What Agile Leadership Really Looks Like -Linda Holbeche - OrgDev Epsiode 67

Agile Leadership.  How do you build an organisation that can adapt – not just survive, but thrive?How do you define organisational agility, and why is it crucial for businesses in today's rapidly changing environment? 

Across organisations, Expectations keep rising, while resources don’t and change just keeps on coming. This week, we’re joined by Dr Linda Holbeach – researcher, author and leading voice in organisation development. Her book The Agile Organisation explores how businesses can become more responsive, innovative and sustainable – not through surface-level changes, but by rethinking leadership, culture, strategy and people practices. 

In this conversation, we talk about:

• What agility really means in today’s world – beyond the buzzwords
• Why resilience, adaptability and innovation are now critical capabilities
• The deep tensions leaders face between control and empowerment
• And what HR and OD teams can do to enable lasting, meaningful change

Buy Linda's books  here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B001IZPJ16/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=3ff53028-63d1-4d26-bc22-4aa4426f753f

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About Us

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

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Transcript

(00:00) Hi and welcome to the org dev podcast. So across organizations, expectations keep rising while resources don't and change just keeps on coming. So how do you build an organization that can adapt and not just survive but thrive? This week we're honored to be joined by Dr. Linda Holbeich, researcher, author, and leading voice in organization development.
(00:24) Her book, The Agile Organization, explores how businesses can become more responsive, innovative, and sustainable, not through service level changes, but by rethinking leadership, culture, strategy, and people practices. In this conversation, we're going to talk about what agility really means in today's world, beyond the buzzwords, and why resilience, adaptability, and innovation and now critical capabilities, and the deep tensions leaders face between control and empowerment.
(00:50) And really importantly, what can HR and OD teams do to enable lasting meaningful change? Now, as I said, we're absolutely privileged to be joined by Dr. Linda today. She has played a large part in shaping our approach to organizations, OD and HR. Linda is co-director of the whole beach partnership. She's an adjunct professor at the Imperial College London and a visiting professor at four other universities.
(01:15) She acts as a consultant, HR, strategy, and leadership. and she's also a fellow of Rafy Park and the Institute of Employment Studies. She was previously director of research and policy at the CIPD and director of leadership and consultancy at the work foundation and in 2021 she was named as one of the most influential HR thinkers by HR magazine.
(01:36) Now, Linda is incredibly prolific. I counted 21 books. So that's three pages of Amazon. So, and when you read through the books, it's just such a rich diverse field of thinking and all of it is of the highest academic quality. She's also co-author of organization development with Myan Chung Judge and that is and Danny's holding it up now for those that are watching.
(01:59) Absolutely obligatory read for all people serious about embracing an OD approach and she's also author of the agile organization which is now in its third edition. So, so thank you so much for taking time out to join us today, Linda. And Danny has actually can show how much he's devoured the agile organization book which is what 54 posted notes in there.
(02:23) There's a lot there a lot of good good content. [Music] We're really pleased to have you with us. We've been looking forward to talking to you but this such an important topic. So just kick us off. just tell us a bit more about the work that you're doing and and what that involves. Well, I'm currently doing a fairly diverse range of of projects.
(02:48) One is to help a university that is expanding its international operations and wants to avoid its um overseas bases becoming rivals to itself. um because uh international students can stay and study in the countries that they they live in and uh they can therefore undercut um the central organization.
(03:18) So in a way I'm I'm helping out with strategy around that and um ways of organizing that um hopefully lead to cooperation as much as competition. Another project that I've just been working on has been with a intergovernmental organization which is um facing up to severe challenges in delivering its service in the world not least funding in in view of recent events um in America.
(03:47) And so it's been a privilege to to work with them on what effectively was a sort of oper um organizational review that it was called a learning needs analysis and it's as so much work as we know in OD whatever the entry point is it's often if you take a systems view a much wider piece of work so that people can see what some of the issues are that have a bearing on the presenting issue that need to be addressed.
(04:21) So, I'm doing, as I say, a an odd mixture of things, including some coaching and um mentoring and examining at at a university where I'm a visiting examiner for an OD program, keeping me busy. Fabulous. I think there's so many things we could talk to you about given your experience and um interests, but we wanted to kind of focus a bit on the organizational agility thing.
(04:44) So the the world our businesses and organizations are operating is rapidly changing. It's kind of it's a cliche, isn't it? Unprecedented change, but it really feels like it's just it's really complex to navigate that. So we hear a lot of people organizations say we want be we need to be more agile. That's what we want.
(05:01) It'd be really good to unpack that a little bit with you. So how do you define organizational agility? What what's your definition of that? Because it can mean different things to different people. Yes. Well, it it uh takes the notion from nature, I suppose, of agility as as something that's nimble, that can leap if need be out of harm's way or leap towards its prey or whatever.
(05:25) It sounds rather negative, but you know, it can seize opportunities if um but it expands the notion to the um the system that is an organization. It's it's to do with how you operationalize your work in such a way that you can deliver with speed with innovation to meet the changing needs of of customers. You're open to embracing technology and different forms of technology to help you with that.
(05:54) It's very customer centric and to that extent it should drive the way you organize work structurally and the processes that you use. So typically an organization that is agile tends to have flatter structures that are more teambased not all of them but you need at least what Adler in 1996 was calling an enabling bureaucracy.
(06:21) You need to have a a little bit of structure in there to make the whole thing hang together. And to make that kind of organizational agility possible so that you get more experimental work reaching the marketplace and getting feedback from the marketplace and being renewed and reinvigorated and sent off in new directions.
(06:46) You need a culture that's conducive to that. And that means you need the kind of situation where you can genuinely experiment and make mistakes sometimes and you don't get hung out to dry. And you know some of the leading tech companies have cornered the market if you like years ago in this with with Google's fail fast and that kind of thing.
(07:10) It's not about, you know, expecting everything to go right all the time, but rapidly learning from what works and what doesn't work and sharing that knowledge. So, there's a very strong component in organizational agility that is to do with learning organization. That's an old term from the 1990s, but it's like all these different theories that have been bubbling up for years in a way completely relevant to the world that we're in now and are all enabling of faster moving, more decisive, more innovative delivery in a world where what you were doing
(07:47) yesterday is no longer good enough. And you touched on there about the point around kind of organizations being innovative but also kind of maintaining that stability and kind of business as usual. That's a tension that organizations need to find a way of managing and some of them split off and go we're just going to have an innovative team over here.
(08:05) What's your thoughts on on that? Well, I think that, you know, again, I keep on thinking that um traditionally, you know, because the idea of um in the 80s and 90s, you did have separate departments, you know, colloially known as skunk works and so on. They're the guys who come up with the great ideas. They're the engineers.
(08:25) They're the whiz kids. Everybody else just keeps, you know, doing the day job. Um, I think the notion of organizational agility though melts the boundaries between skunk works type operations and everybody else because in a way it's an organizational capacity that needs to be slightly more infiltrated.
(08:50) This notion of we can experiment, we can find out what works, we can share our information both with our team and across teams. Um so that you know it's not just the brand new prototype that the skunk works type people are working on that we're interested in innovating. We're interested also in the day job and how we innovate that uh to give greater satisfaction to customers or to um save cost or whatever.
(09:19) But I think what you were alluding to, the tension is often resolved, if it is resolved, by being cautious to begin with, and some companies hive off one business unit to try out um some of the agility methods, if you like, uh to see whether it does actually make a difference and what can be learned from it.
(09:45) Um it's almost like there's an evolutionary trail. But I think what is noticeable is that very often you have to let organizations not just learn from one business unit, but let every business unit do their own bit of experimentation in a manageable way. Because what you're trying to do is get people to own what they're doing, but have enough common language and have enough common disciplines that that knowledge can be shared.
(10:16) Even if you're working on different product lines or whatever, you can communicate with each other because you're adopting similar methodologies. You've got you know the sort of standard agile methodologies are adopted by or or come from firms like Spotify you know which lots and lots of banks and others have copied you know the notion that you have guilds of people who are expert in particular fields who in you know there's an a positive infiltration of knowledge development across an organization through um networks that are part of what's
(10:56) expected of people. It's a discipline. Likewise, you know, the standup meetings in the morning so that everybody knows where they are. You're keeping feedback is live. You know, you're you're on on track or not on track and what are we going to do about it. The tension is often resolved through gradual um infiltration of bits of learning from experimental areas.
(11:23) and a determination to take that learning and spread it but not apply it as a template to everybody else. There should be some, you know, the old OD phrase, you know, I I own what I help to create applies very much to this. But in order for that to happen, you really need real determination from senior management to stick with it.
(11:50) Yeah, that was going to be my next question actually because you talk in the book about it being agility is being like an advanced management capability. So I was going to ask you what do we need from our leadership teams to to really make agility the way our organizations work? Well, this is always I find where things can go wrong and get unstuck because by and large this is a vast generalization.
(12:14) You know, leadership teams often comprise people who have got to the top of their tree either through their technical expertise or their business prowess, you know, track record, reputation, etc. And often they're quite driven people and often they think they know the answer um to what's needed for the organization.
(12:39) and depending on the tambber French term for the tone if you like of the management team what the CEO is like if you've got a very very strong CEO who's a bit of a visionary and who believes in trying this agile stuff out seeing if it can really deliver new technologybased products and services or new ways of working that will actually accelerate delivery.
(13:14) If you've got a very strong leader who believes in it, you may find the rest of the management team willing to go along with it if they respect the leader. But there's a cost to a lot of people in the management team um by so doing because in many ways if you flatten the structure they lose their power bases.
(13:38) If you introduce team-based operating, especially if you're pulling people from different parts of a business to cooperate to work together on a particular project, uh one director may lose their best people to another part of the business and so on. So there's um you know there can be a degree of resistance to or an inclination to find out what doesn't work as opposed to what can work.
(14:05) But where you can exercise as a leadership team some real commitment to seeing things through and adopt some of the agile methods for instance of holding meetings of making decisions of communicating bringing on talent in different ways. you can actually transform organizations fortunes relatively rapidly and you know for that as I say generally the old adage of hering cats you need a good herder or enough cats willing to play with the mouse and see if it works and I think there is something about you know you need leaders in that sense who are
(14:52) genuinely strategic who are looking out and seeing how the world is changing. You know, 10 years ago, we were talking about AI, but there weren't that many organizations that had really embraced the potential except perhaps in advanced engineering or whatever. But now, who isn't talking about AI? Um, how is work being transformed in every sector? You know, medicine, you name it.
(15:20) So a leadership team and individual leaders do need that ability to look at the way the world is changing. Figure out what is that actually going to mean for our organization and its products and services and what will be expected of it not just by our board but by our customers, our current customers and our potential customers.
(15:43) Is that going to mean that we're going to carry on doing what we've always done or are we going to have to change things and what the nature of changes that are going to be required? What will that mean in the way of the workforce and the skills that they will need? How much of the work that we do now will be done automatically or through other elements of AI.
(16:06) Therefore, how do we lead the change or changes that are going to enable us to scale up our operation? Because you can carry on doing what you've always do done, but you can seize more market share if you can scale up quite rapidly and move into new markets and seize the market as it were. But in many cases, if you're strategic, you find organizations that actually change what they're doing.
(16:32) You know, it's not about sticking to the knitting that we had before. It's about creating a new pattern. There was a particular talk that you were given on YouTube and you say that it's important to make sure that managers aren't the most overloaded because they can't do the right thing for their team and whatever that team is, whether it's the leadership team they're part of or the team as well.
(16:50) But managers historically are often the most overloaded, aren't they? How do you sort of see that play out? How do you create the space for for leaders to have that cognitive um space to do this thinking? Well, I think uh it's again I agree it is absolutely um central to the success of agility, the ability of people to have a bit of time to think and to shift what's happening and be open to that.
(17:20) and managers in particular are critical to enabling everybody else to bring about the change. So how to make it possible for people to have that time to think? I think it's several things. You know, one organization I've worked with there they have been completely overloaded uh by the need to rework almost everything that they do.
(17:48) They've got a very demanding boss who wants to know in detail what's going on everywhere in their operations. So reports of every conceivable kind have to reach the boss in perfect form and you think well why you know surely that it's the directors who should know what's going you know but given the nature of this particular boss that's what's required.
(18:14) The end result is that there's a vast amount of overload from the most junior person to the most senior group of people endlessly rejigging reporting um such that it reaches an acceptable form. Well, you'd think why don't they just use chat GPT to write these reports? And of course they say, "Oh no, it's open open source.
(18:39) Can't possibly. It's too secure and confidential. We can't use that." Little do they know that the happiest staff are using chat GPT and their reports pass muster. They get through. Um so you know there comes a point where you have to look at what's preventing us from spending more time to think to shift to have those discussions those conversations that are going to be critical both amongst ourselves and with our teams as well as um lifting head above the debris of day-to-day pressure.
(19:23) And even if it's almost artificially constructed, you know, setting up a regular get together, even if it's only to moan initially to look at amongst peers, what's working, what's not working, what's coming around the corner, how are we going to manage that? What can what can we do to share some resource because we're all under the kosh resource-wise and and actually making a disciplined uh decision that is implemented that we do this that was really useful actually we'll do it every fortnight and let's next time bring to it a specific thing
(20:04) that one of us is trying to do and really you know see if we can ginger the system up a bit. Oh, and by the way, do you want me to lend you one of my people to help you with that because we've been doing something like that in my division or whatever. So, I think there is something that is, you know, pretty basic in the OD sense of creating these forums where people can and do share information.
(20:34) I think there's also a lot of awareness raising that can be done through seminars, webinars, podcasts, etc. And that, you know, I'm not saying make it compulsory for people to spend time looking at these things, but where you want the top people to model curiosity around having having a snack lunch with people and asking when you saw that webinar the other day, what did you think about the the threat from such and such? Or have you seen that podcast about our nearest competitor and you know some of the innovation and is there anything we can learn from that or
(21:11) should we be doing something you know so that there's an incentive for people to take additional time out of their busy day to become more aware of what's changing and what some of the emerging practices that might actually help and particularly I think um people in OD and L & D roles as well can do a lot actually to uh facilitate short workshops um give access to online materials of one sort or another uh because there's so much stuff out there that might actually help a particular team or a particular manager um with a
(21:53) problem that may be of their own making but may just help uh shift something. Uh I'm not talking about costly solutions to this um almost a cultural prog uh problem because the other thing is of course some people do naturally like to think of themselves as being very busy. busy equals important.
(22:17) And um you know, it's the thing about um the lone ranger off, you know, on his own with um with his dear horse um solving problems, coming into town and solving problems. That's actually not what you need by and large. It's more how can we you work with our teams particularly to take stock and see if there are different ways of organizing our work um that we can respectfully then link with others in the you know that that are codependent um other teams and see if we can make life a bit simpler a bit easier.
(22:58) Are there processes that are over lumpy? Can we remove some of the duplication? You know, are there policies for absolutely everything? What are the policies we actually need? Yeah. Can they be reduced to the top 20 and that's it? You know, can we devise on boarding that from the very outset emphasizes to people we want you to work in the old phrase smart, you know, we don't want you to kill yourself, but we do want your ideas and we do want you looking at ways we can collectively improve as well as here's the information you need to do the job.
(23:37) So it's almost like, you know, from an OD perspective, it's looking at the lowhanging fruit, all the things that organizations can use to help themselves or that tend to get stuck in the weeds and are just an additional burden. And of course, you know, well-being policies are potentially um going to be needed because if everybody's so stressed out through overwork, those need to be fit for purpose, but it doesn't mean gym membership for every everybody.
(24:08) It's um it's around let's get to grips with what are the real issues and what can we do something about uh to make people's lives a bit easier and by the way can we thank people when we see them doing a great job and for going the extra kilometer or whatever and you talk in your book don't you about marrying capability with resilience and it's not you know you can't do cap you can't yeah you can't do agility as a standalone thing you need to marry it with resilience again you know agility is um inevitably Um it's not disasterprone but
(24:38) it is learning prone shall we say um and uh you need to tolerate a bit of mistake making as I said but resilience is um you know both for individuals and the Americans call it resiliency but resilience at organizational level is the same thing it's can you recover from major setbacks can you you know not just the odd little problem and what's your attitude to the real difficulties that you're facing? Are you completely overwhelmed by disaster movies? You know, can't do anything.
(25:22) We're going to have to fight or flight, you know, um or are you able to look through the deluge to find some hope and have some faith that a way through it can be found? And I always link resilience with, you know, the the bridge between agility and resilience is looking out there, looking ahead. You know, what are the saber-tooth tigers that could pounce? And you know, the most obvious ones, can we rehearse? Can we do behavior rehearsals to make sure we're not caught out? you know like happens one hopes with the emergency services you know in the case of you know a
(26:02) disaster on the underground or something the same kind of thinking should be part and parcel of day-to-day work really you know um it's it's sort of putting the values of the organization into practice I used to find it strange I did some work with um in the nuclear industry some time with a firm in the nuclear industry some time ago And um these people all came to Rafy Park where I then worked and loved working there.
(26:33) And we were in a training room at the top of the stairs. And um I was amazed at the start of in those days week-long programs when I was just kicking off and uh in I mean starting off the program with a welcome and um someone stood up and said, "Excuse me, Linda, I just need to do our safety briefing for the day." and for five or 10 minutes had a thought for the day on some aspect of safety. This is odd.
(27:02) This happened every day, but a different thought for the day. And then um going downstairs, I must have been wearing trainers or something with the lace that had come undone. They all stopped me, you know, and I thought on the one hand I thought this is ridiculous. But then I realized of course you need up to a point to indoctrinate certain practices so that you don't have to think about them and resilience a strong element of that is what are the routines that we all know you know like if you're in an operating theater do we all know the
(27:38) basic routines that will allow us to have a complex operation without the basic stuff falling down you know without the anist falling asleep or whatever. And um and resilience is again linked with pulling the learning out of everything and reinvesting that learning into new ways of operating, finding ways forward that avoid the disaster scenario.
(28:07) I guess one of the things I'm really interested about as you're talking is how because a lot of this requires so much change and you know s if you go to a flatter organization people lose status you know they have to put their ego to the side in the service of the organization and you talked about the fact the 80s and 90s we had the skunk works where they go off and innovate in a separate location or in their own time and come back and do it and not everyone is able to actually get the ear of the CEO or the chair to to put to give it the thrust to get this
(28:35) done. How do you create enough power or enough of a vision to get this going where the pain is worth the price? Because there is so much required here, isn't it? There's a lot of you're challenging the daily routines, the constructs, the way the system works, everything, aren't you, to to drive this forward? Well, good question.
(28:55) Um, you know, clearly it's it's not easy at any level. But I think if you looked at most strategic plans of most organizations, you'll see somewhere in it the word agile as an aspiration, shall we say. And very often the lever to having a stronger conversation about agility comes where there's some investment in a technology to help um the business go faster or sadly lose jobs.
(29:30) And I think that's the uh unfortunate element um agility that it's in some people's minds synonymous with job cutting. Um in practice it shouldn't be at all. It should be about people having the opportunity to upskill, you know, in whatever is their area of if they've been generalist. They may need to become much more specifically specialist in a particular area.
(29:58) Uh it may be a technical skill. they may have a role that changes significantly with regard to um working alongside technology or being partially replaced by technology. So what does that free them up to do? And you know the argument is that actually the human skills uh particularly emotional intelligence the ability to get along with other people to empathize with people and so on the customer handling skills in in managing big complex organizations.
(30:33) Those are the kinds of core skills that are coming more to the four when people's work starts to be transformed. So if agility is introduced as a uh we're all going to go into teams, it's all going to be flat structures, you know, be delighted folks. Naturally, you'll get push back because you're asking people to give up their empires, etc.
(30:57) You know, that's where there has to be something in it for people to want to do it. Um, and you know there's often an element of people are having to suspend their judgment for a while until something works. That's where I think if you bring people together with others who've gone down the journey.
(31:19) I mean it's not a template you know you have many many variations on agility but if you had people mixing and mingling with people who've introduced some aspect of a agility successfully and gained from it and introduced them to a team in another organization that's really skeptical about it um you know that's an that's a way of opening the door to the conversation at least.
(31:45) I've often found though that you know the main barriers as I said earlier are um in the management team the people just below the management team are often pretty ambitious and they can see that this is a way to go and they're often more willing to experiment with the structures with the work processes than the management team are because they've got more vested interest in things as they are so I think using the influence that the people just like you what used to be called the highf flyers or the high potentials and the fast tracks and
(32:20) all that. Um working with a group of people who are going to be the implementers of the agile approach whatever it is um will gradually get on board the people u more senior to them at least give them license to play. um the people who are having their jobs changed. Again, it's it's more a question of are you doing the other things um that help people feel they have a stake in it? Are you involving them in discussions about it? Are you getting their ideas and trying to incorporate some of their ideas into what works? They know the work as is.
(33:07) So, are you giving a few of them opportunities to go off and find out more about work as it might become and come back and and educate everybody else? And are you are you rewarding them, you know, literally financially or at least recognizing them when they start down the the learning journey? Um, years ago, I worked for an American financial organization that flattened its structures.
(33:36) It wasn't attempting to be agile, but it was trying to um do away with what were known as checkers checking checkers as in why have we got all these supervisors and managers and you know senior directors. we just need one layer and naturally that the way it was introduced was unfortunately inept you know and um I remember interviewing um one senior manager at the time who said um I don't know now how I can tell my mother-in-law when she asked what it is I do um what in fact he in the end it worked you know people got used to it. Um, you know, all
(34:21) the office walls were demolished and it was all open plan. All things that people hated the idea of, but um, you know, the the notion that actually you can see people, you can connect with people, you're sharing ideas, you're learning a huge amount, and by the way, you're developing your employability elsewhere by taking on these new approaches.
(34:48) Um, I think that's one of the risks, if anything, of agility, that uh where people become good at working in agile ways, they're increasingly being poached by others who want to have that kind of capability seeded in uh by somebody who's been there, seen it, done it. Hi, we're just pausing this interview for a moment. Have you ever finished an episode of the ordev podcast and wish you had a cheat sheet that summarizes all of the key points? us too. So, we made one.
(35:17) It's called From Pod to Practice. And each week in our newsletter, we'll share a two-page summary of the latest org dev episode. And it includes key takeaways, a reflection prompt, and one small action you can try. And it's all in a digital format with space at the end to add your own notes and reflections. And it's designed to help you take the learning from the podcast into your day-to-day work.
(35:38) So, to get your copy, just sign up to our next step to better newsletter, the links in the show notes, or you can visit our website at www.distinction.live live to get the latest from pod to practice in your inbox and let us know what you think. We'd love to get your feedback. This is an enormous question, but what what was your journey into your field like? How how did you just make your decisions along the way to to be that sort of um sort of main voice or one of the major voices in OD and HR thinking? Well, I I'd love to say oh it was a conscious
(36:04) decision at the age of 20. You would be the first person in 70 episodes. Well, I I'd always thought that I wanted to be a teacher and you know because in when I was at school um your choices at a girl school at that were uh secretary, nurse or teacher and um uh I ended up becoming a teacher for 13 years or so.
(36:33) But first I I um I dabbled. I went into publishing just to try it out just to see what it was. And ironically, the first organization I worked for was known as the Institute for Personnel Management. And um and I was uh as I say, I was working in the books department um on the marketing side. And I got to read some of the books and oh this is quite interesting.
(37:01) Um I think perhaps some of those books might be long on the remainder list by now. Um but and and that was the very last organization I worked for some many years later, the CIPD, the same organization, but I hadn't planned that. Um I guess you know after teaching I I was asked to join this American financial organization because one of the things I'd done was um a lot I taught French but I also um did a lot of so-called schools industry work trying to give young people who might not have an opportunity to um to to have job interviews or whatever to
(37:41) try and bring employers together. And I was working in West London at the time and the corridor for employment for many of the young people was literally Heathrow at one end and Actton Town on the other end limited because in those days the young people didn't go to central London to work or whatever. So all those employers including this American financial services company were there and we did some good work and I raised think it was over a million pounds with a colleague to build a curriculum around life skills as we think you know
(38:15) how to put yourself over well and how to live a a healthy life. So I had a slight interest at least in that when I went to work for this financial organization and I went into management training. Had a whale of a time. Loved traveling. enjoyed it very very much until in those days it was a credit card uh um charge card company and when credit cards came about out of an amalgamation of um banks who brought out the Visa card that undercut significantly um the charge card that the firm I worked for produced. Um, it was a very
(38:54) serious time for the business and they laid off a lot of people in the open plan office I was describing. And I can remember looking out over the um the the the um barriers between HR uh training and everybody else and seeing people absolutely devastated. And at the same time, the organization was saying, "Oh, it's a brave new world.
(39:20) You know, we're on to our new vision." and draw. I kept on thinking how is this going to work? Um so it gave me an interest in understanding if change is going to be constant really um which in the 80s 90s it became um how will you square the circle how can you create a context where what's good for the business is also good for the people and vice versa.
(39:49) And so eventually I worked for America um Rafy Park and stayed there for 13 years and I was a consultant. I worked in management development but I also um did research. I I very much enjoyed um finding out what people were experiencing. We did an annual survey called the management agenda in those days and it gave us clues.
(40:16) It was a cross-sectional thing and it gave us clues as to what are all the different issues that people are experiencing. They almost all resolve uh revolved around change, people feeling badly done to, not communicated with um etc etc. which cuts a very very long story short brings us to OD and um and I was also involved in teaching on the MSSE and organization development there but also HR because I thought so many of these issues are things that the HR community um should embrace or does embrace but maybe is struggling because they're you
(40:57) know there's no template for these things. So um so that's really what got me on track to um both work with clients around their real issues taking hopefully a systems view big system as well as you know whole system as well as organizational system. Um trying to balance what the organization needs and what people need.
(41:24) You can't always do that. But, you know, having as much an interest in how do people develop their careers in these changing structures, you know, what's the future going to be for people? Um, if if they can't upskill or reskill to something else, um, what's the future of work going to be? You know, those kinds of things as much as and what works now.
(41:49) So, you know, agility as a theme, I would say I've been working on um accidentally almost since about the year 2000. Um, and gradually it crystallized into ah but there's a whole load of methods that you can use. But it's not just methods. It's mindsets. It's power bases. It's um earnest desires to produce something bit better, different, faster, cheaper, more innovative um where everybody gains.
(42:21) Idealistic of course, but again I think it's um it's what's really driven me to try and see and what else could work. And how was it did when you sat out to write the book with me, the the organization uh development book, did you know that you were sort of writing one of the defining books of the of the profession that people would just keep reaching out to and would start a lot of people's journeys to it? Not at all.
(42:48) No, we um I mean we I I'd known Mayan for 30 years or so and um we'd always said, "Oh, we should write a book sometime." because we were both very interested in what can actually help people. You know, there's a lot of really good scholarly stuff out there um on almost everything, you know, we put into that book really, but um we're more more interested in what have we learned about organization development and how HR as well can play the OD game in the nicest possible way.
(43:26) I mean what how can HR use its systemic role in a way that helps the or organization become more effective. So, you know, we we um I remember the first edition of it, we uh took ourselves off to a retreat uh somewhere um in a a very sort of monklike setting, which was so uncomfortable, we cut it short by a day or two.
(44:01) But um you know we we've flushed out the main thrust of of the book and then it took ages to write because we could never quite agree whether we wanted it the HR piece to be fully integrated into the OD piece or who should write about the politics bit and so on. We kept on changing our minds. So on various occasions we'd actually duplicate a topic.
(44:27) Um, so we have spare chapters that we didn't use. Um, but in fact, we we just enjoyed doing it in the end, you know, and and and were amazed to be asked to write a second and a third edition. And um I'm just so pleased that Mayan was well enough to finish that uh just before she not long before she died. And um she didn't know she was going to die obviously at that point but she uh you know because of her poor health had for years bought in terms of a legacy that she wanted to leave something behind and I think she did that more than you know and the
(45:10) thousands of people that she's trained over the years uh all speak you know I come across many people who say ah yes may um you know so so uh no it was it was a great privilege really to to to write the book together and we just we would both be delighted to think that it's um proved useful to people we've had several people on the podcast haven't we've quoted man as being kind of influential in their their kind of development and I think for us the um the video she curated during COVID the just in case um yeah videos is a
(45:46) wonderful collection of videos for people to learn from from loads of people in OD. Really lovely collection. Yes. Well, again, it was because she knew that at some stage, you know, she would she would no longer be here. And she just picked brilliant people, great topics, and you know, it is a fantastic legacy that she's left.
(46:14) This sounds like I'm boasting here, but I claim to have talent spotted her, as I say, it was um it was well over 30 years ago that we met and um when I went to Ruffy, I thought, you know, we've got this marvelous MSE in OD, but we're organization and people development it was called, but we could really do with some heavyweight external scholars to come in.
(46:44) So um I I encouraged her to join us as a visiting fellow and she did over the years very good work as well as her own business and MTL and other things. As I say this is vicarious credit to me. I think the whole impression owes you both a debt of gratitude because that book is something to hold on to and I think it's not an easy transition into OD.
(47:09) you know there's people aren't licensed they're not regulated and it really gives something to people to hold on to as well and things like the chapter around politics is it it's academically based but it's very practical you know and I think that's that's what's really useful I think that's the skill in the writing isn't it yeah well thank you and um and thanks on behalf of Mayan and you know because as as you said it's such a an evolving field still and I I think because it is eclectic and has so many different potential sources and potential roots to
(47:45) develop further you know I think most people in OD roles and HR up to a point suffer from imposttor syndrome you know there's always something oh you know am I really an OD practitioner um and I'd encourage people to take as the main um message just carry carry on learning um from everything you do, you know, whatever your entry point is.
(48:15) Just don't treat that as your own the only tool in the kit kit bag. You know, it's it's the um the old thing about to the hammer, every problem's a nail. if that's your one thing you do. But if it is the one thing you do, make sure you're brilliant at it and you know what else would complement it and that it won't always work.
(48:39) You know, if you're supply driven, it won't always work. You've got to be where the need is and understand the need and help people to find their solutions. You know, it is about in some ways getting out of the way um providing if you like the uh some sort of structure for people to have those sort of conversations and move their thinking forward and move their practice forward.
(49:07) And there are so many different ways you can do that. But um essentially I think that's broadly what it is. It's helping people to find their own solutions having better understood what the issues are for them and their organization. So one question we always like to finish every podcast with is what advice would you give someone who's considering what the foothills of their career in organization development because as you said it's changed so much now hasn't it? What what advice would you give to someone who's considering it and there's so many different pathways
(49:37) into it. So whether you're you know an HR business partner that's thinking there's there must be another way or you know you're in a an adjacent field like you know psychology and it's like there could be what advice would you give basically satisfy your curiosity to start with about what is OD in the broadest sense you know what's it about and how does what I'm doing fit with a mindset that looks out from, you know, the black and white in front of me to explore some of the grays and blues around because it's this business about
(50:16) if you're in a ditch and you're digging, you may not see that there's blue sky above it. It's only if you stick your head above the ditch that you can start to see issue in context potentially and how it links with other issues. So, I think initially I'd say be curious about what is this OD systems thinking type stuff? Um, how can I find out about it? Well, you know, there's tons of YouTube videos, um, webinars, um, blogs, you name it.
(50:56) You know, you don't have to do a degree in it to really get a sense of it's actually quite a broad field. There are lots of different practitioners. In some cases, there are people who purport to be gurus. Steer clear of them. Um, and work out of the things that you're hearing, what would you most particularly like to develop? Because OD involves for instance, you know, things like helping top teams come to some very important strategic decisions.
(51:33) So are you interested in that kind of thing? Would you want to facilitate or create a structure to enable you know that kind of thing to happen? In which case what's your starting point? You know where would you need to acquire the credibility to work with top teams? And it doesn't mean you have to be the most skilled facilitator.
(51:54) But you do probably need to have some confidence and some competence in how you put yourself over to be given the right to play. Equally, you know, for some people, OD is interesting from the point of view of looking at um conflict, you know, how um how you can get teams working together better or how you can get more knowledge shared across organizations between departments.
(52:22) How can you try and bring potentially opposing sides together to produce a better outcome? Um so again that might take you down a particular route to develop um you know which could be doing stuff around uh there are loads of models around conflict management and conflict resolution at different um in different ways depending on what your initial interest is.
(52:50) You can start to play around with some of the issues that you see as as problematic. But if you're really ambitious, you know, and you want to do something that's around helping your organization either become more effective as it is, you know, so you're carrying out an organization review to try and identify the blockages, working with people to try and overcome some of those blockages.
(53:16) Or if you're looking ahead, you know, just two or three years, you know, what's the organization becoming and doing the same kind of exercise but involving a lot more strategic scenario planning or whatever you want to do to get people realizing that there are some things coming down the line that we could be acting on now. Then again, you you'd be taking a particular route that takes in strategy, leadership, um facilitation of some sort.
(53:46) you'd be working, you know, learning how to do scenarios, scenario planning. You'd probably on the org review thing, you know, if you if you choose to become, you know, the diagnostic conventional consultant, you'd get a few templates under your belt before you devise your own um to carry out some sort of diagnostic work.
(54:09) Um but equally you can work with a team to create um a diagnostic which they own and they can monitor their progress through and if you're not diagnostically inclined you know I'm not saying it's either or but if you prefer to go the dialogic route then you know there's a whole host of interventions large scale medium scale small scale that you can really go and experience.
(54:37) You know, there are lots of little workshops. You know, learn about how to do a future search or a an open space or um do a YouTube or 12 on appreciative inquiry or whatever, you know. Um but try it out in practice before you then think, oh yes, I think there's maybe something I could learn here before I do any more damage. Um I'm joking. Of course, you can.
(55:05) You don't have to be a professional OD person to to do good with these things. But then I think there are programs if you want to build your confidence, work with a a group of people who are also consciously learning because I think we should all be learning continuously. I certainly aim to do that.
(55:25) But when you're in a group, say doing a a diploma course or a a mast's of some sort, you get the support from your colleagues as well as from tutors. Um, and it can also buy you um a gong that can help get you through the door of the CEO um you know when the moment comes. Uh, so as I said, I I think it's primarily observation, working out what you might want to learn next, but having in mind always there's a next.
(55:59) How does this link with something else? How could I use what I've just been doing here to address something over there? Where's my appetite? You know, how big or small do I want my interventions to be? And who else can I work with? you know, have I got some partners in the business that I can try out some of this stuff with, you know, and grow their skills as well as my own.
(56:24) Well, Linda, I want to say a huge thank you. We've been absolutely honored to have you join us today and you brought two things that we really really wanted to bring the whole podcast about, which is evidence-based approach with a real rigor to it, but a real practitioner's eye about what it's like to be like to be practicing out in the field and the challenges that we have in organizations.
(56:43) And I think in the books that you've written and in the way in which you've spoken today, you've combined them both. And we really encourage people to to read your books. Um, and there's so many to explore as well. Um, Danny, what are you taking away from today's conversation? Yeah, I think people are going to take huge amounts away from this.
(56:57) It's going to be one that they rewatch and rewatch. So, I loved what you said about agility not being a template to apply. So, the importance of it's not a you can't just say this is how we dile and and do it. So, the importance of co-creating with our people. I liked what you said about top people needing to model that curiosity and how easy it is to drop in kind of questions just to prompt people to start thinking in a different way.
(57:18) And if if people want to follow your work, Linda, what what's the best way for people to to follow you and and the work that you're producing? perhaps um meet me via LinkedIn. It's uh the easiest route as I've always been quite um I've never had a website that that way hopefully we can share information and uh ideas and you know as Danny was just saying there you know some of the big questions that can actually get top team attention.
(57:50) Um, that's one final thing I'll just say that whatever you're doing, remember to flush out from what you've learned. What question does that raise that senior management should be thinking about? Well, can you promise to come back on because I think we've only just scratched the surface when your next book comes out because it gives us a brilliant excuse just to absolutely um read your book, every single page of it.
(58:12) Um, and we'd love to have you on. If you are watching this and you think other people that you know would really appreciate it, there's so many people that share each of our interviews each week and so many if they haven't heard about Linda and her work. It's a great way to introduce them to as well. So please feel free to share if you enjoyed it, if you'd love it, if you'd like it and also subscribe to the channel as well, but most importantly want to say huge thank you Linda.
(58:34) It's been brilliant. We've really enjoyed this and it's just been great just to go through the work that you've done um with agile as well. It's been really practical. So thank you. Well, thanks to you both. Really delighted to have uh spent time with you. Thank you. [Music]