OD in the C-Suite - OD as a Strategic Function with Thomas Lindqvist, King - OrgDev Episode

What happens when the Organisation Development team doesn’t sit in HR – but reports directly to senior leadership instead? What difference does it make reporting into the C-suite? How does it shape the culture, how decisions are made and ways of working? 

Thomas Lindqvist is Senior Director of Organisational Development at King – and he shares his perspective on how OD can play it's full role in the C-suite

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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 so what happens when the organization development team doesn't sit in HR but reports directly to senior leadership instead what difference does that make how does it shape when OD gets involved and what it influences and the impact that it has thomas Linquist is senior director of organizational development at King now King is the Swedish video game developer behind the game that took over the world Candy Crush and King was bought by Activision Blizzard for $5.9 billion and you may know Activision

(00:32) Blizzard for Call of Duty so for those gamers amongst us you will know that these are huge worldwide gaming titles now Thomas brings a fascinating approach to OD and we're absolutely delighted that he can join us he's a critical thinker organizational designer coach writer and musician and someone who brings real range and rigor to the craft of OD thomas has had a fascinating career leading as an agile coach in many organizations including Spotify Tokaboka and Hyper Island and Thomas is based in Sweden and works across multiple geographies as well on top of his career

(01:02) at iconic fastmoving tech companies he's extensive training in a wide range of tools and methodologies such as canvan human systems dynamics and prosky and if that wasn't enough he also has a degree and a mast's along with a qualification in journalism so it's a real honor to have Thomas join us he's a busy man and a fastmoving organization so we really appreciate his time so thank you for joining us Torres thank you so much it's a pleasure to talk to you today [Music] it's lovely to have you with us so just to kick us off just tell us a bit more about the work that you're doing currently a bit about your role well yes

(01:39) so uh I head up the organization of development tune uh at K working primarily towards uh two main titles uh candy and soda and they are sort of global games what I'm doing um or I try to do is to uh help uh all these organizations uh become healthy and high performing that is sort of the mission or the mantra of the OD team so we are constantly asking ourselves this question uh are we now healthy and high performing and if not then what and and that's an ongoing process that will you know never end so to do accomplish this I have very very small but capable team

(02:22) uh so there's three of us in total i was going to say organization development looks very different in very different organizations so what what does it look like in King what would what would somebody see you doing you and your team um for us in particular uh looking at the the system that we operate in we have to find the leverage points right where where can we intervene to have the the most impact and and for us that has uh over the years become a question of uh intervening with the leadership teams

(02:50) primarily and the individual leaders and to help them uh diagnose and understand and make sense of their own organizations and um guide them through the process of understanding well you know if if we're not quite there yet and we never are never right u we're never perfect then what needs to change what what what needs to different um so that's basically what we're doing and further down in the or we are offering uh leaders primarily coaching and and offering help to support them and then building their leadership teams further down the organization so that's our

(03:24) choice of of sort of in that's our inflection point are you working in a hybrid or kind of fully remote setting so this is a hybrid setting uh we have offices around uh Europe primarily uh an office as well over in in San Francisco I believe um but in Barcelona Berlin uh Stockholm Malma it's it's a hybrid setting where we rather invest in meeting a few couple of times a year for high impact individual interactions but primarily we're working remotely how does that impact how you diagnose or kind of understand what's really going on in the system when everybody's kind of dispersed like that how what approach do you take to to get underneath i

(04:04) wouldn't say it impacts the way we diagnose things because we can still have these important conversations with people and and hear what they have to say and of course we are big listeners um that's what we do it does impact however how we intervene in the system and there are some interventions that really require that we are in the same room uh with people physically and anyone who's done facilitation will will probably agree with me here that you know that makes a difference to feel the energy in the room to read body language

(04:38) even a small thing as a sigh um it matters when you really want to be in in the room with people so diagnosis works well interventions in in the room with people as far as we can make it obviously in the introduction we talked about the fact that you don't necessarily sit within the HR team um and this is the eternal debate that's goes on within organization development so where should it live and I think you're probably the first OD team that doesn't necessarily sit closely with HR and this where are you in the

(05:09) organization and how does that work in practice yes so um the OD team um in King Brown working was sort of founded by me uh and and I said uh quite clearly that I need to be very close to where decisions are made and this comes from um the core understanding of course that there's no mandate uh within OD and it shouldn't be uh because then we become something else uh we are um coaches facilitators advisers teachers but as soon as we move away from the people who need our help um and there's something between ourselves and the people that

(05:52) we're trying to help things get a bit distorted it's been my experience and I've been lucky enough to partner with with good leaders across uh King to to establish that relationship um and it it has been very uh successful um it's my experience um it's really been the difference that difference for us brilliant and you talked about being close to decision- making how does OD enhance decision making at King what's involvement and how does it intervene well in several ways I think I mean if we're close to leadership teams um that we of course expect to make these decisions and ultimately accountability

(06:28) goes up to the senior leader uh whom we are executive coaches too um we have uh good visibility into what problems they are sort of trying to tackle um and how they reason about that and what that group process looks like but also how the internal process of of the individual leaders look like we understand the politics the tensions and and everything that goes on um and that makes us well positioned to without agenda uh and being neutral i think this is key here we are not on the field playing the game you're on the sidelines

(07:06) watching people play and and this is a very luxurious position not many people invest in that and and feel that they can afford that in these days of you know economic downturn and and a cry for accountability and performance and results but to have a few people like myself um being on the sidelines watching the game being played has been very very impactful uh I think because we can help the person who is playing the game or the groups that are playing the game to step out of them themselves and and hold up a mirror to that and say listen this is what we see

(07:46) going on and and how do you feel how do you how does that resonate with us with you the sort of the the observations that we're making uh and since we can deliver those observations completely free of agenda truly neutral position it it becomes impactful they tend to listen more when that is the case and if you move in in um political landscapes there's always a suspicion of agenda or the suspicion of loyalties um and and and that's natural as it should be this is not a complaint it's it's an observation of of how humans work

(08:23) together um but I think that ne neutrality has been very beneficial for us and I hope we can preserve that going forward there are games at play aren't there look we just fall into patterns uh different areas will react in different ways to other departments and and I guess that you're not having a stake in the outcome other than for the organization to be healthy and high performing that that is kind of your agenda in a way isn't it that's that's what you're working in the service of indeed and has been sort of very clear from from the beginning that's the only

(08:53) reason why we are intervening because we are seeing that you know right now uh you are not as high performing uh and healthy as you could be uh and for these reasons I'm I'm telling you is so um I think to give something more color to that I've always even as an agile coach previously in my career positioned myself as a professional helper and if I'm not helping then what am I doing so what whatever I do needs to be helpful for the organization needs to be in the service of the organization that means

(09:25) that I can speak truth to power uh it means that I can call out when things are not working and when I see uh dysfunctional behaviors etc etc which is the license we give to facilitators maybe uh in workshops like it we we can deal with that on a Thursday afternoon but I'm asking my organization to deal with that permanently every day of the week uh year after year which is a big ask but I think kudos to to the people that I work with they embrace that and and have leared to enjoy the challenge that I bring well yeah because there is a certain amount of um it's very progressive

(10:03) Isn't it um sometimes you know particularly at senior level the stakes are high um it's very easy to perceive winners and losers about who gets resources who gets the priority and whatnot as well and you're introducing a challenge in there on top of the into inter into into function challenge as well um so that again that's quite progressive is that something that's always been embedded in the culture from day one that's sort of come from the leader or is that something that sort of developed over time as being an essential capability for our way of working i think it's an interesting question and tying back to what I think

(10:33) you said earlier that it looks very different across different organizations and I think um it was a contracting between myself and and and the leader I've been working most closely with um um where I sort of laid down the law and I had actually a job offer in my back pocket because I was it was in negotiation uh and I was quite uh I was quite surprised when I when he when he just said well you know that sounds brilliant let's go with that so I owe much of this uh success that I think that I have had um during recent years to the great collaboration and and that

(11:09) I had with with the person who actually makes the decisions and that partnership has been um I mean maybe once in a lifetime thing to be honest and I think we've achieved a lot because of it and and you talked about there's one thing I'm dying to ask a question about you said healthy and high performance are they mutually exclusive like is it not one or the other like how do those two things coexist because a lot of organizations it is either one or the other or it's perceived as yeah I think uh one can simplify to to talk about uh

(11:40) long-term and short term it's quite easy to achieve high performance uh in the short term depending on how you measure your high performance and we also try to simplify that u you are a high performing organization if you reach the objectives that you set out for yourself that's our definition of high performance It's nothing fancier than that because then it gets difficult and complicated you are high performing if you reach the objectives that you set up for yourself but are you healthy well you are healthy if you can make that uh

(12:09) repeat that success over time it speaks to sustainability and that means that you can't cheat your way towards high performance you can't fire everyone and then you know have a massive revenue per headcount um number and and then you know you you will be doomed next quarter or next year so it speaks about sustainability how to um deliver on your objectives while also making sure that your organization is well set up for the future it's a shortterm long-term thing it's a balance in in that mission that I

(12:46) have crafted for my myself my self-coded team is that sort of doing well now but also doing well tomorrow yeah and that that's really important isn't it because when you're talking about conversations because it's almost like a polarity isn't it short-term long-term or healthy and high performance and it's about getting the balance right and and when people are advocating for a particular proposal it often favors one or the other so do you find yourself sort of self helping to sort of create better balance in conversations do you well uh

(13:12) well of course i mean the the brilliant uh tool of polarity management or interdependent pairs that we talk about in other other parts of of the same conversation what I do really is I bring that to the decision makers and I help them see this and sometimes they they might make decisions that are more short shortterm um and sometimes um they realize that longterm needs to be invested to into as well um but there's always a balance and it moves back and forth between those these two polarities but I think that's the case for any business everywhere i think the

(13:49) difference is holding up that mirror making sure that that's part of the conversation and holding up the mirror isn't necessarily telling them what you think it's sometimes it's a little bit more nuanced than that how do how tactics do you use for holding that mirror up with respectfully ah well not always respectfully um um I mean I think in group settings of course I'm I'm more timid um and I'm sort of introducing different ways of looking at things such as long-term such as um um always always introducing sort of the systems view

(14:29) here um well they might be very eager to introduce some changes and I'm I'm the one who says well what about that over there over there um there are things there are things happening over there that might be impacted by what we're talking about now how do you consider this etc etc so so this is something that I I bring to the table but I think uh in in 101's in sort of the executive coaching part and here I make a distinction between coaching and executive coaching because I think they are different beasts um when we do ex when I do executive coaching um I can't

(15:07) show up to a senior leader and ask weird Socratic questions how do you feel about that i mean it can't be fluffy bunny as as Snowden would say of of cognitive edge fame it needs to be really relevant to them so what I need to do in in those circumstances bit more of what I call combat coaching uh which is um coaching but with um you know gusto so to speak you've just introduced a new term to the OD dictionary that is brilliant well I mean yeah but I guess what I'm coming from here is that coaching can sometimes be seen as very

(15:48) sort of well how do you feel it's very soft is very kind and and how do you feel about that whereas I might enter a coaching situation and this is where I call it executive coaching where I say well what on earth were you thinking doing that and being a bit more pointy and um what I've come to realize o over the years is that many of the the people that I engage with at this executive level debate is their way of reaching the best possible decision they are they expect to fight it out they expect people to tell them in in hard language that they're absolutely bonkers and mad

(16:30) for even thinking about this this is how they engage with each other at the top and if you if you enter that atmosphere or that climate and you go well how do you feel they were like well who are you and why are you wasting my time so rather I' what I've been doing is more like uh trying to assimulate that and be a part of the debate and being a bit more well you're you're about to make a massive mistake have you thought about that that doesn't sound like that's not a neutral coaching question is it that's more like you know testing the wars is

(17:03) really sort of engaging with the leaders because they want that and and you know everyone's mileage will you know vary here so this is not um to be taken as um universal advice but this is a coaching stance that I've not seen that much explored uh certainly not in literature um but what I've seen work rather well yeah so go to war a bit with them and you know enjoy enjoy that yeah there's a there's a kind of there's a a natural kind of style that you often see at senior team level which is more drawn to

(17:37) that kind of debate style you kind of articulate it really clear which is like there is that kind of not so win lose but if I'm going to change my mind then you have to really get into my point and you've got to kind of convince me because my mind is pretty much made up already you have it's like how do you do that in the most expedient and efficient way when you don't have a vast amount of time with them you don't have I'm assuming like 2hour coaching sessions with them it's kind of short sharp sessions how do I do that yeah that's that's the that's the magic isn't it I

(18:06) think what I tend to do is to do the classic things like let's investigate are we using that word in the same way uh it's a classic one um what assumptions are hidden beneath this um have you uh risk is always a good one we consider the risks and usually we find ourselves in discussions that are more temporal like when when do we do this and then you I become the one who talks about the cost of not deciding and you know what does what does standing still uh look like for you and and I guess I'm just trying to u muddy the waters for them a bit which is which is sounds very

(18:52) counterintuitive but usually what what executives also do is that they come in with a solution and the way my engagement with leaders have developed is that I re I reduce as much clarity as possible around that solution because they think they have that clarity right so what I do is I muddy the waters a lot and I ask a lot of difficult questions and you know it's a bit like the double diamond of design thinking we you open up and then you have to close in so at the end of a coaching session um I try

(19:28) to clear the waters again uh but now the the waters uh are even more clear or crisp and openly beneficial for the organization as a whole so I'm trying to influence the decision making in this way and I think uh sometimes the decision stays the same but then they have learned something about change management because I made it clear to them that some of the things that they might be proposing to do will not be perceived in the best way have you thought about that and then they realized well maybe I have to engage a bit differently and and um with more uh

(20:05) well more engagement really in in trying to make my decision that I have made now a reality and if anybody is watching this and you're wondering about good tactics to use with senior leaders just play this bit back because there is good heavens yeah be careful though well you have to kind of learn your style don't you as well I think um but you also have to work within the context that you find yourself as well but those things just getting the manager to to pause and I think there there's a saying that's always stuck with me um which is a way to describe senior leaders i'm

(20:41) more often certain than I am right so well that's that I mean that's very true and but but that's also because I think uh leaders uh to be able to take action in complex environments they have to they don't know it from theory that like we might do but they know it from instinct that you know to make sense of this messy situation the only thing to do is act i can't analyze my way out of this and this is the one of the big messages from complexity theory that we have you need to act and then see what

(21:12) happens so I'm also mindful of that in my engagement i don't want to talk them out of acting i don't want them to be paralyzed if I think any action will be better than no action so that's also something to keep in the back of of your mind but um and I think some leaders you say there they they need that certainty to be able to even continue to function as leaders they need to be sure of themselves and sometimes I think and this is goes maybe deeper into um psychology is that some leaders might resent that the conversations that you have with them as an executive coach can

(21:52) take away that certainty that they sort of leaded and they will resent that so that's why I think there's always this loop back when you talk to senior leaders that is sort of well to remind them that I'm not saying I'm not trying to talk you out of this i'm trying to give color to the decision that you're trying to make and I'm trying to help you understand the impact of decision trying to make and I'm trying to help you make this decision in the best possible way because if you talk if you're the coach that keeps talking

(22:22) senior leaders out of making decisions then eventually both the senior leaders you're supporting and yourself will find yourself out of a job hi we're just pausing this interview for a moment have you ever finished an episode of the org dev podcast and wish you had a cheat sheet that summarizes all of the key points us too so we made one it's called from pod to practice and each week on our newsletter will 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

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(23:12) 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 so one question we like to ask everybody who comes on is kind of what was your journey into organization development it's really always interesting to see people's kind of weird and wonderful journeys into the field so how how did you arrive here so yes well that that that's a long story actually but I'm going to try to make it a bit shorter i I started what I would call the professional helping role which is sort of the umbrella term for for the roles that I've had during my career as a as an agile coach and I transitioned into

(23:42) that from uh product management so I was the head of product eventually at a startup and I learned sort of the agile ways of working and and all the connotations there all the implications of of that way of working and as I was recruited from that startup into um what I would call a a real organization and actually had a customer base and you know revenue stream and all that uh that had existed for a while i was recruited into a product owner uh position this is a a specifically agile position it exists in the scrum framework as you

(24:19) know u and and um what happened there was that the the CTO was bringing development home it was outsourced before that he accepted the job as a CTO but only on the condition that he would be able to have at house and and and then he found a product owner in me and I learned uh quickly that you know this is not an organization that is set up to make this work um so I talked myself out of the product owner job and I talked myself into the agile coach job and that was a role that did not exist when I was

(24:56) just a young boy uh but it appeared as a role out of necessity I think um people struggled with this new idea at the time uh so I took on that job um and I found that it was even more interesting to uh develop organizations than it was to develop products so to me the organization is the product um we could talk deeply and and for hours about that and how that's an interesting metaphor but we we shall not uh we shall move on and so that's what I did then for for uh 10 long years I think in in the Stockholm uh tech environment that was uh you know um uh the economy was

(25:37) looking good people were investing in startups and and there were jobs to be had um and people sought out my help um and then uh the agile coach role uh fell out of favor a bit um eventually I ended up at Spotify doing the code job there uh and then I transitioned to King uh because it fell out of favor really that role at um at Spotify and at King I quickly realized that you know the same thing is about to happen here and then I uh had that negotiation with my uh my manager and I said well you might not want this but you do want professional

(26:17) helpers and this is really what we do um so give me a promotion make me make me the director of it this brand new OD function and uh give me more money and uh surprisingly he said yes and uh well the rest is history really and you mentioned their Spotify which you know we we can't let that slide cuz Spotify gets held up by so many as kind of a a really interesting model and people try to adopt it and you know that doesn't always work does it because context really matters so what do people get wrong about that model and when when

(26:50) they're they're looking at that as a kind of exemplar of of how to run an organization yeah because this is the world of squads and tribes and a whole vernacular isn't it of of different words and terms isn't it yeah um I mean looking back now uh I would say that what Spotify arrived at is what org design looks like when you leave it to people who haven't studied or design and I'm saying that in a the most generous way uh because that was actually a good thing for them because had they listened to uh uh the org design community and and that whole framework they would not

(27:29) have arrived at this model and this this was uh an engineeringdriven entrepreneurial group of people who just asked themselves what should we do here and they arrived at these really interesting uh solutions and that's why it was innovative in its in its time um and I mean for instance um the practice of having um removing the the line manager from from the team and having that person report ac being a line manager and being across several squads that was an sort of innovation in in the matrix thinking i think that we we might have seen that before but but they they went further with it and and

(28:17) the reason why they did that was so that people could easily move between teams and squads and and and whatnot without changing the line manager so they wanted that consistency of the line manager but the flexibility of moving people around this is a brilliant thing um because it solved the problem that they had at the time if you want to introduce that in other organizations well you run into all kinds of difficulties and problems and and I think that model was maybe the first that was abandoned by Spotify when they were forced to grow up after their

(28:52) IPO and preparing for that i think that was also part of why the adult coaching community sort of fell away a bit um because they didn't no longer want to have that trinity of people u working with the squads and the teams and and making things work uh the products person the agile coach and the engineering manager where the engineering manager took care of sort of the people side of things engineering manager for Spotify was someone who helped engineers grow in their role and develop it was all about line management

(29:25) people management they were not involved in technical decisions or things like and you know I think that was um I still to this day agree with that model because I think if engineers need help growing in learning their craft there are many many avenues available to them to do that they don't need a person telling them that what they do need however I think is help in navigating the organization growing their collaboration skills growing uh uh planning skills and coordination skills and all kinds of things but not tech per se not code per se i think Spotify

(30:03) realized this early on and I think made a a good job at that whereas today we are back to sort of the engineering manager role being the sort of the leader of the the team uh being the the line manager for the the engineers and sort of telling them more what to do and also how to do it i think that's a move in in the wrong direction but that's where the industry is going and how has being an agile coach informed your practice as an OD practitioner like what kind of grounding did it give you and and what have you sort of brought into

(30:36) uh into OD from there well I think agile coaching as a craft it took on many forms as OD does as well of course but um agile coaching was always centered around sort of the the practices of of the team the delivering software uh but to make that work you had to look beyond the team and this is sort of where we we as a community I think uh eventually fell short um because agile coaches are rarely invited to the executive suite um doing sort of the work that I'm doing now there was sort of a a cap to how far

(31:14) up in the organization and agile coach was sort of permitted to go and I think for me again as a professional helper agile coaching from the start was about the organization not about the development team so so I had a maybe a different journey than other ashop coaches but but to answer your question I think um dialogic OD when that arrived uh it really bridged the gap between how I think agile coaches traditionally would operate and the values they would bring to the table um I mean OD has been around for for a lot a long long time

(31:48) since 1950s and agile coaching is much more um new invention but I think the gap between sort of the the you know the diagnosis and sort of the top down and a bit like the the old days of OD and where we are today with dialogic OD I think as your coaching is somewhere like a bridge u marrying those two sort of um polarities between the old and the new so I think um that was valuable and and I also think if you look at or design the first thing we do is try to figure out the value streams right how is value

(32:22) created in organization that's what we're interested in and agile coaches are very very very um knowledgeable when it comes to how value is created in in a tech company we we come from a background of actually trying to help these uh units that actually deliver the value to the customer operate in a good way and that means that we come into these conversations uh well armed with knowledge from with the trenches and from the ground and we know how value is created and I think that helps us and has helped me certainly a lot um executives further up

(33:00) in the organization unfortunately could lose touch of of of that and then one of the jobs that I think uh that I do is to sort of bring them down again towards that you should worry about how value is created and more and less about maybe some corporate nonsense that we can also worry about so Thomas you've done some great qualifications um such as Knevan and his human systems dynamics and and proceed as well how have they kind of informed your practice like how have you been able to utilize those or has it shaped your your thinking about organizations well um well in a very big

(33:38) way I would say um so I sometimes think about agile as stone soup have you heard the fable of stone soup i will now tell I will now tell you the fable of stone soup right maybe this is a N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N thing but I think it's called stone soup in in in uh in British so um this is this is a man coming to well it could be a woman but it was probably a man in in the fable to be honest coming to a village and it's a bit of a you know scam artist and he says well you know I can make you the most wonderful soup just out of stone

(34:11) and the villagers go well that's amazing we want to learn about this stone soup that you're making and he and he boils a cauldron it's a cauldron you see it's a fable of of water and there's a stone in there and and then he tastes it and he says well you It could use a bit of salt and the villagers go "Oh wo I got salt.

(34:30) " And run away and get salt and you know and that carries on it could use some onions maybe some potatoes so eventually of course they made vegetable soup and the villagers are also amazed it's amazing soup just out of stone it's amazing of course the stone is removed and you know so so I sometimes think about agile as stone because what the agile community did over the years was that they they borrowed and stole and reinvented from everywhere uh and they brought all these interesting things in uh systems thinking and and for some of the people

(35:10) in the a community that was sort of that was agile this is an agile practice like Peter Sangi's fifth disciplines book is an agile book it was not it's not so where I'm where where am I getting with with this wonderful fable the thing is um they borrowed and stole and and reinvented so many things and I think complexity thinking like Evan and and and Snowden and what came from there and human system dynamics that was sort of labeled in the community this is this is our pride this is our family it has

(35:44) really nothing to do with agile other than that they are very good approaches to explain why agile was a good idea in the first place but they were not there when agile was conceived and and they're being a bit misused today I would say but for me uh as an early practitioner I think complexity thinking has really been a very powerful tool to help me explain ain not what to do necessarily but what's going on the sense making aspect of it that people see their own reality through the lenses of of of these um practices and tools um it's

(36:27) been very very influential and I think it is a wonderful contrast by the way if you met with with Glenda from from human systems dynamics and you met with with with Dave from from from um cognitive edge no it's a canving company You couldn't think of two more different personalities i mean a certain flavor is I mean I I love them both to bits well from from from afar of course but but I mean it was 10 years ago today when I met I traveled to London and you know because I heard of KV and you know when you hear

(37:03) theory that explains your own experience you get triggered right it's like this is so interesting I need to go there so I jumped on a plane with with a good friend of mine there was a management consultant at the time we flew over and and we had this session with with with Dave and again 10 years ago and I made I had this question to him that I asked I said well sir because you're really quite sort of sir because he's so brilliant and you know academic and you know he doesn't hide that fact at all um

(37:35) and uh I asked "Well here here's my concern sir." I said "Uh I'm struggling to get the sort of the leaders that I work with to even understand systems thinking and now you're you're here introducing something that's sort of beyond that even more sophisticated even more difficult do you think that maybe systems thinking could be a sort of a gateway drug to complexity thinking?" And Dave said he looked he looked at me and he said "No.

(38:06) " And then he moved on to the next question we're thinking about the same person aren't we and and then yeah a few years later I I I went to Ry Park and I had I had my my experience with with Glenda uh with his musician dynamics um you know both complexity thinkers and you know the experience could not be more different in terms of you know sort of um warmth um but both both brilliant i think they have a hate love relationship those two and and I think they they they they enjoy each other and and I enjoy them so I think it's brilliant that was a very long and weird answer to your question

(38:42) but no uh come the the the the thinkers that that support us with with all the deep thinking and research around complexity are really really valuable and I think they they they are furthest along to help us explain how to actually deal with this human condition of collaboration in organizations so yeah I think that's that's where the future is so you touched on there which is something that we really think about a lot is about meeting our clients or our stakeholders where they are and we can get high on our own supply can't we like

(39:17) it's like oh look at this is so interesting I think I found the meaning of everything and they are where they are they do not think about this stuff day in day out do they how do we do it how do we introduce not even complexity thinking but systems thinking and and those kind of concepts to people so we kind of because there's a certain arrogance to our profession isn't there in terms of we we believe that we're right we believe that you know we have the way but we have to beat people where they are don't we yeah i think that's one of the biggest challenges that I have and and the younger version of me

(39:48) got really frustrated with this because and I actually had a manager pull me aside and say "Thomas I understand your frustration but you have to realize that you're over there these people are over there and you're so far ahead with your book learning and you know the the trainings and everything that you do um and you know that's not their fault and that's not your fault but you have to sort of fix that situation because if you're going to get frustrated every time they don't get what you get then you know you're you're you're going to

(40:17) have a short career and that was a good wakeup call for me and and uh it is very difficult what I try to do is introduce things bite-sized so when I have for instance a leadership team in front of me and and you know I have a customer and I have I have a um a full day plan for them what I do is I chically uh in breaks uh put together from my like thousand slides that I have i put together a few slides that addresses something that we talked about during the day that makes it tangible for them it's real for them and then I say well I

(40:53) heard you talk about these problems and you these situations and I heard you reasoning about that in this way so allow me i flew over from Stockholm so to London so please I made a trip can I have 10 minutes of your time and then I introduce to them here's an alternative explanation model to what you're experiencing right now it's a different way of thinking about it this is what the what you know the the theory and the research says and then I just do a quick like almost talk uh for like 10 to 15 minutes and and usually that becomes sort of a segue into them wanting to

(41:29) hear more and that's because it's relevant to what they're thinking about right now and if you if you address an executive and from nowhere the room is cold no conversations has been had good morning i'm going to talk about KVan i mean that's that's not that's not going to fly with them because it doesn't mean anything to them it has no relevance to them and they are dealing executives are dealing with a million things at a time uh and and you know they're out of time it needs to be relevant so that's how I

(42:04) try to do it i sneak the theory in and make sure it's relevant to them we've got combat coaching and Thomas talks these are great terms what do you enjoy most about the work you do what really brings you joy and sparks interest good question i mean it's problem solving isn't it it's really sophisticated problem solving um that requires system thinking and and complexity thinking as a tool it's it's multi-dimensional and what I really enjoy the most is it's like the A team like I love it when a plan comes together and it takes a long time that's the

(42:41) biggest problem that I have but that's also why I'm in a in an organization and not being an external contractor or consultant is that I want to see the results of what what what I bring to the table and after a few years when you have the organizational structure that works and you have everything else aligned you know the Storm model and all that and and you have new behaviors that fits well and suddenly things are humming it's like that's that's the greatest feeling on earth isn't it because you you you really for all the

(43:15) people in the organization you changed something you made their lives better and the organization flourishes because of what you did and then two months later something happens and you have to start over so you have to enjoy those small weeks or months when the organization is actually healthy high performing but then something happens and you start that really resonates and when you look at the field of OD is there anything that's particularly catching your attention in terms of theories or approaches or kind of new ideas anything that's exciting you oh that's a good one

(43:49) no not right now i think dialogic OD was the last really big thing that took us places um I think um I think the field of leadership development is ripe for a revolution hope something happens there soon we shall see well it's a really interesting point isn't it because within the OD profession like if you look at Mian Chung Judge's quality and equality like she's brought a lot of the best thinkers in in recent years together and they're getting towards retirement age and there isn't necessarily that thrust of new

(44:20) approaches and theories coming through so it really is the gauntlet's been thrown down to the next generation of OD practitioners hasn't it to to come or to academics as well to to come up with new theories because the the train is changing isn't it i think that's very true but I yeah I think we are currently in a uh a period of low innovation and that's because of many things you can watch the political landscape and you can see how sort of the the the history of ideas if you if you will we are seeing a backlash to the sort of humanistic revolution that we all came

(44:57) from in OD with a a return to uh commander control a return to single accountability one egg to wrangle we we are seeing a neuro conservative movement i think uh uh that's deeply interesting to me but I think we can tie that in together as a package um this has to do with the economy it has to do with with how uh societies and move globally so I think now it's not an age of innovation now it's an age of u going backwards a bit uh to then go forward again when the next when the wheel turns uh we are seeing the the end of the counterculture

(45:37) that started in the 60s and gave birth to so many promising things uh but right now we we we must wait and see just stay relevant and stay alive for a while until it's it's our turn to get back into the game and offer new solutions and ideas but this is not the time sorry for being pessimistic well I mean it's it's important to zoom out and to look at the cultural context as well isn't it you know the the full thrust of all the postmodern stuff that came through uh you know all those great things is how can you be a humanistic profession in these particular times and

(46:13) how do you need to adapt or do you stay the course as well so these are conversations that we really need to have aren't I mean very much so I mean we we we our legacy comes from the sort of and even I mean agile and OD which I think the two things that you know I I come from they are both born from the human potential movement and that has sort of associations backwards to the Asylon Institute and you know new age and and you know and and this is why someone like um Snowden comes in and talks about you know we don't need this fluffy bunny stuff um but I I don't

(46:49) think the humanistic values um that was uh delivered to us during that era are necessarily fluffy bunny i think they are they are essential and important what we must not do is to be flag waiverss around that and and and I think the agile community um took it so far talking about polarity to management it took it so far it became anti-management and we should not have hierarchies we should not have leaders we should all the old was out and what we're seeing now is a return to to to the middle and I think what we can do though is make sure that we go don't go all the way to the other polarity we the new normal is

(47:32) at least you know a few steps forward to go as they say brace for impact uh these these couple of years uh ahead of us uh and then you know u prepare to be ready when when and look for the signals and be ready when when you know we turn the other way because we will at some point I live long enough to say that certain so a few questions just to wrap up then so when you look back at your career what are some of the big lessons that you take forward with you um it's a brilliant question that warrants some

(48:02) thought that's what I'm thinking it's a very good question um it's not enough to be right this should be on t-shirts everywhere i engage with a lot of very bright uh younger people who see the system who connect the dots and and and come to me they say this and this and this and this and this it's not working out because of these reasons and they're absolutely right they're absolutely right but that's not no what are you going to do with that insight and that knowledge and that information how will you act in complexity and I think uh

(48:37) that's one of the catchphrases from from Snowden and uh the canvan company is making sense of the world so that we can act in it sense making itself is not that valuable and I think um a lot of people that are bright that are young and and and can see things they they can't really have it they don't have the patience to wait for things to be fixed um and they grow frustrated and cynical and you know that's not good cynthism is for people my age um if you're if you're in between 20 and and 50 as I am uh you

(49:16) should not be a cynic uh so protect yourself from that and it's fine to be right it's fine to to see it and understand it but then try to find a way to do something about it in some direction a small step otherwise you become old before your time and and how do you invest in your own learning and development you've done so much development today um what what is your focus on to keep yourself sharp well I'm an avid reader and uh right now I'm uh I'm actually reading this book now by Ellis Jack a thinker that I think will come in uh back into favor i don't know if you're

(49:54) familiar with his his thinking but he he has a lot of uh ideas that really based on uh a very outdated idea that hierarchies are natural in in nature and therefore we shall design around them um I think we are we are approaching an era where that will be uh true um to many people uh so I'm revisiting uh that book now but otherwise I try to um with my old age I'm reading more about anthropology uh history of ideas and things like that it's a rare occasion that I pick up a book that is specifically about OD uh or

(50:32) or agile or something like that so I try to read wider these days and I think also psychology is is does never never stops to be a very interesting topic why do people show up and behave the way they do i mean it's enigma isn't it and that's always so interesting that's a deep well to to draw draw from I think yeah and if you ever worked that out please come back on the podcast if I figure it out I will let you know is there any is there a particular book or a podcast or kind of a piece that has particularly shaped your thinking that you'd recommend other people kind of

(51:10) read i love that you think that a podcast could have shaped me given how old I am they they do not exist during my formative years uh but thank you for that um yes I mean I mean the fifth discipline by Sangi is such a brilliant book because it uh even though it's a bit dated now it it it really is a a buffet of other people's thinking as well it's not like si only um but he talks about u many good things there and I mean I think everything made shine uh he's still brilliant I think um I think uh what's that book called the

(51:57) skilled facilitator have you um oh what's his name roger roger yeah yeah um it's still I mean after all these years one of the best books uh available uh when it comes to uh developing teams I think it's a really good book quick sidebar question this is optional but um at the beginning we said that you're a writer and a musician how's that shaped your practice like well the m the musicianship not not so much other than uh it again the arrogance of someone who's been on stage in front of people and and and been adored

(52:37) uh for a brief moment of my life but uh the writing certainly very much so um in in two ways I think I was a journalist uh and I think the journalistic mindset just asking the you know what what when why and trying to be curious and trying to get to some kind of truth whatever that means that has been very helpful for me uh in my practice but also I think organizations generally appreciate good writing it's like a skill that's um if you can convey your message in a good way and maybe even a humorous way which

(53:18) is sort of how I show I'm trying to make a bit make light of things but still be serious i think it's nice combination there and that has also helped me I think and last question one of the the primary missions of this podcast is to inspire the next generation of organization development and design practitioners wherever they may be um coming through what advice would you give to someone who's just starting out this will potentially sound boring do something else first and I mean this in the kindest possible way um I don't know

(53:54) how you are expecting to show up with senior leaders with zero life experience coming right out of school and you try to to do what I do and I guess what you do as well i think that's a big ask it's a big ask of the executive and the leaders to take that advice or that counsel or that sort of direction from you if you're very very young and you you don't have that much experience and it's a big ask of you as a young practitioner to to do that and hold your own in that environment that is um quite can be quite hostile at times i think I

(54:35) once said that there are there's no such thing as a junior agile coach uh and this is this some people will be really angry with me now so I'm dodging a bit as I'm saying it but that was my stance after many years of agile coaching and watching people try and and and succeed and fail i don't know how you will do that job you come in with experience i came in as a head of product became the professional helper because I had that experience this has given me license to to talk to people and and they will

(55:08) listen to me so do do other things first i mean and that's a really boring thing to say but well but it's really interesting it's it's a it's a constant theme that's come up in you know the 70 episodes we recorded is that is often it's second or third career organization development and it really does help you and it sometimes is that piece of work is understanding what drove you into OD as well um so Thomas want to say a huge thank you i've really enjoyed this very much i feel thoroughly provoked oh did you what provoked you so many

(55:40) things the the way in which you approach executive coaching uh the combination and blend of of healthy and high performance the way in which you sort of described agile and you know how it sort of lands in organizations and you brought sort of a real refreshing honesty and depth and precision to your answers as well so I want to say a huge thank you Dan danny what are you taking away from today's conversation yeah I think you've you've echo you've kind of echoed some of the things that stood out for me but I think the thing we talked

(56:05) about at the beginning about the importance of neutrality and that kind of privilege that we've got about being on the sidelines and watching people playing um and kind of stepping in there and I love what you said about muddying the waters a bit for people and the importance of doing that just adding more color and more flavor and more a bit more complexity to to people's potentially simplistic views to say well I just want to say a huge thank you to us thank you so much for making time in your wonderful office in Sweden today to join us and what's the best way for

(56:30) people to keep up with what you're doing linkedin yes that would be that is that's the new Twitter by the way and please do if you are watching this podcast and you've really enjoyed it and you think someone else would actually really enjoy it as well so please do feel free to share it danny and I are always really pleased about the number of people that you just see it shares each week isn't it where you may be talking to someone or working with someone you think they really appreciate so please share um the more people that

(56:52) know about the podcast the more people can learn about organization development as well and learn about the brilliant experiences of people like Thomas who have got this wonderful hard fought and hard one experience out at the front line making meaningful significant change in their organizations as well so a huge thank you Thomas we we've loved it it's been a brilliant episode and it joins our fantastic portfolio of guests from across the world working in wonderful and interesting organizations and I think your organization very much takes a a place in that as well so thank you thank you Bur thank you so much

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