Change Smuggling! What OD can learn from Domain Driven Design with Xin Yao - OrgDev Episode 59

Why do organisations keep struggling with structure and workflow—despite endless change efforts? We redesign teams, introduce new processes, and roll out new tech, yet work still feels slow, frustrating, and full of roadblocks. Silos, unclear roles, and misaligned systems drain energy and waste time.

In this episode, we’re joined by Xin Yao, a Domain-Driven Design (DDD) practitioner, sociotechnical architect, and former enterprise architect. She helps organisations bridge the gap between people, teams, and technology—designing systems that actually work. If you’ve ever wondered why change efforts fall flat and what to do instead, this conversation is for you.

Wish you had a handy recap of the episode? So did we.

That’s why each week in our Next Step to Better newsletter, we’re sharing From Pod to Practice – a 2-page visual summary of each episode designed to help you take the learning from the podcast and into your work.

You’ll get:
■ Key insights from the episode
■ A reflection prompt
■ A suggested action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

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

(00:00) hi and welcome to the org Dev podcast so why do so many organizations struggle with structure and workflow despite constant change efforts we redesign teams introduce new processes and roll out technology yet work still feels frustrating slow and full of roadblocks people waste time navigating silos unclear roles and systems that don't support how they actually work so why does this keep happening our guest today syo helps organizations navigate this as is a domain-driven design practitioner soot technical architect and former
(00:35) Enterprise architect she works at the intersection of people teams and Technology helping leaders design organizations that actually work sind has had a fascinating career writing software architecting systems and strategizing transformation agendas in Multinational Enterprises she spearheaded largescale change initiatives in boundary spanning Architects roles she was Chief software architect at Dano Bank where they made the Bold move to move to a Spotify operating model she's also been Enterprise and solution architect for
(01:06) the global Consulting CH Cap Gemini sin is nowadays an independent consultant for ypma where she's focused on domain driven design and soot technical architecture in complex change efforts and she's also a renowned keynote speaker and this is one of the reasons why we invited her on the podcast because we've watched all of her Keynotes on YouTube and have been absolutely fascinated by it she lives in the stunning city of Copenhagen in Denmark and she's made time before she goes on holiday tomorrow to join us sin
(01:32) has a degree in English literature and Linguistics at the University of peing and actually started a whole Year's military training at China's West Point Military Academy is that right that's right oh wow you picked up a lot of details we do we do a lot of homework really well thank you so much for joining us s we're really delighted that you can join us today so happy to be here thank you for having [Music] me just kick us off just tell us a bit about the work that you do we've got lots of questions so Karen said it so
(02:05) well I am kind of that glue person so usually I my row is kind of a boundary spending row covering this Crossroad between business product engineering design facilitating conversations and and that sort of things so usually I'm independent right so clients usually hire me to lead a kind of a Frontline work which is typically a kind of a you know if you I do a lot of software initiative so it's kind of a green field software project so things that never existed before or it's software that is like two three decades old and it needs
(02:42) a kind of a modernization so you can imagine a lot of people need to get together just to find out what what the thing does sometimes so that's that's that's my RO you know getting people into the same room getting a lot of documents and people and processes into the same room making sense of it and um getting to a better place a more desirable future and one of the things you're described as a domain driven design practitioner so can you for the audience can you define what domain driven design is so domain driven design
(03:12) if I uh scope it it is the scope of it every design has a purpose is a design approach it has the word design in it so it's about the design of software so to have quality software where quality is defined as being both useful from a business perspective and maintainable from from an engineering perspective um and so the approach taken obviously is domain driven and so the secret there is sort of the domain driven part is basically to align the code language in the software with the business language so if those two things are connected
(03:49) then the chances risk of error and misunderstanding would be less so in a way it is a soot technical approach to software and that free dates actually can have you know like uh five years I think but it's really a a soot technical way approach of designing software I think it's kind of groundbreaking groundbreaking was uh it was from 2004 the approach and how does that shape how how would your approach be different to the approach people might expect or might experienced in other methodologies so other methodologies might take so if
(04:27) you if you imagine let's say we would like to have a piece of software that um launches rocket or manages a hospital right allowing patients to be having appointments and and matching the doctors and patients and that that sort of complexity so in order to have all those business rules and the users's experience sort of defined and got understood by the software people which usually you know don't know the domain at all you need a way to sort of get that understanding from what we call the domain experts and the users into the
(05:03) heads of the soft software engineers and so what usually happen before domain driven design is purely you know an architect like me We I wrote a long document giving people sort of the recipe or specification to say go do this go Implement software like this and because of those software Engineers had no idea of you know what I was what I wrote was correct or not and besides you know the language I use when it get to the receiver end might not have the same frequency on the receiver end so they might under Mis misunderstand me so the
(05:38) way domain J design tackles this is to say everybody needs to speak the same language and that is called a ubiquitous language in DDD and then we also sort of divide and conquer the complexity using some patterns like bounded context so essentially it's a way to say don't do technology using a technical only approach but align the tech with the business and the users align the tech with the humans fabulous and that's not necessarily easy is it that can be a chall place to be trying to do that alignment yeah what are some of the big
(06:11) challenges you face working in that way and so un challenge inherent in DDD domain driven design itself as a design approach the goal of it is software right it is the output is the outcome of that piece of software or you know a set of system that integrate with each other so DDD per se doesn't have a design goal that is the organizational well-being right so even though it is kind of a soot technical approach in my eyes it is the social part the organizational development part the OD part is a means to an end and the end is software so you
(06:52) can see that the social you know practices in in everything we do in DDD a lot of patterns is for the sake of technology so it's a little bit like the tail chasing the head and in kind of situation and that poses a lot of challenges meaning that the OD in this field is under theorized and underexplored and that was the field I have been like thinking I've been doing a lot of extra work toward you know tapping into different other kinds of system thinking complexity Theory OD and a lot a lot of other things when you
(07:26) sort of see your explanations of it it's just got a real Elegance to domain driven design hasn't it and one of the things that really sort of stood out for me is before you often begin the work with DDD so you're going to start with a you know big bit software you actually bring everyone together to actually agree definitions of things don't you to you know we work in many organizations where the client might be described as a service user or a consumer or a client all within the same organization so
(07:53) often people are speaking at Cross purposes but you start with first principles there don't you right language is the starting point of DDD and if you think about it what is code written in that's a programming language so it's a language by itself and so what is written when we say when something goes to production so when your podcast go to production when the code you know the rubber hits the road what is shipped what is going to the production is the understanding of the engineers those people who write the code and their
(08:26) mental models the language in their head there's already a gap between that and the code language and then there is a further Gap from there to where they get the the requirements the information from and then from that person to the person up the chain who gives you know that that requirement specifier the knowledge there is a different Gap so the longer the chain goes you imagine actually in the organization the longer that language is going to drift and that is a big challenge so yeah so we do a lot of workshops a lot of these things
(09:00) called KO collaborative modeling so that is to say let's shorten this distance why do we have this chain of like a telephone game right put people in the same room and let them speak their way into coherence a coherent language at least increase the odd of not you know a better understanding that the code language reflects the business language and internally I'm playing systems thinking bingo at the moment and I think I've got a full house there's there's a lot of systems thinking in there isn't
(09:28) there in terms of understanding how things work and I think you've also in some of your videos you've described some of the system archetypes that you often come across there like limits to growth and shift the burden so these are sort of traditional archetypes that you see in organizations and you often rub up against these things during your work don't you yes indeed so thinking in systems basically is actually a tall order sometimes because of this complexity we all face and even in in engineering organizations I mean the
(10:00) technical advancement is already a big mouthful so you can see that in our everyday as technical people like you it's a tremendous amount of information from the internet from our profession and adding to it we're asked to do you know to understand to relate to these complex business requirements to the users world and so if we do not have a kind of a systemic you know system of systems of systems if we don't have some discipline to to do that kind of thing then we're going to have kind of a sub
(10:33) optimized situation and silos mental silos and organizational silos so yeah I do a lot of kind of like um evangelizing maybe that's not the right word of of system thinking you know drawing feedback loops of how humans work you know these system archetypes and also the traps system traps so so we can see it so sometimes when you can see something visually then you also minimize the risk of me seeing a seeing a different Loop than you so so basically that's kind of a you can say the DDD plus I see systems thinking as a
(11:10) DDD plus it's kind of an add-on to the organizational side so it doesn't become a means to an end but an end in itself in a way and I guess one of the things I'm sort really curious to find out is you know particularly sort working in the technology field like the different groupings of Specialists that you get like they all like the Engineers all go to particular universities they all study in a particular way it's often quite it can become quite tribal can't it so you're bringing these different
(11:38) parties together like sales or risk and Technology people and Engineers together into this big Melting Pot and you're trying to introduce like a an overarching context that they can all focus on that is beyond the power of a box of crispy creams isn't it to try and get people to buy into it like how how do you get people around the table to buy into this cuz they will have seen a lot of change come and go and a lot of initiatives that have had a lot of funding before fail what is it that you do that sort of helps Galvanize people
(12:07) to sort of work to this like common purpose it's not me I have a big helper and that is called complexity so these people before they go into the room they already know that this is a piece of work nobody can you know design or do and finish in their own office space so if it hasn't hurt that way there's no need to person like me right so so then you can just uh you can just top down you know have a God view of everything and give everybody a piece of work like you know we all know terorism all that
(12:42) but our reality has proceeded to such a level of complexity so it has to be that way so we need to bring people into the same room we tried the other thing it hasn't brought us the good result so it's painful actually for a lot of these people it's kind of like they're all busy people right like you said so like in the beginning of the session you see a lot of people looking at the watch you know what's the agenda is it's going to add value for for me you know a lot of skepticism as well right so so so some
(13:11) of the get-go approach so we've been in this field for quite a long time so we found out so some of these what we call I think you guys know this so some kind of a liberating structure so you can't bring like 60 people or even 10 people into the same room without giving them a kind of an enabling structure structur is constrained but they also enable so so structures like event storming so so this is a workshop format and in the architecture space we also have quality storming all these storming and these
(13:44) these things they have a lot lot to do with adding sticky notes you know putting your thoughts on the sticky notes with a very low entry barrier but then letting structure letting more insight emerge so basically let's say in event storming we want to map this big hospital how do we manage patients this this this system has been in production for 20 years and now it's full of errors and delays and it matches the it gives the patient the real medicine and you know all this kind of things so we need to change it and it's a big ball of mud
(14:14) and all that sort of thing but then you know the users and the business person the product person the director and the engineer the new engineer and the experienced engineer they might have different ideas of just how the business process looks like right right but then in in event storing like this you just write your perception using your language step by step on a piece of a sticky note and then we just put each of our world viiew on the board and then start to organize the timeline so the moment people as are asked to linearize
(14:47) something and they start to see wow when they say user do they mean patient or when I say medicine or do I mean you know the same thing as as a the doctor's assistant on that sticky not so there there's a naturally a conflict coming up but then we're pointing fingers at an object not at each other and it's it's actually a parallel process you can see it's it's very productive right all of a sudden you have a lot of chaos so it's basically the first step is chaos and then you do some some sense making and
(15:20) organizing it discuss with with each other is the sequence rate is the language rate and then we start to clean it up and organize it into different sections so that that's usually the starting point create a chaos organize it and get something out of it that's three steps easy right so sin fascinating to know this what was your journey into your field is it something that found you or did you find it like how did it come about gosh I can talk hours about this so I think my journey the starting of it sounded like many
(15:51) other software Engineers got a and you know my first major is in language the English language and but then my second major is in computer science and and so when I was fresh out of school I really have this had this Newtonian workview right the world is a giant clock and and everything else is just like years and springs everything compiles Precision everything that that's what fascinated me I think what got me going into this journey the first step it accelerated pretty fast because my very first project I was a programmer and we were
(16:24) supposed to do this workflow this insurance workflow you know I was very proud of myself just fresh out of University I was together with uh you know three other also very young programmers and so we were given this big document from our architect and another big document from from the the business analyst so they basically collected the requirements from the users right so so then we used six months chewing through all these things but also of course asking questions per email and that this is called the waterfall Approach at back then so
(16:55) basically the waterfall being somebody defined something and then the next person and refined it into architecture and then we down the chain you know at the end of the food chain as programmers we just need to write code right so we we were kind of like I use six months writing code and we delivered something really top-notch technically and it's really a decoupled software maintainable engineering wise I think it's it's a piece of art and but then I think one month after we have delivered and that's
(17:25) a long time to wait you know so what happened right and then our uh Project Lead um she actually was so embarrassed about writing that email so so she didn't actually have the courage to talk to to tell us face to face but the message is you know this project was a mistake basically the code you wrote is going to be dropped and forgotten and so there were a lot of a lot of reasons about you know that that the some some of the reasons were were related to those requirements not being clearly defined but the the the thing that
(17:58) really really was the determining Factor was because our sponsor didn't talk to his boss about starting this project so there was a lot of politics involved and then because of this secrecy no one told us that a friend and framework needs to be used so a framework basically means that you need to everything needs to go through that framework from the user experience layer to the back end and since we didn't use that framework the their architects who reviewed our code it's a lot of code six months right and
(18:26) they said well it's going to be too costly to rewrite this so let's forget about it just pretend as if it never happened so that was actually my first experience is kind of after that project I asked to be a software engineer because I wanted to increase my agency because at the end of the food chain I've got to implement others requirements and others software architecture so it's kind of like in a way it's a power hungering move to say I want to have more get closer to the decision so that's what get me started
(18:56) and then so and so that's one of the this experience who got me into DDD so basically DDD aligns the business with the software so that's my first shock therapy all those late nights all that worrying and stress and wanted to do an amazing job and it was gosh that's and you came back from that oh yeah I came back and I became I I got the permission to be a software architect and so I thought my job would be you know now I'm I'm one of those writing the big document now someone else needs to to implement mine and then
(19:30) I just found out those you know box and lines the architecture diagrams just like real architecture in a in a house right it's not so easy to draw because there are you know in those conversations to understand what is what to build and why to build this and not that and who is the person who can decide so there is a lot of organizational intricacy and communication and politics I felt that that I didn't have a language even DDD can help me do that right so it's kind of like again a thing that got me
(20:04) interested in complexity Theory system thinking inquiry like psychology the the soot technical uh design like the dance between psychology and and sociology how do how are people different in a group and and then as individuals so I went down a lot of Rabbid um and then I started to what should I call this thing so it's kind of like first I called it domain driven architecture I keynoted about domain driven architecture and then I started to talk about suu technical architecture to basically kind of put a distance
(20:39) between only domain driven and then also soot technical so there is more to soot technical than the domain driven so I think another leap is to go from system thinking to complexity thinking also that was also a big shock for me like system sinking was still newtonia in a way right all those feedback groups they're neat they're big and and messy but but you still have a system but then in complexity you have you have systems but you also have paradoxes and you've you've got to have a way to navigate
(21:10) this so that's that's oh yeah so so it's uh I don't know I I feel like many times I'm I'm like a rabbit with this with the clock in Alice in Wonderland it's just like Hey we're late we need we also need to learn this and so forth so I don't know it's I guess just my curiosity my curiosity was my tour gu my troop advisor how do you bring other people along with you cuz embracing that complexity and the mess that is the reality for organizations not everybody is as comfortable kind of stepping into
(21:38) that cuz actually some people like keep it simple make it you know it might be wrong but at least it's simple how'd you bring people along with you to kind of embrace that complexity yeah so I struggled a lot with it so I tried the haong approach I got the feedback that you know it's good but some of the packed feedback could be you know is good but very academic right so so and that means there's something there's some things I I don't quite get and so and and and then I I basically I tried a
(22:11) lot of different things and then the thing what some of the patterns that do work one of them that does work for me now is something I call change smuggling and so and so in a way it is just to say not to go into a client space and not go into organization to say say yeah this culture sucks you need to change and I'm a change agent I'm here to help you change you know just the energy to change something to change a culture tends to make it stronger nobody wants to hear that and so one of the other reason is also because I just don't feel
(22:47) um I have the um I've done reps enough to be able to communicate as a professional like OD professional or whatever I I still need training so that therefore smuggling gives me a kind of a cover I think Sonia B she said you know it's hard to survive a jungle if you you're trained in a zoo I just feel like I I I I I'm it's it's like it's like a it's like Madagascar right you know when they I think Out of Africa whatever when they first got into the jungle it's like where where is our you know where's our
(23:21) cage and who's going to feed us food and and where is my you know running Bel right I think the zebra was just like so so I just feel I'm not a trained change agent I'm a trained engineer and I'm a trained classically trained architect so a lot of times I just have to Anchor a lot of this uh softer things a lot of the soot technical change theory of change in the what in a concrete problem solving context and try different things and then not to be so precious if things don't work out and
(23:55) one other thing I I have that this is new learning maybe from the last year I just realized that what we model in this soot technical space is no longer what we architect is no longer causality right I know this from complexity but sometimes when you do when you go and do architecture you want it to be deterministic who wants to have fluffy architecture right who wants to say okay you buy a house and then you hire architect you oh yeah you you know maybe maybe this will work you know probably the kitchen is best there so you don't
(24:26) want that kind of language into your into our architecture that is the social architecture we have to work with it is a probably so modeling probability rather than causality is also something I'm I'm I'm I'm trying to talk about because this thing Engineers do do understand probabilities and causalities so I call these things like Trojan mice so instead of like a big Trojan Horse like uh this is this is soci technical change you all need to change every one of you but then do this as small experiment like let's try this try this
(25:01) inquiry they use this in Psychology let's try this let's let's formulate a qu some questions what might be you know a question about um our aspirations what have we some of these open questions and open let's try this right and and the latter INF inference and and all different sets of tools some work better and some work not so good okay then then we drop it we're not so precious about that rather than if you only have one troen horse to ride on and then it fa okay it's totally disastrous right so so
(25:32) just try I guess I'm just saying experimentation massive experimentation and also be compassionate with myself and things don't work a lot of things don't work out for me I mean I can't even yeah meure how many brilliant and just there's two questions that are burning in my mind so one is probably easier to answer than the other so the the first question is you talked about almost like an evolution in your thinking and a lot of people here will be at the foo hole foot foothills of moving into systems thinking and
(26:00) starting to think about complexity what were some of the things that helped you make sense of it along the way go now I understand because system thinking is a huge field and there's one thing that systems thinkers can disagree on is that they don't agree on a definition of systems thinking where's where's been your inspiration along the way and what's helped you make sense of the area right so um the um so all the systems thinking bit I think Don medows that that primary book that really helped me
(26:28) because that I think that book Advanced my perception of system thinking as a pure intellectual analytical feedback loop you know the that the the the that kind of the mechanistic big system modeling approach to designers in the loop you know the humans in the system and also a balance between the intellect and the Heart the human and the system so humans in the system so that's that's a uh and also you know Peter sing's Fifth Discipline system thinking is the Fifth Discipline but then he meshed it
(27:02) so beautifully with organizational learning with the self-mastery so so that piece really help helped me and then it wasn't until I read Ralph's Stacy that I realized that this beautiful balance or this beautiful Paradox between the systemness of systems so that the stability of a system and the uh the Methodist of the system and it's that it's that it's in the re iling movement that we gives us value so it's not one side or the other and it's hasn't been so easy for me to so I've been daning between either you
(27:37) know we need to model this this huge system of systems or we have to navigate the mess so I'm never I was at a point either in the mess or in the system but then from Ralph Stacy and Dave Snowden it gives me this this sweet Tipping Point I'm always doing this it's never still so so that's that's one of the things that really got me um enlightened in a way and and most recently Alicia duro's constraints framework and that beautifully you know combined system thinking and complexity Theory it's like
(28:10) everything is also change theories so I felt there was some invisible hand helping me all the time when I need it the the the doors just opened to to new insight and and so forth the second question I had is something you just said at the very beginning of that Horror Story that you shared with us which is the sponsor didn't have the convers ation that they need to have and sponsors play such an important role don't they yet it's one of those things that's rarely trained so and and sponsors generally are very busy senior
(28:37) leaders that might be sponsoring one or two or three things on top of a very busy day job as well what guidelines you have for what makes an effective sponsor and how can people work better with sponsors to get the best out of them because it is a difficult role isn't it it is it is and so I have worked with fantastic sponsors and sponsor with a different orientation so so I think it's like I'm really fascinated by by Green Leaf servant leadership and I think many leaders uh intrinsic Paradox on one side
(29:13) they want to serve and on the other side they also feel they need to have all the answers and so it's a it's a very painful position sometimes sponsors can get trapped into you know I need to have the answers I need to point give people a Direction and I need to close down right so so I feel self-awareness is a complexity Fitness are the two traits that a leader a sponsor need to have but then having said that how do we work with people that are not there how do we work with leaders Leaders with formal Authority
(29:48) that are not there and we are somewhere else we feel we really want to help but you know they have a different or uh orientation in my experience I mean I'm not the person that that uh uh the talks with these high level Executives to do leadership programs and so forth a few times I did get some breakthrough and that's when um when they can see there's a counternarrative happening in the groundwork I'm doing for better words I'm always in this informal position in this boundaries spending role I have a
(30:21) lot of exposure like as the lead architect and I do presentations over our leadership teams once in a while I got this aha really you thought you you work this out with two workshops really so it's just kind of like people start to wonder um I think you know sometimes I just have to be patient to say the se's a s and it may not happen tomorrow but unless that is there the the the the I think it works better than intellectual persuasion if you know what I mean it's it's rolling out the red carpet by the way I really love the
(30:59) rolling out the red carpet text when when I joined the meeting so it is about rolling out the red carpet I think leaders today are full of pain and full of paradoxes and if they feel somebody's coming here to critique them and criticize them and not really can see their their world and have a true compassion and understanding for them you can never change anything as think CaRu also said you can you cannot change yourself unless you accept yourself that includes your addiction your attachment and everything right so acceptance is is
(31:31) the first thing it's another social Paradox you want to change something but you have to accept it how can that how can that work but it does work right it works for me at least so just switching gear slightly what do you love most about the work that you do what brings you real Joy yeah to use a buzz word from complexity it's emergence right it's just like a jazz concert you sometimes it's it's the blending of you come into a space with a fixed set of you know Jazz musicians they they have
(31:59) notes music scores so they have a plan you have a beautifully written out plan and process and whatever but then that's dropped into a real time group experience collaboration as through this inquiry the process of inquiry and languaging and modeling like Matana uh calls it something unexpected comes out of it surprises like people people got a a a um clarified oh yeah I you know I always thought you would say no if I ask your department to do this but actually it's just because I didn't ask you
(32:36) you're actually you just said you're willing to do this so a lot of assumptions get um got invalidated so when this kind of things emerge and people start to get a better understanding about each other about the why and the what and with whom and for whom that's what really gives me um you know this go Goosebumps like I've made a difference this regarding what what the software is going to be I have made a difference and then you you've got such an extensive tool box of stuff you can draw on from all all of your experiences
(33:07) and the kind of methodologies how do you know how do you decide what tool or approach to use in a given situation I I don't I don't I think the situation I think it's kind of like um part part of it is because of experience since when you have seen a few messes there are similarities but every situation is unique and so sometimes I have to say okay I have this toolbox these things worked in the other context similar context before let's try this and often times people hard me like to do like the in December I did this two
(33:42) week Workshop right but then after day one so each day I made an overall plan after day one I knew that the overall plan had to change and that's because of the emerging factors so I don't know I don't know all the bits in the beginning so again I have a musical score but then I might have to you know allow improvisations and changes to happen along the way and sometimes it's it's really hard when I do those workshops it's like working until 10:00 each evening and that was that's because it's
(34:13) a remote Workshop all those questions of inquiries need to be somehow put on the Myro board and get ready so it's kind of very demanding but I feel it's also very rewarding it's just like uh it's such a cathis every time I feel like this is makes what makes me whole when I when I'm in those workshops and and facilitating these group experiences I feel so whole I feel so connected and sometimes when those things are always just like oh I want that feeling again where is it I'm like a junkie no I but I think from using a
(34:49) system language that that's coherence that's um I think mat said this is experiential coherence people experience in the moment the things cohere in the sense that I feel heard and seen and understood and I know what is my power in the big picture so Parts connecting with the whole so we may not feel like this in every workshop and even afterwards which what happened who who put this you know who who drug me who hypon ised me in this in this collaboration why can't we why can't I feel this every day sometimes I feel
(35:22) like that too as a facilitator but I think what every time that happens there there there is there are seeds Z and this is what I call a counternarrative and I think things work in mysterious ways and those are the those are the uh you know a breeding ground for for real change in my eyes thank you beautifully articulated and so what are some of the more challenging things what do you find really challenging about the work you do oh yeah so one thing you might also have maybe felt a little bit in the sense that I feel the um organizational
(35:56) development professionals like the OD professionals or you know some some people call them way of working people agile coaches Char people even sometimes this effort is happening like in parallel to the other you know production work creating software design and engineering and it's kind of like silos right and and I've been in situations like team team are like saying can we not have an agile coach because this is just extra extra time we need to to put into right so so it's kind of like I think a lot of
(36:28) organizations tackle this in a not very systemic way right it's just like we have OD we have OD Specialists have these uh you know they work with people in in the social context and then we have Architects and Engineers who work in the other context I just feel like sometimes it's it's more efficient even to bring these things together but I I think these professionals haven't really worked out a way how to supplement each other's work yet at this stage and many times the Consultants OD consultants and
(37:00) the engineering Consultants are not working together so that's one of the challenges how do you feel about this do you you does does this strike a court or is it only me I think we all feel that with the kind of silos and not not not integrating yeah and I I think um particularly in organizations sometimes like the practitioners like OD andhr don't necessarily get involved in the business itself where the real opportunities for change actually come it's almost like we're drawing boundaries in the wrong Place aren't we
(37:29) like if you can actually work on something that's really meaningful that makes a difference but you you need people like yourself to be able to bring those different areas together and sort of provide that that interaction otherwise it just doesn't happen naturally does it no no and and these sponsors which we talked about before it's like they I think somewhere down the road they might also challenge their Consultants to work together why why can I can I not hire three different type of consultants and make them co-design a
(37:58) group experience right so I often feel like alienated from like the the people who are running leadership programs and coaching it's like I often heard this like a by the way do you know that this thing is happening there oh by the way I can't go to your Workshop because I need to be the in the other place and we're doing this I'm just like okay so it's just like we need a better way of working and and meshing together our expertise yeah absolutely we've had haven't we dwh we've we we've actually
(38:29) worked with other consultancies but the other consultancy is like well this is a little bit weird how are we supposed to be with you yeah so so we we're working really hard to sort of build that connection and share information but obviously it's about the the the one common thing is the goal that we're trying to do for the client to get them to their goal isn't it and I think sometimes it's easy for Consultants to lose their way around that the main thing is to help the client achieve their goal that's the
(38:54) most important thing that's true that's true and and and also I think one challenge for me I haven't been independent for quite a long time is Contracting what do you contract for and in this message space it's often times not so easy to describe a concrete outcome and the uh the clients who hire me all want concrete outcome right oh yes well you don't get any budget without it do you Scope yeah and so talking about emergence and paradoxes and maybe and probabilities this is a language that
(39:27) doesn't resonate so well with the with the Consulting I don't know practice in many ways and I think in the so one of my favorite books is Peter Block's Flawless Consulting in there he talks a lot about this kind of Contracting I think even though that book is quite old by now but well a lot of this the the the the good goat goat nuggets there are not really implemented yet so I'm just still trying to Fumble my way that's one of the challenges like having having a conversation uh about Contracting the
(39:59) real Contracting how can I not smuggle anymore break my cover when can I break my cover got some great terms from this conversation today what what have been some of the biggest lessons you've learned along the way um one of my biggest lessons is actually to to not to make assumptions about what people's need are especially about a a you know it do for instance what do I how can I assume people's assumption about what a good job is right so and sometimes I go l in with this tool set with the modeling with with the the every
(40:42) engineer Has This Global worldview the big picture the user and whatever and sometimes people are just satisfied with you know having a ticket and maybe the other thing is just too complex and so I think one of the biggest lessons is to again start to accept that people are at different places and find a language that works for them rather than feeling rejected uh you know as an idealist that people don't really buy into this and so forth so so that's that's that's really so so so one of the things I I I've also
(41:18) been doing a lot of study about Buddhism in in late years so this concept about loving speech so basically to say you need to find out a a vocabulary that works for your conversation partner rather than seeing him or her as an abstraction so it's not an object you are having an argument with but a human being that has pains and and and the hurts but that but so once once that is lesson is really sticking with me I think I can I can get deeper with this process and I have got so many so many lessons like this event storming I
(41:56) described it like his Silver Bullet right it did but I had so I mean you might have heard it I I talk about I have several disastrous event storming experiences and most of them is because I assumed that people need this why don't you like this it just works right but you know some people are just like I got this two two I think um in the retrospective I still remember this one person wrote we don't see Forest only trees and the other person said you meaning me you are too in love with your model talk a lot about model but event
(42:30) storming is a model right so so that a Twist a inquiry another meeting of inquiry to get back to trust and understanding but I think change practitioners sometimes we are fascinated with our models especially the models that have worked in many other contexts but then uh I think the biggest lesson is basically to really fall drunkenly in love with these models and then you have to detach you really have have to detach right uh learn your skills it's like the shuhari the the Japanese martial art unless I learn to
(43:04) detach and people learn to detach we're not going to acing our own martial art to the highest level it's kind of down rabito sorry I hope it somehow makes sense no but it is it is really important isn't it because I think I was being told by one of my sort of ment is is you know hold your hypotheses lightly you know don't get too attached to it because you don't know and there's always new information coming through and you know I think sometimes with with when you are a facilitator it's easy to
(43:31) build a repertoire that's the thing and it works in this order but like I said every context is different every team starts in a different place there's different levels of trust and you know they have to engage it in a certain way so we're always having to think about what's the recipe and how do we make it in a slightly different way each time and that's what brings the variety isn't it yes and I think the the the the the best model which is not a model is is actually deep questioning or inquiry
(43:57) because those are in the moments some of them you might have a recipe for asking some of these questions I think yeah it reminds me of so Jacob needlman is a philosopher um he basically said you know our our society has tended to solve his problems without experiencing his questions so the questions how how to ask those questions in the moment and then you know arriving at a kind of an improvised coherence that that's the art it's no longer a craft and I think as OD profession uh professionals and as
(44:33) change practitioners that's that's the place we need to get to and that's that's that's the place that requires both our mind and our heart so yeah so so so I'm I'm not there yet but I feel I'm being enabled um by by the complexity itself and being carried by by all these different contexts um still learning so which brings us neatly to our next next question so you've obviously got a huge appetite for Learning and kind of developing and refining your practice what does your development and learning
(45:04) look like at the moment what are you particularly kind of focusing on so this might sound a little sentimental I'm trying to learn to accept uh being stuck is as interesting as being unstuck I maybe a prerequisite because on a lot of things I feel I am not I'm an overachiever still so with all this curiosity and with all this and you know philosophical sentiment I'm still an overachiever I don't like experiences with um like I the the the the you know the uh engineering person in me sees as a
(45:42) failure still I feel that I have to work with if I have to I have to preach that our teams and and the people I work with uh need to go for uncertainty and needs to embrace multiple truths so do I so it's just um it's very very hard to it's a heartless I can give you an example so one of the clients last year we had very different orientations when we parted ways I asked for feedback and he gave me so so the sponsor the leader gave me a very friendly piece of advice he said you know sin you might you might meet
(46:17) another person like me in a different context so don't try to open things up others are trying to close down right so so basically that has two messages for me so one his orientation the other is that he didn't feel understood that I he didn't feel that the way he sees the world was accepted by me and the way I went about solving his problems was not in line with his expectations so I might throw in you know like Peter blocky to say yeah your expectation is too low but you know still I didn't succeed I got
(46:55) stuck basically I got stuck and I didn't get the opportunity to get unstuck in that environment but that's a huge lesson for me without that one I don't think I can so that experience it has it's kind of like I will never forget it in a different context I will totally approach it differently would uh drop some of my passion drop some of my change energy and go about it in a in a in a different way and so in a way getting stuck in in that context is worth everything is really worth everything and still I'm having you know
(47:29) this feeling of oh a lack of self-worth you know all this internal dialogue going on right so yeah so that's that's what I'm learning right now still amazing well we just want to say a huge thank you sin that was just such a incredibly well articulated just really insightful interview it just it's just been brilliant and you've articulated so many of the struggles that go on internally within OD practitioners but it's such a a really well described way so thank you Danny what are some of the things that
(48:00) you're taking away from the conversation where to start we could do another hour just reflect what on the insid so I think what you said up front about the the importance of ubiquitous language and really kind of creating those bridges between people is so so fundamentally important to all the work that we do whether it's in a technical space or elsewhere um embracing the creative chaos I love that and uh obviously the change smuggling and Trojan mice going to stick with us is kind of brilliant um ways of wrapping up
(48:28) what we summing up what we do bril yeah and for me loads like I just love the language I complexity might and if you want to live in the jungle don't don't train in a zoo which is just fantastic that's it's just a I think metaphors work very well in this space help us a long way right so incredibly well yeah but I think you know one of the things we really wanted to bring you on today is just to broaden people's World in terms of this people doing really huge meaningful significant work and it's the importance of building
(48:56) connections and there are so many opportunities to create change that actually is useful to the organization so you encourage them to reach out and just the way you've talked about how you bring people together like how you sort of create people from different tribes and different backgrounds and how you can actually create a higher context for people to follow so it's been brilliant I've just really enjoyed it if people want to follow your work if they want to understand a little bit more about what
(49:20) you do or if they want to reach out to you understand a little bit more about the work you do as your independent consultancy or keynote speaking what is the best way for people to find you sh so I'm on LinkedIn at sinin so it's uh well I have a Chinese background so cin means the Mind heart so my my first name twice and I'm on Blue Sky after Twitter and X so that's where you can you can find me otherwise there are a lot of uh recordings on YouTube of my talks and if you have time to dig into that yeah
(49:49) brilliant well make sure all of those things are in the show notes and we definitely will sign post it to your videos because they are brilliant so thank you thank so much um we're stopping you from going on holiday to a hot Island so so escape the the Copenhagen winter so we hope you have a lovely time thank you so much for those of you that are watching it if you've watched this and you think I know someone that would really appreciate this then please share it we get stats every week that are showing loads of people are sharing
(50:14) loads of the videos so across sectors so people are finding lots of valy so if you've also liked it then please subscribe to the channel and also give it a like cuz the algorithm Gods love it as well and also if you want to keep up to date and you'll be able when other videos like sin come out then you can subscribe to the newsletter which is in the show notes as well but thank you so much but most importantly thank you so much sin we've loved it we've learned which is our barometer of a good session
(50:36) so thank you [Music]