you need to do x y and Zed and you need to do this and you need to do that and
(05:55) then you'll get this um and in some cases you know there's the elements of that which we all need but I kind of leave that at the front door at the beginning of the term and say yeah okay well if we we know that and if we believe that that's problematic then we need to look at it in a different way and so therefore we then spend the next nine weeks exploring differing ways of looking organizations and uh change and what do we mean by change and the kind of the temporal aspects of that and what I mean is you know is is change um you
(06:25) know episodic is it something which is happens in a one particular time and frame or or is it continuous and actually is it you know is it constructed by the us as we go through and doing it which I think is always an important point for those students who are perhaps consultants and wanting to become Consultants because it's a sense of yes you may be asked to come in and do a project um but that is quite a kind of sort of normative and a very kind of black and white way of looking at change that somehow you can just come in and go
(06:58) I've got three months to do this and then by the end of those three months we will have done x y and Zed and you know which again organizations love rational rationality they love to be able to because you you have to get it through stakeholders to be a to pay for this stuff but also you have to think about all the context which organizations are in certainly in the last five years that's been exacerbated the News That's traveled across from the Atlantic in the last week or so I arguably is going to
(07:26) have some large implications for organizations brexit still has there's lots of things which are coming together in these last few weeks which kind of you know resonate with what wider Chang has taken place in on global economy over the last 10 years so I think what we aim to do is is that and there is anxiety because you know I'll be quite open and transparent I say well if you stick to you know an endstep model of change prepare for it to fail and it will fail in ways which you haven't even conceived of um
(08:00) because those kind of approaches arguably take a very simplistic view to what change is because they it's about management or as I like to call it the impossibility of management or of leadership because those tasks are quite impossible um to be able to say that you've got a project plan and arguably again a project plan is out of date as soon as it's printed so it's about well how can we utilize yeah the thinking behind that but also start to open up and think about well what are the the effects of OD what what's the effects of
(08:32) kind of the institutional context organizations find themselves what about culture what about loss grief and Trauma within an organization what about politics what about leadership itself what about chaos um and all of these are within our Our Lives let alone organizational lives this is and again I think it's trying to break down that barriers to say well work is just an extension of our life it's it's something which if we think we can and you know we can park out ourselves at the door and become an authentic worker
(09:02) as soon as we walk through that door again we need to kind of problematize that because that's that's again quite a rational way of of looking at things so that that's what we we we aim and try to do um in those and make the connection across all of them the the the courses because a whole student cohort takes that so that's op and HRM and change Consultants so it's a big cohort about 200 students and they all come from differing views and again to be open and honest you know there there's some
(09:33) students which really don't like that approach because they are so wedded to certain ways of being we're asking them to change we're asking them to reflect on their professional identity and the way they do things so that's interesting because I can then send that message back to them say well what do you find uncomfortable about this as being a change because this means something to you and I think one of the things that I have become more emboldened in talking to about the students is that change
(09:59) itself organization or personal or whatever it really is an embodied experience and the effects that it has upon us as workers change Consultants as human beings is sometimes immeasurable and the the ways in which we are asked to throw our entire body mind Spirit into this type of situations cannot be discounted and it has to be taken into account I think again asking students to perhaps be a little bit more gentle and a bit more humble in that kind of approach I think is a really important thing for them to
(10:36) go back out and when they're being asked to take on projects or lead change or be part of change or is to reflect upon say well how can I how do I how do I enact this how do I perform what I'm learning back into the workplace and one of the joys of doing this job is even this term so I've got new students who've joined who have already begin to speak about how embolden they have become already to be able to go back into organizational spaces and to challenge but to challenge objectively and to kind of think about
(11:10) you using this new language that they they they're kind of picking up but also and I think this is a really important part which speaks to the idea of evidence-based management is to back those arguments and objective claims up with material which says look objectively this is what's being said so it's not case of having to go in and having worked in HR for a long time it's that sense of trying to find a space which to be heard if I'm brly honest yeah you know you're talking to the students about and the whole world view
(11:41) is changing and their view of you know how change works and how they operate in organization shifts and then they're going back into organizations that haven't nobody else has gone through that experience with them so how do they take that into the organization and go that is you've got it all wrong it's different it's not like that it's much more complicated they're like oh no he's gone on a course yeah if keep heads down this we'll pass well see and that's a fascinating tension it it genuinely is
(12:06) because you know um a lot of students for for for us for example are sponsored by their organization so again so they they they have to manage that tension because they may be certainly you see this quite a bit when it comes to visitation for example because the organization wants them to come in and do a almost like a case study approach for their dissertation for them for the organization can't can't argue with that it brings with it different ethical issues use and and kind of a position as as a researcher of course but it's a
(12:34) really good question Danny and my my first word would be tentatively because this is something which you know you're gaining a new new identity you're in a li Lial space which is you know liminality something I'm really fascinated by in terms of organizational change anyway we maybe may be able to get onto that a little bit later but I also counsel them to say look yeah don't be that person as you just quite rightly said Gar don't be that person who comes in say I've just started this course and
(13:01) therefore I have got all this knowledge this is where for me this is where the hum humility comes in is to say look you you you need to be thinking listening and and really kind of picking your moments and as you very kindly spoke to in my sort of um intro you know the areas that I look at you know some fancy academic words like structuralism and post structuralism what that really means is about is about the the the role of language and the role of identity what those two kind of um those two terms roughly translate into yeah it's
(13:34) it's more about you could to I encourage the students to make a leap of faith um because I think we've all been in meetings and probably will be in meetings in our lives where we've come out and gone I wish I'd said something or I wish i' challenged something or I wish I don't think I feel that's quite right and so it's about having the confidence to be able to take that leap of faith in a meeting with all the hierarchal hierarchical symbolic power that may be in the room or even
(14:04) need in the room itself in you know the chief exec's office or the boardroom with all its pictures of previous incumbents of the of the roles of leaders and all this symbolic kind of heavy wood furniture or whatever um and it's to say I don't I don't agree and this is the reasons I don't agree and then you unpack the objective balance view of that and it takes guts and it and sometimes it will w't quite work may not work as well as you want to and because you are challenged people assumptions so again it's about how you
(14:37) frame that and what language you use so tentatively Danny but the point is to do it to do it start somewhere yeah the other term I was going to get you to Def find so in the introduction gar talks about you take a psychoanalytic approach to your work some of the people on the call who listen to the webcast webinar might not understand that term so can you define that for for us what does that mean different I I will I will respond in a in a psychon is very difficult to unpack so I I'll give you my interpretation of it rather than the
(15:10) definition of it because um as with any field that it's r with what what does that actually mean but I'll give you I'll give you a sense of how I have used it and how I think it's useful I'm also conscious of the fact that you know psycho analysis has you know it does have uh it can be viewed as being being slightly troubling by certain aspects of you know thought or Society I see it very much as a way of privileging the irrational um privileging the unconscious um and why do I do that because again it comes back to this
(15:50) argument that somehow we are constantly rational beings and organizations would like us to be rational or in fact they hope that we are rational um human beings um so and that you can see that within all the kind of discourses that you see traversing LinkedIn or the kind of the practitioner press about bringing your whole self to work and and being bringing your authentic person to work um arguably from a psychotic point of view we're doing that already it's just that we're spending a lot of time
(16:19) suppressing our authentic person at work because if we brought our authentic PE personality to work it'd be absolute chaos um just talking about the same thing yesterday yeah the whole point of you know Freud's civilization and its discontents is to say that to have a civilized society we have to we have to be able to repress what we who we our ear or you know our unconscious because otherwise we would just be going around and you can I leave leave it to the imagination what could be happening if that was wasn't the case um so yeah so
(16:49) again so you can start to problematize terms such as authentic and you know bringing your whole self to work and the fact that we are driven by forces which Lely we don't even know and understand and why we make decisions why we do things why we work in the organization we work in why we like the people we like why we make decisions that we make you know we like to think that they are based on rationality and a lot of it you and this is the the fantasy part part of it is that yeah we think that that's
(17:18) what we're doing but actually a lot of it has been driven by things which are um you know in the unconscious and that we make those choices so and you can map that and it's really I think it's very Ive and very useful it's not the answer and I think I'm always Keen to point that out to people it's that psychoanalysis somehow you know if you are and I'm in training to be a psych analy as well is that you know if from a clinical it's a clinical piece of work that's where it's come from so we have
(17:45) to be careful about that as well because it's it's from a clinical base and the kind of extrapolation of that over the last 50 years has been fascinating and interesting but we have to remind ourselves of that but also it's not about finding a cure and it's not about finding you know know as psychon doesn't have the ultimate answer apart from it it's actually holding mirror up and saying the fact that we believe that we might have the whole answer that's the problem and actually what can we do to
(18:10) kind of unpack that a little bit and that's why it's useful I think for me uh for to use that mirror in organizations and to you can and then you can begin to unpack all sorts of things you can unpack the idea of leadership and the kind of idea of leadership and change and so you can begin to slice it in different ways because you talking about the human The Human Condition yeah I I clearly I find it fascinating I I wrote a PhD on it so I must have found it fascinating and I still do um but it again it's I have to be I'm very mindful
(18:43) of how I work with it and speak with it and but I do introduce it because I think it's important for students and again they grapple with it and some really love it some really hate it but that's ambivalence so that's a beautiful place to be because I can ask questions why what is it about this that makes you feel uncomfort or what is it that you find enjoyment about this so yeah it's another tool um but it's not the tool yeah and a question I'm burning to ask because you know you obviously you've just come when
(19:10) we first met we met in September you were just about to initiate term one for a new inductive of 200 people and it's almost like that right of passage it's like starting to sort of understand identity and what do I bring into change and all that and you kind of use the term hold the mirror up and just for Danny and I were just sort of saying that we've just been on work on change project this week Danny looks great I look like I've aged you know 20 years because the the mirror isn't completely reflective is it because you
(19:40) have when you're in the room holding a space where there is conflict going on and you know some really deep things going on that work that you do with them on that first ter when they start to question who they are and what they bring and what beliefs they hold and the assumptions they make that that is a critical path and sometimes that's that's underestimated isn't it as part of the the foundation of the work absolutely and I think and the pair of you know that and know that you've had a
(20:07) tough week working and delivering and yes the Perry look extremely fresh and healthy I don't know how you do what secret is let me know because that would be that' be wonderful but yeah it is but again it's it's it's what I see and again academic and researcher evidence is obviously key what I what has been I'll give you two examples what one that I find very satisfying is that I tend to find students contacting me whatever period after they finished their studies um saying on one hand do
(20:46) you know what I really didn't like your module um however four years later um I really begin to understand why you're getting us to do this and actually I've started to think and act and perform form and work in different ways because of that now that's not just me that's I'm just opening up a space for them to think of and reflect upon themselves he just giving them a guidance and that's what you know I kind of try treat teaching as being taking stuff out of a box trying to fill up the students you
(21:15) know the student isn't a box that needs to be filled up it's more about unlearning more about taking stuff out and providing space rather than just constantly just filling stuff up um so that's that's joyful that they've they've found worth on that and I think in the moment in time when you are with student and and having these discussions with because quite rightly students will bring in issues that they're currently facing at work and we'll discuss those and we'll speak to those in seminars and
(21:43) what have you is the kind of sense of Liberation and slightly emancipatory spirit this provides for them which you get a lot of student saying I didn't realize you could think about these things in these ways and what is education other really other than that I mean it's it's about to it's about arguably just giving people the space to go I need to you know I didn't realize this or this is something fascinates me and it's challenging me and it's making me think about the way I am and how I do
(22:15) things how I'm dealing with these issues at work whatever they may be and arguably that's that's forms part of what you know Luen and tck were trying to achieve with OD itself back when it was being co-authored and put put forward um you know postwar in those years after the second world war because let's not forget you know the psychologists and um that were used in the war were then asked postwar to come up with a way of trying to understand the different shape of the workforce that was caused by the war and that's
(22:45) arguably where OD began and kind of taking a more humanistic approach to uh organization spaces but it was heavily influenced by psychodynamics so that I I always go back and say well actually do you know what psychology is itself and change has a enor enormous debt to the work of psychoanalysis and psychodynamics doesn't like to talk about it you know and it kind of keeps it under wraps and I give another example to students say you know you know all those question questionnaires that you take asking you to answer 100
(23:17) questions what do you think they're trying to tap into about motivation for example I say well you know about motivation yeah but what is motivation can you see it and they no well what is it then if you can't see it and it's driving something are there ways that we can map that across to the unconscious and it's like yeah well you can and and know psychology in some ways is trying to measure the unconscious good luck with that I say but anyway that's that's something which is you know again having
(23:49) that that th those that approach is still useful because still evidence you know and again another thing that we very much pushed which is that we don't privilege you know quantity to quantity ative view over a qualitative view they both have differing ways of understanding what knowledge is and what we can do with it but they're they're not neither is better than the other and they both have flaws so I think it's yeah it's very much as speak you point G it's for students it's that lots of
(24:16) Revelations and the emotion the the effect I mean we could spend a whole podcast talking about the role of emotion in change um uh or indeed in in research and the ways in which organizations are looked at but I think it for the experience that I've had and have continued to have it's why it's the privilege to do it is to hear these people's stories hear student stories to hear how they've grappled with some quite traumatic things in terms of changing organizations but also some joyful things in relation to change
(24:45) and it's good to then it's very powerful for peer-to-peer kind of telling of these stories so yeah there's a lot going on to hold those spaces but again it's it's it's a joy to do yeah I guess there's a lot of rewriting of people's pasts like reflecting and that's the Revelation isn't it as well and I really like you're saying about the importance of Education because we there's so much from that time of being on a masters it reminds me of something I went to my
(25:09) partner's graduation and the dean made a RIS comment she said um the difference between Education and Training I want my daughter to be educated about sex not trained in it which I thought was is the importance of just like knowing about it and being educated it and that time for people to learn the theories and what do they mean and and the implicative effect of applying them as well rather than not just going and doing stuff yeah yeah and and yes absolutely I mean I think it's I mean at the end of it's incumbent on all
(25:38) of us to take responsibility for our actions clearly um and the same goes for students I mean having having a space to do that is that yes what what responsibility are you going to go and take to go and actually do and utilize some of these things so it goes back to your point down if when how do I how do I make make this happen in organizations because that's where the the the practice comes in that's where you take the theory and you say well okay you know rather than rather than running a another survey on around Employee
(26:07) Engagement for example and I think I think Garen I've told you this story when we first met but I remember I used to be part of an HR director's Network and you get as ever you get these kind of round emails from colleagues saying you know I'm having to do this any ideas any thoughts and this one came around saying we want to change our Employee Engagement survey provider and we want to run an uh the survey again any ideas and I remember I just sent one back I said yeah absolutely don't run one and
(26:36) and there was there was this kind of I kind of it was it was a provocation absolutely but the point was based on why why do you why do you need to read one uh why need why do you need to run one what are you trying to achieve with it are you conscious of the issues that surround for example the kind of validity and reliability and the actual situating of the idea of Employee Engagement what what is the outcome that you're hoping for is it you want to run a survey because it's looks good to run it um what decisions are you been basing
(27:09) on that and so all you know unpacking that a little bit and hence this is before I joined Academia fully so even then I was I kind of was in training towards yeah well after that you know I was was I had my own trouble because I was made redundant so I I kind of you know I don't think it was because of that email could have been who knows but um but the point is that we have to question and question practice and we have to question why we do things and again repetition is another part of pyic thought which is that we repeat things
(27:44) because it makes us feel comfortable and the question we dying to ask is is is what is your journey into OD you've obviously had a a really interesting experience in the field and then made that decision to go into into Academia what what was your journey it started it started more with um getting being asked to uh take up um kind of an L & D kind of approach so I was when I was working at HMV there was at the height of its kind of growth and Powers which now is a long time ago now um there was I when I was working in
(28:20) the kind of the accountancy side I was again you think about your creat think what was I why was I doing that I was rubbish I was that that was that really wasn't me but but it was I was asked if I could possibly deliver some training for aspiring managers graduates around the use of financial measures instruments in their stores and in their their the kind of their development as well so I I I I did that and I appeared to be quite good at that and getting those kind of um things across in an interesting way but also a challenging
(28:54) way for the kind of the the management team so that I kept on getting asked to do more and more and more so in the end I kind of was then asked to join the L&D Department which then opened up into kind of do my CPD qualifications in training and all those type of things so much wider kind of aspects of of it took me into leadership and took me into you know selection assessment and all these type of things um so much so that I then left there and had a proper HRM role at the British Library uh and was asked to do
(29:29) similar I had a kind of floating REM actually which was fascinating because it took in L&D but it also moved into organizational design and organizational um development um because at that point which is around around 2004 the library had just moved which was fascinating looking back at this is fascinating for me I didn't really get it at the time but the the the library had only just moved from where it was in the British museum into its new space on Houston Road the fascinating thing about the Houston Road building is that it's
(29:57) designed to look like a ship uh so the architect was a big sales not a salesperson A S A salesperson and a sailor two different things a sailor um but perhaps he clearly was a salesperson in getting the contract but it was it's buil if you look at it if you ever see it it's built very much like a tear down it looks like an ocean liner and it's only you know only only laterally did it kind of make me realize that at the top were all the kind of the hierarchy the power the chief exec and the buildings all the
(30:28) nice and then right under right at the bottom and the British Library underneath the plaza the front Plaza is deeper than the underground um and that's where all of the the kind of the documents and kept but also that's where the lowgrade workers are so the metaphor between that and you know you only have to look at the film Titanic and look at steerage and look at the you know um it resonates even there and then they they begin to there was problems of the fact that organizational change from a building for the British museum people
(30:57) felt that they lost Kudos and gravitas by moving from BR to this brand new building which wasn't theirs there was lots of ghosts because people didn't travel with them from BR Museum because people left so as an organizational change I joined it very much now looking back on it and thinking yeah there was so many so many things going on there but anyway so I I did that and I worked and that's what that's when I kind of moved more into the OD and a kind of mix of OD ER L &d HRM less kind of
(31:26) operational HRM although that was part of it so I did that and then I then moved on to working soube and that was more of a HR and operations rool as a director and that was again having to go through that and think about how that was situated in terms of the where where they were as a as as an organization and in the meantime I'd started doing my I'd never been to University before so I'd got all my cipd qualifications i' all these things and I got to the point thought well I've what I've always been
(31:55) fascinated by organizations and psychology is there anywhere I can do this knowing for that I can't give up work because I've got a family I've got a mortgage and all these type of things and you know I saw a poster but backck and you can study in the evenings I thought oh that's interesting so I went along thinking I'll just find out cut long story short managed to get in did my part-time Masters literally after the first week of walking in there I went oh this is my world this is this is this is
(32:24) again I can when I see these new students I'm I'm embodied that experience from 13 years ago because I can still remember the excitement and being challenged and thinking about all of these things um and it really was a space of opening up thing I didn't realize you could speak about these things I didn't realize you could think about these things in such ways um so it really resonated um so much so that I my supervisor said you want to do a PhD i' never even thought about thought well how can I do that I've never been to
(32:51) University before never what's going on to the point well yeah done it so it's and that has been provided be and that's what that was the how I could then move into the more the kind of psychoanalytic space because that's what my PhD was around um using psychoanalysis um in conversation with Employee Engagement so hence you can see why my email back to the the HR Director group was based around kind of my own research as well so that that's that's the kind of sense and then once I was I kind of was I
(33:24) started tutoring and taking seminar jobs and all this time tried trying to find a way and I'm very fortunate I managed to get into a full-time role in Academia which I know is very tricky these days and then I got asked if I would take over the the module on organizations and change and I just literally jumped at it because that was the first module I ever took at my masters that was the bit that I open up these doors and I thought what how often do you get an opportunity to do this so I jumped at it so that's and
(33:50) that's hence why I've just kind of kind of bobbed and weaved my way through a fairly nonlinear career but then again again one one of my modules I asked my students to map out their career in a visual way and it's really fascinating because then you know it's worth us all doing it actually because you suddenly look at where our careers have gone and been and moved and shifted and now life spaces where we were at and why the decisions we made it's a fascinating way to do it and to think about it you said
(34:19) in when we had a pre-qual you talked about how passionate you are about music how does that shape and form what the right word is to the work that you do how do they link they do link it is a pass I've I've had a parallel career is far too Grand a word for it but parallel um life where I've been I've been a musician with gaps which life other life events have taken over but it always has and remains a passionate um area for me the ways in which I've grown actually to kind of understand it more anny is that
(34:55) I kind of look and think about the times I've spent in recording studios in my life and what is fascinating about as a creative act is that you are um you're turning up in a space um with ideas and you are being mediated through technology and from person who is managing that technology for you at that point because you don't know how it works and they are the master and they know the stuff and and you're hoping to end up with a product that is kind of replicates what's in here which always
(35:26) carries with it a slight level of disappointment because it's never quite what is actually in here or what was in the plan what was in the project brief so you can begin to see where the kind of the parallels start to interweave with with this in organizational spaces and so you spend time and money and resource sitting down and trying to create these things uh then you end up end up with these things but all of these things are are created by different elements so if you're in a 24 track recording studio you've got 24
(35:56) tracks to play with so you record the drums you record the bass the vocals whatever instrumentation that you've got so you record all the bass things and then you start to mix them and then of course the mixing is just a form of interpretation and then you you have the tensions within the group of people who are in that room arguably my experience you you got four people in the room so you got Drums bass guitar and a vocalist and of course each of those four people are vying for their own voice or qu instrument to be pronounced so you know
(36:27) you you'll be why can I can I make the can I make the guitar a bit louder I was a guitarist so can I make the guitar a bit louder and then Focus say yeah but you know I can't hear my voice then and then then the drummer says yeah but we're kind of losing this so again there's the kind of psychodynamic aspects of it the kind of the kind of the power going on negotiation the ways in which occly your the person who's you know mixing or producing it for you mixing it rather than producing will have an objective
(36:58) voice and say well actually you don't need to do this and maybe this would be better you got so you got an objective voice trying to guide you and then you end up with a product You Come Away with this kind of mixed thing and then you try and do something with it and you know it's it's a it's a it's an artifact um it's a point in time that you then go and try and sell or get other people courage to come and witness you play Live or buy your records or that didn't happen a lot in my life to be faired by
(37:28) or indeed you know people coming along to gigs you know I always I was always strengthened by the fact that you two had three people at their first gig that that that changed a bit um so so the parallels hopefully I'm you know I'm packing that a little bit because I I I kind see that within organizations that you know you have this space which you're trying to be creative you get interview you got all these voices you got politics you got the power you got the tensions you got the ways in which you mix all these voice together to
(37:54) actually get a product which you actually want and then sometimes with organizational change you can then extend the metaphor which to say okay we need to remix this um and so they you get you get all of the original tapes or the hard drives these days and you go in and you go back to the base material and you say perhaps we need to think about how we mix this again because it's not quite working or we so it's yeah I mean it's for me I think it's clearly it resonates for me but I think it's for me
(38:25) it's quite a useful way of of think about that and no I I use jazz in the organizational change module right towards the end kind of pick up on the idea of chaos because lots of people you know if you hear certainly if you hear kind of more avangard or Jazz which sounds like an absolute racket um which arguably does but that's the point of it is that it may sound completely out of control completely you know but it can only be like that because there is such a strong understanding within the players and a plan and a project and a
(38:58) way of doing things of knowing where they're going to be and what they're doing that allows them to be that off-kilter to be that out of out of sync or whatever because ultimately it will always come back there will always be generally there'll be a resolution and I think that's a nice way of thinking about organization to change as well is that you know much with much with you know classical music there's when you get to the end cord generally there's a resolution which means that there's this
(39:25) kind of It kind of sums it up and it leaves it like a nice tied up piece of of of culture that's great it would be nice to have a resolution and sometimes there are and that could be quite fleeting and it moves on it's transient and I think that again the idea of music that hasn't got a resolution so may thinking about the avagard music which is quite uncomfortable it tonally it may make you feel uncomfortable with that doesn't quite doesn't sound nice or a racket or there's or there's no
(39:54) resolution because there's no nice tidying up but that's life too and that's organizations and change as well so there are very various ways I think of how you can unpack that metaphor and that I just find it useful and I and I speak to it again not as a an overarching meta narrative that says everyone start thinking about this in musical terms but those who are musical it does resonate they come back and say yeah I kind of get that we don't have to be musician to resonate with that there's I think it's a useful metaphor
(40:25) what do you enjoy most about the work that you do every year I in the professional development module that I take in the Autumn as well which is mainly H where it's HRM students and consultancy students I get them to um do a lot of self-reflection so I get them to do a lot of use a lot of tools lot of you know um self- questionnaires and I take the self questionnaire every year again because I just want to you know see if there's a change see if what's got and kind of remind myself of this whole process and
(40:55) I don't know what it was about this year I just I kind of I I perhaps answered it more honestly than I ever have done before Life Changes career changes World changes you think well actually you know see let's just let's just answer this in a perhaps in a different way and what was Illuminating for me was I got the results back was how much I was D I'm driven by creativity and freedom and uh ability to challenge and you know all these type of things and it just made me realize as a respons your question Danny
(41:28) was that how much of that I I now have within this role and how much of that I didn't have in my previous roles when I was outside of Academia and how that clearly affected me and about how it affected my own approach my own well-being my own mental spaces my own frustrations so it was a reminder if if I needed it of how lucky and priv I am to be working in Academia and what Academia can and Academia has its faults and it has its problems and it has you know but it for the first time in my life I'm be able to work in a space
(42:02) where I'm responsible for everything that I do um I don't have a line manager hovering over me asking me for reports every day or whatever none of that it's it's more okay so I can go out and I have a space to to experiment to speak and to push and to utilize material and academic material and my own practitioner uh focuses and to you know engage with colleagues like yourself and with wider um spaces to see how it lands and to push people to provoke I do like provoking people and I don't mean that in a way that I do
(42:33) it for fun or that somehow that I'm have this slightly sadist or or approach to life far from it I just think given what I've experienced and this year was the 40 40 years that I've been working so that was that that made me think stop and think as well I think 40 years is a long time think I think one of the things I enjoyed most particularly when you came in and did the session with us is that you have the ability to question the question so when people ask a question there's often a huge assumption
(43:02) in there isn't there and it says so much and it's the the ability to slow things down and say well the question that you're asking where where's that what assumptions are you making there like what what are you what are you trying to lead here and that that's such an important tool isn't the ability to sort of slow things down and and make people question before they leap yeah there's funny enough G there was a a paper this we that my students were looking at which a um there's a really useful paper
(43:26) by Bush and Marsh and I can share the the um the paper for for listeners if they want to explore it um but this was just a kind of a chapter by marak he was talking about his um Consulting experiences and talking about how the idea of deep listening when you're in consultancy spaces in terms of change for example is really important because it allows you to pick out those words which and this comes back to the mirroring aspect again that you can you know you can pick out and just send back to who's just spoken to the spoken the
(43:57) words so it might be resistance they might say there's always a lot of resistance about the things blah BL um for a reason why not to do something or that has never happened before you can but by picking that one word and sending it back to them it's very powerful it shows that you've been listening but it also highlights to The Listener sort of key phrase or a key way which may be blocking why they're doing what they're not doing something and it again this comes back to this confidence thing
(44:23) because that might be a leader that might be for a consultant might be the person who is going to give you a contract it might be you know the person who you're you're in HRM that is gonna sign off on a project or that is again so it's that sense of and it can be when you're doing that to those people who may find that challenging because they are the leader or symbolically or hierarchically they're not used to it they may respond in ways which are not comfortable that arguably says more
(44:50) about them as a leader than it does about you as the person questioning it so again it's about having that confidence and and the gravitas and it's a term I don't like resilience but I'm going to use it resilience to keep on going back and being knock down and getting up and doing it again because it comes back to the ethics I'd say the ethics of organizational change and the the humility and but also that generosity that we have to have when we're dealing with people oneto one and thinking about these situations because
(45:20) that leader may be obdurate and difficult but they're still a human being and why is it that they are being obdurate and difficult what pressures are they under um so I think that kind of coaching aspect of it is really interesting as well from from an OD point of view I guess there's there's expectations in their response as well isn't there there's this again that humility which is well surely I'll give them the feedback surely they should have the cathartic moment now shouldn't
(45:44) they but sometimes people listen in hindsight sometimes they have to process it whatever it is for them as well so I guess that's that's an important element it really is absolutely and it's that yes you can you can hope that they're going to have cathartic moment and it's not always the case and sometimes I argue it's quite a rarity because it becomes back down to organizational identity because intertwined with the humility as from a leadership point of view is also recognizing can I be can I show that I
(46:13) have fragility am I able because it comes down to psychological safety comes down to the culture in the organization comes down to the context and that one word I'd say is the one I use I I use so much in my daily life with students and Academia generally is context because again you can read about all these projects you can academic papers or practitioner papers case studies XY Z whatever but that you always have to think about the context and to think well just because this worked here doesn't necessarily mean by doing that
(46:45) it's going to work here so again it's it's having that kind of flexibility humility however you want to place it to say yes I can there's useful things to learn from here it's not a given that by following that's partly the reason why I have an issue with the endep models is that that you can do that here and it's not going to be the same results why why would you think it's going to be the same result there if you think it's going to be the same result there that's another problem that's another issue
(47:10) that you're going to have to try and contend with because much like thinking about the product you get from a recording studio what you desire at that point is never going to be it and that's the point of Desire because desire is never fulfilled it's always and that's what we have in our Our Lives we absolutely do and it's really easy isn't it in hindsight to say we followed a five-step process but the reality was it was very Wiggly and all over the place and there were lots of things at play
(47:35) and when we're looking back in hindsight we did a and we did B and then C happened and then D and we ended up with e as if it was all planned and beautifully laid out well that and and and Danny that that speaks rather beautifully what Garen was talking to a while ago about how we narrate and reconstruct our own self identities and stories because an organizations there you know organizations are either on one aspect you can say they are something that are there in reality that they you know you can measure them you can see
(48:05) them or there's another argument says that organizations are socially constructed we create the organizations through our narrative through our story through our myths through what we talk about how we create the organization so yeah absolutely that that retroactive action on and how and it's interesting isn't it to see how and we're all slightly guilty of this about how we narrate those to make us look good and you can organizations do it consultancies do it governments do it everyone does it it's it's about how do
(48:39) you reshift and reframe those narratives to actually get a good outcome nothing wrong with that it's just that if you start to believe those stories constantly then that they are they are a thing that are the concrete reality then you begin to see where the problems arise social constructionism is what gave me an identi crisis so so one question we really want and it seems like it's a good time to do it 40 years I I feel there should be some kind of Celebration or a present for achieving that but you you speak to
(49:10) people from organizations from across sectors of across different regions of the world what do you see as some of the key challenges organizations are facing right now surprisingly I don't think I don't think some of the real issues are anything new and that's both surprising and a bit saddening um because I think there's always a there was there was an email came around today from one of the HR magazines blah blah blah talking about you know how L and D should have a voice in the sea suite and I'm thinking yeah
(49:41) but this is this conversation has been going on for a long time around you know HR sh of a voice in the SE Suite or how can H shall be taken more seriously and I don't I don't mean that in a you know I'm not saying that in a kind of for Med effect it needs to be um so this is self- question questioning and self- understanding of identity and you can put that on the HRM profession arguably as well um is is to say well these these aren't new conversation and there was a bit of the thing well is it OD I think
(50:12) it was talking about talking about organizational transformation rather than it's like well that's just a change of a word I mean that's just that doesn't mean anything really is if you want to change it from one word to another what does that actually mean bit like moving from Employee Engagement from satisfaction is like well arguably there's there's very little difference so I think sadly there's stuff which has been if I take a psychon antic point of view repressed and with with repression
(50:41) you get symptoms because symptoms are kind of the the eruptions of what's been repressed so the issues the problems which happen which constantly turn up because they haven't been addressed so I think to answer if you were to push me to have the ideas is that well okay firstly what what is the role of for example HRM in terms of their voice and their position in relation to organizations and about what how they how are they seen are they seen as purely policy and practice and making sure that the the voice of the leaders
(51:17) is are undertaken and delivered or are they holding a middle ground between both the leaders and for the workers as such how is that going to translate with a new government that wishes to perhaps bring together a more cohesive kind of unionized kind of approach to that and to think about legislation so that's going to be interesting I think that's going to be useful and productive um so I think there's there's that I think yeah I mean AI I mean who knows I mean I just I mean it's it's such and
(51:51) that's part of the issue with a AI is that it's so difficult to Define and to think about what what it can possibly mean I mean we've been here before about the ways in which you know I remember when I first started working about having paperless offices 40 years later there's still plenty of paper flying around um there there's the so I AI I think it could be misleading I mean it'll be what it is I mean I think it's it's a bigger issue for globally for mankind existentially rather than just being an
(52:24) organizational thing but and we strugg that ination around you know the ways in which it's utilized to create um coursework for example so you know we're struggling with that um I'd say what's interesting also is that like I also seen in the in the the press in the last a bill slowly slow building up of this approach to having a 4-day working week which uh again a plug for my colleagues in the business school um uh Professor um Pedro Gomez is you know has been working on a a project in Portugal for
(52:57) the last five years four year four five years with the government on and seeing what the outcomes of that is he's an economist and social psychologist as such and what wonderful outcomes they've already seen in that so that has been you know there's empirical evidence on that so that'd be interesting because that's a culture change that's a shift we've we're seeing a lot more organizations and I wish they weren't doing this demanding people to come back into the offices with no real argument
(53:21) for why that's the case and and you know there's plenty of evidence to show that um you know before covid organizations didn't and I'll say it trust workers to work from home they felt that actually they were going to be doing their washing and reading and life stuff but imp per would show that actually workers who worked from home worked harder because they there was an element of guilt because they thought that actually this is quite this is quite nice and actually I don't want to take it as
(53:50) being I don't want to take the you know take this for granted and actually I'm going to do more because I'm not being seen I want to show that I'm being productive active covid strikes all of a sudden everyone who could possibly work home I think we need to remind everyone that not everyone could work from home during the covid or crisis was that guess what the economy didn't Flatline the people still did their jobs people still did things people you know yes there are costs mental health issues in
(54:15) you know kind of atomization of us us as people as workers but things carried on so I think that's going to be interesting so culture for Change and organization and I arguably I really would wish that organizations were far more transparent and open about why they want people to come back into the workplace and what that's being based on there's no point talking about evidencebased management and then just ignoring it when it suits you um so there's that so that would be that would be interesting I think the
(54:46) ways in which um jobs and organizations are kind of situated and crafted and how people are expected to do that is going to be ongoing but thinking about change and this is all about change I think this is just the point about bringing it you know tying it back into how we view change and thinking that it's not something that is just to be explored and investigated as a thing that can be nicely neatly delimited into this thing it unpend everything daily hourly on a minute basis of what we do and how we do
(55:20) it and and maybe turning our minds to that and helping us all develop better ways of managing confronting um challenging that thing way how we support each other kind it comes back to the Gen generosity and humility thinking about the EMB body performance about the effects on us as human beings and the planet let's not forget that I think those are the the real kind of core tenants and it's it's powerful I think to see that organizations and thought leaders in various areas are begin to think about this more cohesively and
(55:53) more cogently about workers well-being organizational well-being you know those things really do do matter especially in a world where we are know knowledge work is is privileged so what does that actually mean you know knowledge we it's embodied it's us so we we've gone from making things to us being the things which organizations want so again that then leads into selection recruit recruitment so assessment so it's about how do we have fairer and more inclusive approaches to Recruitment and selection
(56:26) in organizations so again it's all about context there overdetermined there the interconnectivity of all these things yes we can separate certain things out and look at them and study them and talk about them but I think it's that overarching view of all of this and saying well actually how can we help each other to understand this from a kind of meta point of view rather than thinking about these things if we just if only we could change the way we look at leadership for example which we need to do that that will solve everything
(56:54) because then that just means that all we're doing is that we want want leaders we get the leaders we deserve there so there's so much I'm so glad we asked I think it's really important to look forward and look at the implications of things that happening around us one question that we always ask in every episode is what advice would you give someone who's considering a career in organization development so they're either maybe just starting to see the possibility of it or they're think
(57:16) they're taking their first steps what what advice would you give I would I would say approach it with a sense of Joy uh a sense of wanting to explore to lessen one's grip on this is going back to what I've been speaking to generally in this session is to prepare yourself to lessen your grip on your worldview I would definitely definitely urge them if you were thinking of creating OD or indeed generally within organizational spheres is to develop your listening capabilities um because we get taught how to read write blah
(57:53) blah blah we do not get taught how to listen and listening is it is quite remarkable when you are able to listen deeply and it takes a lot of time and effort and again this comes back to the embodied performance of it to be able to then respond back to someone in front of you in a way which is Meaningful but is also a critical aspect of it um which will affect meaningful conversations and change and I think I think that's part of it I I think that if you can if you can afford to go into therapy as well whilst you're doing these type of things
(58:26) I think every one would benefit from therapy I really believe that it's a shame that it's not available or indeed people are able able to afford to do it in lots of lots of spaces but I think going from an OD perspective you're you're asking to take on a lot I think that's that that mirrors what's in the world of HRM too I I have absolute respect for anyone who wants to work in od and H or any people focused space because having to De with human beings is hard we're hard we're complex tricky
(58:59) dangerous irrational fantasy things and trying to lead those things trying to change those things trying to motivate those things trying to get those things to listen to behave to whatever is hard work and I think giving yourself a bit of um space to not to be hard on yourself if you want to become an OD practitioner or an HRM practitioner or whatever I think is a real key part to it because you're going to have to look after yourself I think that's a really important part of it and to hang on to those moments of
(59:30) joy and they will help build capacity for those moments of non- jooy which will inevitably um come and batter you around the the psyche Amen to all of that well and and to be honest and I mean I I I do mean I do me this with absolute sincerity is to engage with practices such as this and with people like yourselves and networks and to share those stories and to re recognize and realize that you're not alone I think when you're working with people and working these you can end up feeling very alone and you can feel that somehow
(1:00:07) that the whole burden of humanity is on you that somehow you couldn't work out person X or that you tried to do this with a group of people and it didn't quite work yeah that's going to happen and if you if you get comfortable with the idea of failure and lack and loss rather than that being a a downside that is empowering so I think you know utilizing resources that you so bravely put out to people and take time to do I think is really important to hear different voices and and to know that you're not alone well what a brilliant
(1:00:39) brilliant conversation thank you so much Mark for being really generous with your time and your insights there's just so many sort of takeaways and I feel as if we're just scratching the the surface there things that you know we want to cover about liminality and just fascinated about your pH D work on women's Journey into BS because that's a whole area of research that's just fascinating as well Danny what are some of the things that you want to take away from today gosh to start I've really
(1:01:05) enjoyed the conversation it's been it's been really insightful so I think I I was struck by what you said earlier in the conversation about the import importance of T being tentative with your your challenge but making sure you do it um and I think a lot of aspiring OD practitioners and established OD practitioners you know is having confidence to do that in in various situations I love what you said towards the end about lessening your grip on your world view so important if we can all do that then really important uh the
(1:01:30) importance of context and then what you said about un the importance of unlearning and actually we need pack brains with more stuff it's taking stuff out and creating space to think and and view the world differently you got all mine actually mine mine were all those and then there's just one thing that's probably going to wake me up at three o'clock in the morning go which is symptoms of the eruption of what's been repressed wow yeah there's there's an episode title yeah yeah yeah yeah
(1:01:57) yeah and um yeah AR argue if that's waking you up at 3:00 in the morning Garen then you may probably want to ask yourself why why what do it mean I didn't really am not in a place to give you place to wake you up and or cause that kind of psychic trauma that that wasn't the aim of this session no no no it's thought provoking which is yeah I no thank well thank you offering me the space space to do this and I think I I've learned a lot and it's very valuable I think to have a space to just to speak and I think
(1:02:33) that's one of the one of the the key things I I I'd hope that you know is a takeaway from this is that it comes back to that your point about being the tentative and and is that lots of times in organizations one feels that one can't or doesn't have the opportunity and this is why it links to the idea of employee voice you know these type of things it's it's the that's what voice is it's about talking and I think it's not just talking it's about how where and how things are spoken about and the bravery
(1:03:04) and the confidence for people to listen and challenge what is been spoken about and I think that is um and giving others who haven't got space to speak as place to speak and I think that's of vital importance to not only OD but to organizational and to life in general honestly to be honest and if people want to follow your work or if they're interested in the program at burbeck that you oversee obviously you're you're a prolific author as well what's the best way for someone to Folly work Mark
(1:03:33) well um they can we'd love them to come and study with this that would be absolutely wonderful um if not then they can certainly I'm on LinkedIn I'm more than happy to always happy to Linkin with people I'm also happy to have conversations with people who maybe want to pick up on some of these points and they can email me my my I'm on the the my contact on the bck business school website and hopefully at some point I can come and do another session for you guys and um you know that's always great
(1:04:04) to see the whites of people's eyes when you ask them a question which may be uncomfortable and um to have that conversation in a space which as we did in the summer which was a really productive space so yeah I'm always happy to contact and discuss this any parts of this a great length because it's I learn so much from doing it too so it's it's a beneficial process brilliant well thank you so much Mark we really appreciate it for those of you listening if you have enjoyed the conversation then please do hit the like
(1:04:33) button or feel free to share this with others that you think will benefit from it as well and also feel free to subscribe to the channel Mark joins an incredible portfolio of amazing guests that we've had join us from around the world across the OD profession and and Mark's conversation will take a really proud part of that we hope we really found Val you if you have any thoughts or feedback on what Mark shared with you today so please put them in the comments uh we'd love to hear your feedback and
(1:04:56) if you got any questions for it we're happy to pass them on as well but again thank you so much for your time Mark it's been brilliant we've loved it it's been a great episode and thank you again no thank you and thank you for your generosity and to you all the lead all the listeners as well so thank you [Music] he