Elevate Your OD Impact - The Intentional OD Practitioner with Regan Miller OrgDev Epsiode 61

What does good OD practice actually look like in action? How do you build your confidence in this field? What does it take to lead change effectively? If you’ve ever asked yourself these questions, this episode with Regan Miller for you. Starting a career in OD isn’t like stepping into a traditional profession. There’s no set path, no clear-cut job description that tells you what to do.

Regan Miller is a seasoned organisation design and development consultant working with public sector organisations around the world. Her career spans both public and private sectors, with early experience in training and development roles before moving into HR leadership and consulting positions within the U.S. federal government.  She is also co-author of 2 excellent books - The Accidental OD Practitioner and The Intentional OD Practitioner.

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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.

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Transcript

(00:00) hi and welcome to the org dev podcast what does good OD actually look like in action how do I build my confidence in this field and what does it take to lead change effectively if you've ever asked yourself these questions then this episode is for you starting a career in OD isn't like stepping into a traditional profession there's no set path no clear-cut job descriptions that tells you exactly what to do instead you find your way sometimes by accident sometimes with intention and learning through experience reflection and the
(00:30) challenges you take on some people come into OD from HR from consulting or psychology and other realize that they've just been doing OD work all along without ever knowing it but no matter how you get there the real question is how do you develop the mindset and skills to thrive in OD and that's exactly what we're exploring today with Reagan Miller she is the brilliant co-author of the OD the accidental practitioner and her latest book OD the intentional practitioner her work dives into these different entry
(00:58) points into OD the shifts that help practitioners grow and what it really means to be intentional in shaping organizational change reagan is an experienced OD and HR leader with a strong background in both public and private sectors she's currently a team lead at the US office of personnel management where she focuses on organization design within HR solutions helping public sector uh organizations and clients across America her fascinating career spans significant roles in workplace and succession planning or design developing
(01:27) performance cultures and of course o and she's worked with a various number of federal agencies include the department of homeland security department of commerce and the department of labor as well of course all of her brilliant practical experience is underpinned by academic background she's got a bachelor of science in psychology and a master's degree in organizational psychology as well so we're so pleased to have you join us today um Danny and I have been devouring your book all week danny can
(01:50) you please show the bacon bookmarks i think that is a podcast record we've absolutely loved reading your book so so welcome and thank you so much for joining us [Music] so just to kick us off just tell us a bit about the books how did how did it come about what was the inspiration to start writing them sure yeah so Larry and I uh he started off as my mentor when I entered into this field so I just kind of tagged along in a lot of fun ways with him but we were talking to each other years ago it was the last ODN
(02:26) uh conference in Vegas before COVID hit and we didn't have those events for a few years and we were sitting in all of these different sessions and folks were standing up saying "Hey you know I'm here i have a question about OD and I don't know what it even is i was just told to come here and learn about this and it was time after time after time people introduced themselves that way and Larry and I just looked at each other at breakfast and we said you know something's happening here what is this
(02:50) and I said to him I said did it ever occur to you that everyone in this field is an accidental practitioner and he just kind of stopped and he said yeah I am i said yeah me too i said everybody kind of comes into this from a side door more often than not really and he goes "Well we could write an article about this this you probably have enough to write a book.
(03:12) " And so here we are we decided to write our first book during the first year of the pandemic so why not add that to the mix of things and when we finished accidental practitioner we thought it's not quite done yet there's more to this how do you actually go from accidental to intentional and we wanted to build on those concepts which resulted in the second book we released last year fabulous so how do you define an in how do you define an accidental practitioner and then an intentional practitioner what's the what's the
(03:36) difference between the two yeah so accidental is really that person who's kind of coming into the light of understanding I'm doing something that actually has terms around it it's a field it exists there's there's structure to this you know I know I'm doing more than HR i know I'm doing something other than just leadership development it's that sort of sensation you're getting of this is this is something and I'm I'm latching on to it and I want to understand more uh and so
(04:03) you're probably more in that what you know like ODN I think says for seven years you're an emerging practitioner and I think that's where you go from accidental and into emerging once you start grasping the concepts around what OD is to you and how you want to practice it and you're thinking about how to put this in place in organizations whether you're internal or external that's when you're starting to move towards intentional you know really digging into those concepts around use
(04:27) of self and your judgments and your bias and the way in which you want to practice and engage in interventions in in any organization that you're working with so you're shaping yourself as a practitioner yeah and I think when I was reading I think the first chapter you talk about the amount of time it takes to become an expert in a field and it's kind of you're in it for the long game aren't you it's not something you kind of just pick up and I've sorted it i'm I'm an expert now yeah you are and it's
(04:52) you know I mean if you're not a lifelong learner in org development you're going to end up on your heels at some point right you've got to maintain that curiosity so I think when you're in org development and you realize I'm an accidental practitioner sometimes you're 20 years into whatever career you chose or more right so then you go oh shoot I'm a novice again right and that's either exciting or terrifying usually and do you think this is there something that draws people in to become
(05:19) accidental OD practitioners what is it that they're kind of they find they might be doing a different role and they're kind of drawn into OD without meaning to I think what's happened for me and I know several others I work with is you realize that maybe you're working in one specific area right like maybe you're in leadership development or you're in human capital planning and you just kind of realize it's just something's missing you're not making the effective change and the long-term
(05:43) systemic change that you could if you look at more than just that one thing and so I think part of it is this natural craving to go towards more impactful more sustainable change and some of it is also just realizing maybe I've mastered this part and I think there's something more to it uh and so you start that broader explan exploration yeah so and one of the things that really stood out for me when I read it and it's just at the beginning of the book and I think a lot it will resonate with a lot of people it's kind
(06:12) of about someone that's been asked and tasked to set up an OD function from scratch and they're not quite sure what it is and they go away to a conference to go and hang out and un spend time with other OD people but it actually just confuses them even more because it turns out no practitioners can agree with it and to a certain extent that's it happening a lot in the UK at the moment there's a lot of HR or learning and development functions that are rebranding as OD and not necessarily being able to define what it is is that
(06:38) something that you noticed a lot in in the field and and what have been some of the sort of the solutions that you've had to come up with to support people during that difficult process yeah I' I've definitely noticed it this is something that Larry and I kind of philosophize on all the time but we you know we've noticed that because OD touches so many different areas of expertise in terms of especially people management we're talking about behavior change there's a lot of folks who feel
(07:05) that they're doing OD because they're doing a part of it well I think in my organic world if you're going to be doing OD it's because you're affecting systems change you're thinking about more than just one lever you're thinking about five levers you're working with multiple parts of an organization it's much more in that system rooting and that's where in the first book you know Larry and I were talking about the future of OD and what is it and we've talked about how it really needs to be
(07:30) elevated because if we're just rebranding an HR function as OD it's still going to be buried in part of an organization you still might not be supporting the seniormost executives who need to hear from you or the board right and you still create some barriers to practicing OD effectively if folks are reticent to talk to you or they don't know what's going to happen your results you don't have the ability to actually affect change you know all of those things get factored in when you're
(07:54) talking about what is OD and where do we practice it in organizations yeah and what do one of your chapters is actually called system systems isn't it and that's one of the things that we really loved about it is you know you talk about the importance of intervening at different levels and in different ways sometimes interventions can be just too narrow to affect change you have to really sort of embrace it and understand how the system works another thing you were saying in terms of understanding the logic around why decisions were made
(08:22) originally before you can then start to understand why change can made you can tell the bed book can't you yeah maybe more than I have um yeah and it was so important for us to convey that because that's where I think folks realize they're moving into org development is when they start realizing they're thinking about the system they're thinking about if I change this what happens over here or I want these behaviors to be different but if I leave the performance system alone or the reward system alone or the hiring system
(08:50) alone I might never get these behaviors right and I think there therein lies another challenge with OD is I think the advent of dialogic OD is fantastic i think that's a great tool in our field and we actually had folks who we asked you know for input on our books before they were published and they said "Oh it's too diagnostic.
(09:10) " You know we much more in the diagn dialogic camp and things like that and I think there's room for both because if you skip that root cause and you skip that deeper understanding you just risk slapping a band-aid onto something that's really not correcting a systemic issue that's deeply rooted so root cause analysis has a critical role can't get hung up in it forever though got to have forward movement too and I think for me what's really powerful in your book is the lists of questions that you provide for
(09:37) practitioners to use that kind of ask these questions look at look at the problem or the situation through these lenses and there's lots of that in the book isn't there yeah there is and that was really important for us to include because we didn't you know you don't get skillful just from reading right you have to actually start applying so we said what are we doing writing a book about how to be skillful because you're not going to be skillful because you read it so for us that's why you see the whole
(10:02) chapter on case studies in the second book and we've got cases sprinkled throughout in there in addition to the first book because those reinforce real they're real life scenarios they're things that either Larry or both of us have faced and if you start asking yourself questions and training on these cases then you're starting to think like a practitioner without having to stand in a room and worry about oh what if I ask the wrong question or what if I say the wrong thing when I'm standing here
(10:27) but the questions you've put in there as well you know what the audience hopefully can take away from it is that the questions do a lot of things so the questions invite you to take different perspectives it invites you to think about is your solution in the short term but what's the implication long term and then you invite us to think about what are the other options that you know what the upsides and it the questions are really good because they actually make you think about what's what's going to
(10:51) happen as a result of this don't they yes it's it's hugely critical to step back as a practitioner because you're part of the intervention as soon as you're in the room with with whoever your client is whether it's internal or external you're shaping the future and you are creating change by your presence so you have to demonstrate those thought processes that you want to embed further into your client situation as well right you don't want to be that you don't want to have everyone depended on you to
(11:18) think through those things but if you can ask those questions yourself of the client you're helping them get smart and you're helping yourself get smart to better facilitate change in the organization reagan you are a practitioner in your own right as well as an author what was your journey into OD like how did you find it or did it find you oh that's a fair question i think I think it was a little bit of both i picked IO psychology as my master's program because I always had this fascination with how people in
(11:47) organizations work uh there was always an importance to that to me i mean first off I grew up swearing I was going to be a teacher so there was always this humanistic interest I think in my world um but I realized I wanted to be in business so that's where it started uh and I had of course learned some of the basic concept of OD at that point um but over the course of my career I just started saying yes to different things uh you know when I was hired into government I was working in more of a staffing office that was building out
(12:20) how do we you know consult in strategic human capital areas and we started saying yes to can you train folks on strategic interviewing can you go out and look at our workforce planning can you help us build a succession plan and so I did those things and then I switched more into a policy posture when I switched over to the DoD agencies and thinking about okay broadly if we have this human capital policy what does it do at the implementation level and so as you start practicing those things like I did and I kept moving through it i ended
(12:50) up getting back to projects where clients were saying we don't have enough people or something just isn't working right we have turnover we have resource needs that we can't seem to meet through staffing or development and how do you know how do I allocate my my precious time and money to create an organization that's functional and as I was doing those projects you know of course sure we'll start with I don't have enough people as the problem statement but I could tell you you need 50 people all
(13:20) day every day and that still doesn't solve your problems because you still don't have efficient processes you're still not hiring the right skills you still have upskilling needs you I mean all of the things right so I just refused to take the single singular lens on you know okay let's answer the first question that the client had and we'll just call it that right how easy that would be um so as I did that you know we just kept getting bigger projects where at one point where I was introduced to
(13:47) Larry we just had a senior executive who said yes I need to change the system but I'm taking over this organization because it's got some systemic challenges with people management and our leadership skills and that was my very first intro to formal work development as a practice and I just latched on ever since and it's been nine years ago now and you're touching on something that a lot of OD practitioners come up against which is they're brought in and the problem is kind of defined to
(14:14) them in a particular way often is event driven or like it's just a very sort of a one-dimensional way of looking how do you get people that maybe don't get challenged that often and you're coming I said "Well actually it's a bit more complicated and you might be actually part of the problem.
(14:31) " Like how do you go about doing that larry is famous for telling leaders uh you're part of the problem but you're also part of the solution and I used to think how does he get away with that but it work it works it clicks with leaders they get to take Yeah yeah that's one of our I think just key wisdom bits to take forward look nobody for the most part will call and say "I need org design or I need org development," right they're they're not thinking in that broad perspective because anyone who calls you
(15:03) as a leader has had time to observe their scenario and they're thinking of the solutions they know within their control right and so if they're calling for help with that solution they've already identified something's going on i think it's incumbent upon the practitioner to say okay we have a problem we're reacting to but we need to flip this script and be a bit more proactive to say yes let's react to this what else do we need to know and what else do you client need to be smart
(15:31) about to make sure we're making all the decisions we need to have sustainable long-term change and that means we have to focus on something much more broadly than just the question you called or the problem statement you shared with us and you touched on something in the book which many large organizations about with is is the whole thing about fads uh and you name some of them which I think we're all quite familiar with and you have to buy the book to understand the chapter but you you kind of name it and
(15:57) that is a thing isn't it and employees that have been there some time will see fads come and go and there's a lot of energy and political and social capital invested in them and then they just don't work out and you kind of sort of say that um a lot of those kind of fads are raced around motivation but the ones that really move the dial are the ones actually get in and look at the processes Can you just tell us a little bit more because that's something that felt quite important for you to put into the book yeah it's uh
(16:24) man fads are great they make you feel good you go to a good training and you walk away and you're like yeah you know I'll never forget I had a class on uh conflict resolutions and someone says oh the instructor goes you know when you leave this class don't go I know how to have a difficult conversation with you spouse i had class today right don't take it home and say to your spouse we can have a we can have a difficult conversation i know how to do it and if you think about it right she's
(16:53) saying it in justest but you don't do that in an organization either you don't leave class and the next day go I just learned how to have a difficult conversation with you right and so the challenge with a fad and the idea that I can go to a training or I can sit through a lecture or I can go to this energizing event and suddenly it translates to behavior change that's really shortsighted right we have to have reinforcers we have to have a system that supports the change we have to say we're devoting the resources to
(17:20) that this is more than just an event right that's the other differentiator for org development as a practitioner is you're looking at things much more broadly than I'm going to do a training i'm going to do a workshop i'm going to host this particular key event and all of a sudden everything's going to we're going to cure what ails us right so you can use those things that are seen as fads as we cite them in the book as a tool in a larger kit but if you fail to use it as just a tool and reinforce how
(17:50) that actually can push you towards change in a future then you just get a faded and then it becomes flavor of the month and then the next time you have your next training or fed the the whole room goes here we go again yeah and and again another thing that we sort of see in organizations is that these initiatives but just by the time they start to bear fruit like the context has shifted and other priorities and the conditions that were in place when this was initially set up so they move away from it and then they don't reap the
(18:20) benefits of it like what what can practitioners do to keep their initiatives focused and centered and you know the senior leaders still paying attention and resource on there as well yeah I think that's one of the biggest challenges it's an excellent question because one of the biggest challenges is things will lose steam if you're working with an organization and you're being told your project's putting on the back burner it's likely never going to get picked up again or if it does it's never
(18:46) going to look the same so one of the biggest things we can do is early be proactive and engage the key leaders key decision makers and say "Do we have at least 80% of you on board are you committed to at least devoting resources to this the projects that I know I've had fail real quickly were ones where one executive called and had a vision for change and we're twothirds through the project and they go I got selected to go to this other role so and so is going to take this over and they say they're going to take the project over
(19:19) and it's just key terms right it was a project it was never a systemic change initiative it was never we're trying to actually reshape the organization and how we behave it was referred to as a project and it was ex person's going to take it over not this person buys into my vision and they're going to take it forward and they're ready to partner with you none of that so absolutely you have to get much more engaged early to set the stage to say I'm not the change agent organization and leaders you are
(19:47) and if you're not committed this will this is high risk for failure the other thing I wanted to ask you about was you have a chapter around proactive and reactive organizations um and a lot of the OD practitioners we speak to find themselves in that kind of reactive space where they're just responding and they find it really hard to get to a position where they're able to be proactive what advice have you got for people who find themselves in that kind of responding reactive well get used to it uh and you get all these crowd no
(20:13) that's that's really good advice though isn't it because I think sometimes it's just like no well kill me it's not is it it's Yeah yeah i mean you know people are more prone to want to go to a doctor when they don't feel well versus I feel great i need that annual physical it's great to have that relationship in case something goes wrong right so the big deal is is that when you're faced with the fact that as a practitioner you're called in a reactive situation one cultivate your optimism if you don't
(20:40) believe change is possible and more broadly than what you have been faced with then you're in the wrong profession because you have to believe that change is possible even in the most difficult situations but two it's also about building that relationship with the client and saying "I'm happy to partner with you on this i'm glad that you recognize there's a challenge but let's talk more about what this could look like if we really think about the whole system and not just this immediate
(21:07) need." For example you might get a lot of clients that call and say "I need leadership 360s my leaders aren't effective and we need to see what everyone thinks of them." Okay right problem symptom solution need assessments okay well so if you get that call as a practitioner because that's something you do right then it's okay well let's talk more about this what's going on that even said leadership's a problem what do you know now where have you gotten your data from okay if you
(21:33) had a future state that was ideal what would that look like let's talk about that a little bit let's find the early delta okay how many other people believe there's this problem and just get really curious and start building that curiosity in the client as well and think more deeply about what was just shared with you than just oh hey I need leadership 360s and once I have that information we'll be better what do you love most about the work that you do working in OD what really gives you joy
(22:00) and excites you i love being in a room when the light bulb goes off i love when you watch leaders believe that the change is possible when you watch them click in and say yeah I have been part of this problem but we're going to move this forward you know so often organizations try change right they get the fads they get the flavor of the month and you know you get a new leader and they're going to come in and change everything and you know we create this environment where you know we've used the term right change fatigue and people
(22:31) just stop buying into it all right we'll just put energy toward this for now but when you can create that energy behind we control our destiny in this organization and we are actually shaping it and we're going to bring everybody into this process and then they get some real energy behind it there's nothing better because they're taking ownership of that organization and they're going to take it forward and they're going to make change in a way that is with positive intent hopefully sustainable
(22:58) and hopefully deeply rooted in what that organization values and their purposes you touched on something there that you talk about in the book actually which is like good moments to create change and one of the key moments that you sort of because there are sort of moments in time where it's easy to make change than others and you talk about the fact where then a new leader begins because there is a change in personality there's a change in priorities and that's the optimum moment for an OD practitioner to
(23:24) intervene is that advice can you give to sort of OD practitioners for for moments like that to make sure they're ready when that happens well you've got to be ready for both the positive of that right and the unintended consequences of that right because that didn't happen in a vacuum so if you've got that change you want to take advantage of it you want to help that person get real clear on what's my intent what do I want to do here how do I want to engage the system that I have that I've inherited you know
(23:50) also seeing kind of what their lens is you know do they view themselves as having to be the change right or do they want to pull in everybody and really just inserting yourself as that thought partner that you can go through that real deep conversation about how do we make this meaningful how do we take advantage of this opportunity to if you're lucky enough to be engaging in a and coming in and leading a sustaining organization that's healthy how do we keep those things going right especially if they're inevitably going to want some
(24:18) changes right but also if they're inheriting and taking over an organization that's challenged okay well what do you bring to this to make sure that we are working for a healthy organization and that you are leading that in a positive and and just constructive way and then flipping the question what do you find most challenging about the work that we do oh it can be exhausting right i said you got to cultivate that optimism right but there are some times where you're working with an organization and you
(24:45) might have people who are cynics about your whole effort and they are in a position where they can really subvert what you're trying to accomplish and that can really drag you down you know that can really as a practitioner it can feel defeating cuz it's like come on like you know we're trying to do good i'm here for good reasons and that's where you know one it's helpful to have a community around yourself as a practitioner bounce ideas with someone just share I'm really feeling dragged
(25:13) down by this you know I'm trying to help and I feel like I can't help also remember that's all part of the diagnostic what you're feeling and sensing guaranteed is happening in the client system and sometimes that's a precipitant for change right sometimes if you're recognizing especially that a an individual is dragging the whole effort backwards the conversation is in order to change people do we have to change people and make sure we have the right people in the room that want to lead this change forward and I think one
(25:42) of the other things you talk about in the book is kind of dealing with emotions first being aware of the emotions going on and tackling that first before you kind of go to the logic and the rational solution yeah emotions are a great data point and you're going to have them long before you have a rational thought my goodness right like you know and and this is an activity Larry and I do with um practitioners we'll do it with clients is just helping folks articulate what their emotion is right so often you say "How are you?"
(26:10) "Okay I'm fine it's you know all good." Well none of those are really emotions and so as a practitioner you have to get really in tune with what are terms that I use to describe my emotionality and if I'm feeling it and I can name it can I name it for what I'm seeing in the room and can I ask these people in the room with me to name it because if you can't name the emotion then we're missing a really critical data point that we can be used for driving all sorts of conversations emotions are kind of well
(26:37) we don't do that it's not for the workplace we don't deal with emotions but they're there aren't they just they are unacknowledged yeah yeah yeah and we want to just put them aside you know people get angry or people get frustrated or someone gets excited and everyone's like why are you excited about this that's a fad right but you know excitement is saying "I'm interested right i'm optimistic i want to engage in this.
(26:58) " Anger and frustration well maybe we haven't found the root cause yet and if we just say "Hey I'm hearing this anger." That's what it sounds like to me someone might sit back and go "Well I'm actually not angry i'm just really passionate about this here's what's been nagging me.
(27:12) " Right you might actually get some more information if you just put a name to it and let someone then further articulate what they're thinking that's really interesting isn't it because I think um in in in my experience anyway so at senior leadership level a lot of senior leaders suppress their emotions um they may be feeling very emotional so they may be feeling very anxious and you can tell the behavioral tells but they wouldn't necessarily name it how for practitioners watching this how do you
(27:38) create the psychological safety where they they feel okay to actually name their emotion because although it's perfectly healthy they may feel making themselves a little bit vulnerable in front of their colleagues for example rather than sort of projecting this I'm in control this is all fine yeah well if you're in control and it's all fine why are you anxious right that's a good question i think that's where practitioners who have some experience with coaching it benefits them um I found that over the
(28:08) years that my the training I continue to engage in in executive coaching helps me navigate those situations because you have to meet the executive where they are but two sometimes your job is to help name things as a practitioner so if you're sensing that from a senior leader and you're a room of senior leaders there's nothing wrong with as as who you are in your role saying "Hey I'm sensing a shift in the room i'm feeling a tension is anyone else feeling that tension?" And just you being the one to
(28:33) say "This is what I'm feeling are you feeling it?" And making it safe to just this exists and then they can all correct me if I'm wrong say "Nah no no we're fine okay?" You know but you you have to keep creating those moments where it's okay to surface it and sometimes the group you're working with will acknowledge it and sometimes they won't and if they won't it's probably just a sign they're not ready but you just keep gently nudging it over time and again that's where org development
(28:58) is not an event it's a process because that process can take you know several iterations before folks are comfortable yeah and you and you touch on something because that's that kind of the thing that you get with experience isn't it it's the I'm going to make a very light intervention you can act on this or not but it doesn't you don't have to respond perfectly to me now you don't have to go I'm having a cathartic moment because you asked the right question at the right time you kind of sort of making a
(29:20) and if they decide to act on it that's okay we'll we'll move on we'll try again in a different way there's that kind of not feeling the need to be certain and be right at all times it's uncomfortable it really is because you know here's another difference with org development a practitioner in it versus a consultant right consultants are called in to be an expert they're they're called in to say "Here's recommendations on how you solve your problems based on what we know."
(29:45) And if in my perception as what an org development practitioner is doing you're not there to solve the problem that has to emerge from the group that you're working with your job is to help facilitate the space and the conversations and the process to actually get to that result with the group who needs to own the result so putting yourself in the position of saying "I'm not here to solve this for you but I am here to create that safe space and give you the opportunity to do it in a way that maybe you haven't tried
(30:14) before." That's uncomfortable that's I think when we talk about the difference between an accidental and intentional practitioner when you're an intentional practitioner that's going to feel much more natural than it does early in your career because I have to admit that's probably one of the things that in the last 8 years it's taken me a while to be okay with saying I don't have the answer what are we doing here what do you want to talk about group it's your conversation it's your agenda i set up
(30:42) an agenda with you but if that gets blown out of the water because this topic is the topic to talk about are you willing and able to stay there and is that what you want and if the answer is yes to all those things then okay let's stay here let's have this conversation because it clearly matters to you and um are there any emerging trends or topics in your field that that you're being fascinated right now we're not saying you should write a book about it but if you do that'd be great love what is
(31:06) catching your attention man I got to Larry and I talk about this how many books do we have in us um I think there's a few things i think one um that we've been using on is how can academia help create more skillful practitioners right i I think there's still value in formal programs that study org development i think there's a case for every MBA program should have an org development foundational course at minimum in it i think there's space to talk about what this looks like so it's more rooted in how we think about
(31:38) business um and I also am really interested in the idea of more effectively and more intentionally merging org development and org design conceptually i don't view them as necessarily separate i practice both regularly in my work and I think they are very effective when they're used together to help enact change so yeah and and I guess one of the big things is that there is so much good research in academia and yet it never makes its way over to sort of management practice or sometimes even OD practice as well what
(32:12) are your sort of thoughts in terms of how OD practice can be more informed and more evidence-based in the way that they work well I think that goes back to one the lifelong learning thing right i think there's great organizations you know IODC IOTA ODN the org design forum the European org design forum they all have great nexus for sharing journal articles for having small consortiums regular chats where people are talking about the theory it's incumbent upon you if you're going to practice this to stay
(32:39) on top of things but I think the other side of this is um I found it really entertaining the economist had an article not long ago about just how inaccessible the language in academic research has become like people cannot read it and interpret it very well and that's so unfortunate because it just diminishes the amount of people that are going to find it valuable um so I think for us it's incumbent to look at this research and find ways to apply it what does this look like if I'm practicing how do I change the language about it to
(33:12) resonate with the client and all of your clients are going to be different but business speak has its own sort of linguistic tools to it so taking what a CEO would say what you hear them say about their business and linking it back to what you've read in the articles is how you're going to make that connection and how to take research and apply it i didn't realize I was interested and able in practicing process consulting Shine's process consulting until I like read his book probably three years after training
(33:41) with Larry and I was like well it's okay i've heard all this [Laughter] before terms and it was just kind of putting it together you know i think that's the other thing right you're going to you're going to read something you're going to practice it and you need to go back and read it later and reinforce kind of what that linkage looks like yeah I think that's really true i think I go back and read books and you just consume them in a really different way the the kind of the more experiences you've had so with you on
(34:07) that if you look back at your career so far what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned that you share with others i would say one of them is just it's uncomfortable you're you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable you're going to have moments where you feel like you responded wrong i did and you're going to have moments where you feel like I could have done things differently and that project would have been more successful right and just honoring that it's okay that
(34:34) that's going to happen as we know from the research right 70% of parts of change efforts fail that's the famous statistic it's just the reality and it's not always you know you don't have to own that as the practitioner i think I think the other lesson over time has really been to continue to be curious and to continue to engage with so many people in the field because for every practitioner there's a way to practice OD it's part of the magic of this field is we each are our own practitioner and
(35:03) we take our own lens on it and we work with our clients in our own way and there's always something to learn when you're talking with the community so go out and meet people get a mentor ask someone what they did with a client say "I've got a situation can I bounce it off of you and just learn learn from doing and don't be afraid to step out there because sometimes I was afraid to step out and I was hesitant and you know Larry just kind of put his boot and said off you go you're going to facilitate
(35:31) this part of the session i went okay this is terrifying but I did i did and then the benefit the bonus to him being my mentor is then we would say you know we go to a break right we go to lunch or whatever and then we'd sit down funny say "Okay are you ready for some feedback?" Then I'd get feedback and it was always gentle and provided in a very kind way and it was helpful and it was constructive and then he would ask "What did you observe in the room?" And then we talk about what we would see so I was
(35:57) constantly getting that reinforcement from from live practice so I think biggest thing I would tell anyone is if you think you're doing it you probably are and just get out there and do it more m you you talk about facilitation in the book as well and it's something that we really strongly believe that it's probably one of the most important skills in to have in an organization for HR practitioners but for leaders as well what is an optimal way for people to learn that skill is it a learning by doing approach like what is a good way
(36:26) particularly people that may find it a little bit intimidating and you know not know how to start yeah that's um I mean you know you kind of got to decide what you're comfortable with right but I learned on the job a lot just from just saying yes to go out and volunteer and sit with someone on a workshop be a secondary person just get out and start getting immersed in it and then start feeling more comfortable i could do that i you know that's an interesting activity take that forward um but I think there's some excellent programs
(36:53) out there for folks who want to learn facilitation you know it's like ATD has programs i think there's things through Sherm i actually am currently participating in um the course hosted by voltage control and it's been just enriching to be in this environment with 20 other people who are in the facilitation space and practicing and learning and you know just building our own mural boards how do we want to facilitate events and I think that's you got to kind of pick but facilitation again is one of those you're just the
(37:20) only way you're going to get better about it is to do it and find opportunities to do it whether it's in a professional space or volunteering or at your church or you know whatever it is get out there and do it yeah and you like the question to ask is like how do you invest in your own loan debt so you're still going back to school now and doing more training on top of it what what else do you do to stay on top of it besides writing a book and everything else as well podcasts i do podcasts um I I'm always reading i have a stack of
(37:49) probably eight books quite frankly um I do like to participate in the conversations like the org design forum has coffee and convos once a month so as long as I have capacity I sit in those because it's great to interact um and even in my own organization I established a monthly what we call a tech talk and we just get our team together because we're all in this space and once a month we have whatever topic we need to focus on for our team development and it's a safe space for you know that kind of questioning of
(38:19) what are we doing what do I need to do what's going on with our clients and you know it's immediately applicable because we're taking it back to the work and we're able to say oh maybe we need to research more or build a method or whatever it is but gives us that sort of collective support but that's this beauty of my role in that leadership space of I get to learn from 10 people that I get to work with also fabulous so obviously we'd recommend highly both your books are there any other books
(38:44) that have kind of had a real impact on your practice books or podcasts or anything else that have had a real impact on your practice there's just stacks upon stacks it depends on what you're you know trying to accomplish right um and the terrible thing is I am really horrendous at remembering like author names i'll read a book and I'll just go "That was good i like that um like for example I'm thinking there's a book called the systems thinker and that author is just out the door right now
(39:14) but I think it's a fascinating book because to be a good practitioner you need to be a systems thinker to have a book that's just talking about that right i love the book presence by Peter Seni it's more philosophical about how are we present in the space in which we're working in i think that's excellent richard Buyatsis has books about change and positive psychology that I think are fantastic um and that's where I think continuing my education and coaching has helped because I'm
(39:41) currently in positive psych and well-being class and just taking those nuggets and putting them into the org development space is also helpful there's so many books I and so little time and so little time i know I like I constantly my little cart is just full and I'm like I'll get to it eventually brilliant and um last question for us like what's one piece of advice you would want to give to someone who finds themselves as an accidental OD practitioner how can they become more intentional in their work well well the
(40:14) first step is to recognize what you are right so if you've said "Hey I'm an OD accidental practitioner and this is the space." You have to make a choice it's a decision point do I want to be in this space or not some people I think it's very good to say "This is not the space I want to play in i much prefer doing my focused area.
(40:34) " And that is a service to both yourself and any potential client so I encourage folks to really think about if this is a field they want to pursue if you decide you want to pursue it build your community get engaged with the professional groups that we have available and get to know yourself i think um you know our first book has a whole chapter on use of self you know Dave Jameson's out there doing courses on this and I think it's just critical that you're able to understand your biases your judgments your emotional reactions your ways of thinking about
(41:03) things what type of conflict do you dive into or avoid all those things because that's critical to how you're going to build your relationships in your client settings the field has oodles of things written about models methods interventions tools you can use to kind of make change effective in an organization you can go get any number of change management certifications they can all be of value and they're all accessible to you but invest in yourself as a person and a practitioner because if you know yourself the technical
(41:33) things will fall into place as you continue to learn i have to ask you a question this because I'm going to regret it afterwards because you mentioned the word models and I picked this book up thinking right there's going to be a ton of models in here and there's two you took a very provocative stance on on models what drove that well go to any org development practitioner book of any kind and look at how many models are referenced in there you don't need us to talk about models that was not the
(42:01) intent of our books because that that exists the research exists in other books the models exists in other books what we wanted to do and accomplish in these writings is challenge people to think about how it applies you know models are just a construct it's a way in which we can think about something one model works for you makes no sense to someone else and vice versa so you want to have a sort of compendium of models that you think are comfortable for you to talk about and use and apply pick the one that resonates with your
(42:29) client if you even need one and build your own language around how you want to practice this so that you can show up authentically when you're doing it you don't need our models to be an authentic practitioner yeah because sometimes that can be a trap that some practitioners fall into is we get overly attached to our models don't we it's like it must be this particular way but it's it's about what the client needs and meeting them where they are aren't they some people aren't conceptual thinkers and don't
(42:54) necessarily see a model and they just want to know what's the next step to better yeah it's just like saying to you know I love when a job announcement will say you must have pros certification no offense no offense to pro at all right certifications be great you have you have something to work with but is that the only one you're going to let me work with because what if that doesn't make sense to a client there's Cotter there's Mackenzie 7S there's you know and and and and and but you know constraining
(43:21) ourselves to a particular way of doing any work is risky because then we might not take the time to really get to know the client in the way they need to be known and heard in order to really feel confident they can make change and then just one last question for me because you just mentioned it which is about that whole journey of self-awareness and sometimes that's an overlooked piece but you can't overlook it it's part of the process of becoming an OD practitioner is that is that sort of self-awareness and and it it is
(43:47) potentially quite an uncomfortable process isn't it because it can be discombobulating like you learn about yourself in different ways and how you respond and what drives your behavior that's part of the ride isn't it would you say or or are there shortcuts past that there's no shortcut you got to put down the phone you got to stop looking at your Netflix shows you got to just relax and you got to sit with yourself sometimes and be uncomfortable you know if you're standing in a room facilitating and you
(44:13) get uncomfortable you have to recognize why you're uncomfortable is it something someone said is it the tenor of the room is it something you said is it And if because you can't identify that you're not going to facilitate your way out of it right so you've got to take time to understand yourself in order to be able to react around others in a way that's helpful constructive brilliant well I just going to say a huge thank you really enjoyed the process we're so glad you agreed to come on cuz it gave us a
(44:37) brilliant excuse to read your books they're they're really good and we really want to make sure that we get them into the hands of people that are at different stages so whether you're an accidental practitioner and you're just suddenly discovering and a lot of the guests that we've had on have actually described themselves as accidental practitioners maybe they're doing HR business partnering in a certain way but they're dissatisfied with how things are so that's a great book and the
(44:58) intentional one where you're trying to set a function up and you don't want it to be L & D plus you want it to be OD as well how can people follow your work or keep up to date with your latest thinking or even just access your books as well yeah books are available on all the major platforms so wherever you'd like to order it from they are there uh no audio books because Larry and I just haven't recorded them but yeah widely available on regular websites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and then you
(45:24) can find both of us on LinkedIn and then that's where we'll also post so Larry and I like to host workshops here and there you can find us at the um we'll be doing a workshop at the ISODC conference um at Sacred Heart University in May so we're going to get out there and we're going to do what we can to build these opportunities to be more skillful practitioners and work with all sorts of different folks in the field it's brilliant thank you and and Danny what are you taking away from the
(45:46) conversation and the book so much um I think I think people are really going to enjoy this episode um I I love what you said about organization development being a process not an event so I think having that in mind will set people in really goodstead the importance of kind of looking at the system and not just kind of single parts of it um equally important and the thing you said about leaders you know having the confidence to say to leaders you're part of the problem but you're also part of the solution so yeah you've taken some of
(46:12) mine there actually if I could add anything it was I think it's just reminding us the power of of fads and what they do and how they galvanize us and making sure that we take a critical eye on them and making sure that if we're going to invest so much organizational capital in this that we're really doing it in the right way for the right reasons with the right support um and I really love what you're saying in terms of how you sort of intervene in a room and say like I'm without going straight for the jugulars
(46:36) like I said I'm noticing there's a change in the mood in the room for example and and finding ways for people to then sort of start to say and for them to come from them so they feel a sense of ownership around it too so um I've loved it it's been a brilliant conversation it's been really really good we really recommend your book really strongly thank you so much for your time and uh we'd love you to when you think of your next book if you can come back on please if that's okay i'd
(46:59) be happy to once we uh get that pen to paper if you will we got some ideas for you brilliant thank you so much Reagan it's been brilliant thank you thank you [Music]