The Power of Presence - Inner work of the OD Practitioner with Dr Frances Baldwin - OrgDev Episode 80

What separates good OD practice from great OD practice – skill, strategy, or self-awareness?

You can have the tools. The models. The frameworks. But what really shapes your impact as an OD practitioner?

According to Dr Frances Baldwin, it’s not what you do – it’s who you are.
Frances has been shaping the field of Organisation Development for more than five decades. Yet when you ask her what truly makes a difference in this work, she doesn’t start with methods or models.

She talks about presence. About congruence. About the quality of the inner condition we bring to our practice.

After fifty years of working across industries and continents, Frances is clear: it’s your presence, purpose and self-awareness that enable trust, unlock change and create real impact.

In this episode, she brings depth, wisdom and a lifetime of embodied OD practice to the conversation – reminding us that development always begins with who we are.

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About Us

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

Find out more at www.distinction.live

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

Transcript

Transcript:
(00:00) Hi and welcome to the org dev podcast. So you can have the tools, you can have the models, and you can have the frameworks, but what really shapes your impact as an OD practitioner? According to Francis Baldwin, it's not what you do, it's who you are. Dr. Francis Baldwin has been shaping the field of organization development for over five decades.
(00:24) But ask her what really makes a difference in the world, and she won't start with methods or models. She'll talk about presence and congruence. After more than 50 years in the field, she's clear. The quality of your inner condition, your presence, your purpose, and self-awareness is what enables trust unlocks change and creates real impact.
(00:44) Francis brings real depth and wisdom and a lifetime of embodied OD practice to our podcast today. Now, we're absolutely honored to be joined by Frances and Francis was recommended to us by our good friend Julian Chender. And what a discovery it's been as well. So Francis is an experienced and trusted executive coach and in that 50 years she's become an effective educator and consultant to people in organizations.
(01:04) She served as an internal consultant for 20 years in the prochemical industry, a city government living and working internationally. And she's founding principal at Designed Wisdom, a boutique consulting, coaching and training firm. And France's clients have included medical, aerospace, nuclear, military, education, and community organizations.
(01:23) Now Francis has has achieved the moment where she's now got two lifetime achievement awards. She has the ODN lifetime achievement award uh which is a huge accolade and also the just OSD lifetime achievement as a world as well.
(01:42) Frances is also affiliated with the OD network, the NTL Institute, the journal for social change and the world cafe foundation and naturally all of this extensive accolades and awards are underpinned by an extensive professional and academic experience. She has a doctorate in OD and change. So Francis, thank you so much for joining us. We're we're absolutely delighted to have you join us on a very warm Friday afternoon.
(02:08) Fabulous. Well, we're really pleased to have you with us and really looking forward to the conversation. So, just to kick us off, just tell us about the work that you do and and what your OD practice looks like. Well, that's uh building on that introduction. Uh, so I did OD and consulting in all of those settings that you talked about.
(02:27) I'm no longer doing consulting to organizations. All of my experience now gets poured into teaching at the university and coaching. So all of the skills, the gestart work that I did, I do now in my coaching practice. So I coach interesting enough a lot of professionals, a lot of OD people, executives within organizations and some people it's just a personal connection that I end up coaching.
(02:55) But so my work now is primarily in coaching. So you describe yourself as having a gestalt orientation. So how does that influence how you show up and how you approach your work? So before I leave, what I'm doing now, I think a big part of my work right now is teaching in the doctoral program at Bowling Green. So these are working adults going back to graduate school to get a doctorate in organization development.
(03:24) And what I enjoy about that is I have all these years of experience. So a part of my teaching is I have a story for any issue, any skill that comes up and people enjoy these stories because it tells what these concepts look like on the street on the ground I call it. So that's a big part of my um my time right now in terms of the destin shows up.
(03:56) So I had gone to graduate school and gotten this degree in organization de development. I had been a part of the kind of training people were doing at NL which included OD but also a lot of um troup kind of work. Um and I met some of the professors from the start institute. I was just in a program in Bethl and I went into this this class that I had signed up and I every time I taught the two professors said you should come to the Geston Institute. You think just like us.
(04:33) You think just like us. And the other thing they said that really got me is that you have such presence. And Danny, I had no idea what that meant. I had heard it but in this context I could not figure out what that meant. Um and they kept telling me that. So that going to Gestalt is what got me interested in presence. But the other thing I'd say about the Gestard Institute. So I'd had these different trainings and I'd had experience.
(05:00) I done consulting for the Navy which has to be one of the greatest learning experience a consultant can have. So I had all of these pieces. I had concepts. I had skills. I had models. But I didn't have any of it inside of me. So when I went to the Geston Institute, it was telling me it was like a spiritual experience because the concepts, the vibration between what they said and who I am was always very powerful and I could see what they meant when they said you think like me. So I felt that two things were accomplished.
(05:32) I had an anchor and a handle for understanding things I'd done before and what I'd like to do. So there was something cohering. I had a framework for how I do my work, how I decide what I'm going to do, but also how I would intervene, how I would swift from one system to another, how would it shift from one level of system working with an executive to the whole organization.
(05:57) So, it just gave me a framework that just fit me like an old boot, you know, it was just it was just it was just perfect. And so, that became my orientation. And um it also required some additional things of me as a person which I will talk about later. And then for people who might not be familiar with Gustalt as a field, how would you describe it to somebody who's new to the the area? Gestalt therapy is an old practice.
(06:24) So people like Fritz Pearls and there are others whose name won't come right now. They were looking at gestalt therapy and deciding that instead of just fixing the problem they need you need to develop the person. So Pearl said it beautifully. I don't want to just fix the problem that the person bring or the distortion they have in their mental process.
(06:51) I want to have every person to walk through the world with dignity and grace. And that just really that catches me. But it also shows that how that transition happened. So then there was a group of people at the Cleveland URL institute who went through the process and it was like a paradigm creating a paradigm of converting that new phase that new orientation to Gestalt therapy to Gestalt consulting they sort of parallels. So if you think about the patient and you think about the organization as an organism, it's the
(07:30) same thing. So they translated the concepts of Gestal therapy to Gestal consulting. And one of my references on that is uh Ed Nevis, one of our teachers, wrote a book called organization consulting and it really describes um your my answer to your question. How does Gestalt fit into my life? So as a gestalt person and consultant when I'm working with an individual or working with a group I am both the content and I am the process. So these concepts that I've learned I have now embodied.
(08:09) They become so much a part of me. I believe them. I see them. I feel them. I chew on them. I taste them. They're a part of me. So I don't have to think about what concept I use because they're now in my behavior. So that means that I have a whole new orientation and the orientation is to be to embrace and embody the concepts but also to deliver them in that way.
(08:35) Now that changes uh it doesn't change the fact that I want to be a good consultant. I want to go in and be able to make the assessment. I want to uh help identify what's the figure, what's the piece of work that would h that would leverage best what you want to do. But in doing that, I'm using myself and I'm consulting to them.
(08:55) So I'm I'm aware of certain things like there's a certain amount of tension between my being becoming a part of them. If you've had clients that you like and they keep telling you that stir in your heart goes out to them and it really affects how you going to work with them which already you've diminish them because now you're sort of making them like but in gest we call it a a tension of um kind of indifference.
(09:30) I have to keep myself separate from what I'm doing. So that differentiation helps a lot in helping me to be uh objective. So um you have to ask me more questions about bookishnaw but getting the teaching it really changed who I am because a part of what happened is I found that the principles that I was learning and practicing in gestalt I practiced in my personal life so I didn't have to put on my gestalt hat or my consulting hat when I started working with someone.
(10:00) the same when you and I when the three of us were doing the orientation to how we were going to do this uh podcast at the end of it we said we should have recorded this because it was so that meant that I was doing what you were asking me to do in the podcast I was doing it then because I'm always on the same trip you know that I'm always on in that same modality so that's what makes it natural for me that's why I can be doing being and doing all at the same time. And that's why it's so practiced that I would select the concept that I learned
(10:36) in 1985 to apply to a situation. So I I I want to tell you a story and and the interesting things about having worked for 50 years, the things I did years ago, I can see them in retrospect. I can see the concepts etc. So um the reason I'm telling you this story I have to remind myself is to talk about how I pull things intuitively that I've learned in the moment.
(11:07) So in my first job uh as an OD first time I had that title. I went to work for the city government in PaloAlto California. If you know Palo Alto you know it's still the side of heaven. Uh it's a wealthy wellplanned community etc. and the city manager wanted an OD consultant and I was brought in. There was some resistance in the city because the council decided you're the city manager, we're paying you, why do you need a consultant, etc.
(11:32) But he was working on his doctorate at UCLA and OD. So he it was something personal about it. But anyway, I was very excited. I was just very close to the building on my first day and I was dressing to go to meet with the management committee which is going to be tense because they were not on to this OD consultant thing very much.
(11:55) I turned on the TV just to see the news and there's a big story that the city of Palo Alto the union has gone on strike and the city hall has been closed down. This is my first day on the job and and then I'm and then I I'm dressing and going downstairs. This is before cell phones, by the way. You couldn't just I couldn't just call, you know, anyone.
(12:20) So, I had to decide, am I going to cross the picket line? That my objective is to be the consultant to everyone in that city. Um, if I cross the picket line, the union, the the employees see me violating their picket line, their stance. If I don't go into the office, these uh executives who are not sure I need to be there anyway are not going to like that.
(12:47) So, I decided to join the picket line to go out to the picket line and I worry about the other later. So, I went to the picket line and um after they rejected me a bit, I just stayed the course and they said, "Why don't you go talk to the to the union uh leader?" And that's what I did. I got back to the office. I mean, it was a great conversation.
(13:10) He told me everything I needed to know, some of which was very valuable later and some I realized was biased, etc. But I had a relationship with the strongest union in the city uh going forward. And um later when I went to into the office uh the it was bad enough that this management committee had to deal with the first strike ever.
(13:36) They had this person who's coming in and she stayed on the picket line until after lunch before she even came in to meet us. Not that they had time for me anyway. But that choice, that decision. So people say, "How did you dare be worried about being fired, but and I'm going to pick up the things that I'd wanted to may have wanted to put on a a slide for you.
(14:00) So one of the statements is I know why as in the process of presence, I know why I know who I am. I know why I'm here uh and what I want to accomplish." that said to me for those reasons that I said I would not cross that picket line because it would take years. You never get over that. But anyway, the managers were upset for a little while and um they got over it. The city manager was excited.
(14:24) He said, "You're going to get us both fired fired on the first day." But interesting enough, I did a presentation about three weeks ago and it was a a case study around that day that we did everything. We had um a video showing the city hall and all these kind of things. And I found the city manager by and after all those years I saw him for the first time in 44 years.
(14:52) He came on that program three weeks ago and when people said uh weren't you concerned about getting fired? He said that was the reason I hired her out of all the people I interviewed because I know she would do what needs to be done. But so the choice to cross the picket line came from my understanding of you know what my marginality where to leverage when to decide and I didn't have to think about that. I didn't have very long to think about that, but that was a part of what I had fed into my intuition.
(15:23) And I think that's an example of em embodying your knowledge and your skills. It's easy to think that, you know, the city managers are your client, but the the the real client is the organization, isn't it? And if you want to be truly inclusive, but those are the the sort of the conscious and unconscious choices we're having to make all of the time, aren't they? Yes.
(15:47) And and and that gets to be really important. See, because if you think about um and that's why we don't deal with power uh you know, we have no power, we have our influence. And by the way, we influence with our presence, said Walt Whitman. Um that when in in Gestalt training, one of the things we learn well is whole systems is looking at the whole system. And that's my client.
(16:18) I may be working primarily with the executive or the department head but the client is still the organization. So that's such a great comment uh Garren because what happened was uh I had access to all the plants and the services and all of that. Also the management committee and also the city manager. So, one thing that became valuable to them, I knew what was going on in all of these different places.
(16:46) And I could tell them, you need to go out to the utility plant, you need to go to the ship, or you need to do what I do. I rode the fire truck with the firefighters. So, that's one of the habits that I had. Wherever I worked, I went to their their job. I spent a shift with the firefighters, etc. I I rode with the police on a weekend when things are going to be because you get a sense of what it's like to there's nothing like knowing what it's like to be out there. The lived experience, isn't it? Lived experience, etc. And so, and and
(17:23) so just imagine we had this experience and then I started working for the fire department. I go out with the the the firefighters when they had a problem and they did they brought to me about the performance of uh of a a firefighter. I knew what it would be like for the rest of the men.
(17:48) They were all men then not to not feel like this person has my back and he's going to pull his shift. I knew the heartfelt sentiment of what that would be like when, you know, when this person wasn't performing. And I'll just give you the rest of it since we live in the time that we live in. He he was the first black firefighter and his performance was very very poor.
(18:09) And so the the I don't know why the uh fire chief wanted me consultation. So I listened to him describe all the stuff for two years. So I said to him, "What is your question?" And um he said, "Well, you know, I hate to fire him." I said, "So if one of the other firefighters performed like this, what would you do?" So I fire him, but I don't want to fire the first black firefighter.
(18:37) And so I said, "I want you to understand that what you what you're doing when you do that, you are telling the first black firefighter, you don't expect him to be as competent as everyone else. So you let him get away with. I said, "So if you want to talk about racism, that is one of those subtle examples of racism because you don't and how does it look to everyone else? They're not going to trust another black firefighter.
(19:02) " But anyway, because it's about finding your place as well, isn't it, in relation to the system? And if you're doing like ride alongs with the fire people and out with the police as well, like what kind of presence do you bring when you're starting to build those relationships with them? because it's easy to be labeled head office, isn't it, when you're with them.
(19:25) But that's not the type of relationship you're trying to build with them, is it? And see my not crossing the picking line. I had already built that into the role that this person in this this new role that you're going to see is not someone who's working for this the management to make the union behave. So I had already I I accomplished a lot by that decision that day and I have scars and bruises from it, but By mid midday on day one, you had already set your stall out. I love it.
(19:56) Yeah, I've I've I've laid it out and and they believed me and I was able to, you know, to respond to that, especially when you come to work on the night shift at the at the sewage treatment plant. You know, the union manager who was going to test me because he's the one who let me in right on that first day.
(20:15) I got steel towed boots and a hard hat and a uniform and everything and I went out there where they are processing sewage and I stayed the whole shift. I knew I was being tested. Danny and I have just done a lot of reading to get prepared for this conversation, but one of the things that really stood out for me is you were quoting um a senior leader in insurance company and and they said and and that's something something you on to is the quality of the the interior condition of the OD consultant will make a difference in the quality of the impact they make. That was uh O'Brien. He was the
(20:45) president of Hanover Insurance. And Hanover Insurance used a lot of bigname uh OD people in their business. And one day he just said one of the things he noticed that the success of the project they were working on didn't depend so much on the degree the person had, the experience they had, but the interior condition of the uh interior condition of the consultant.
(21:11) very important because in terms of presence in terms of doing the work effectively um we must do a lot of inner work you know at at one point I tell people when I'm training these doctor students you need to feel like you have a right to be there doing the work that you're doing that day so you know sometimes we feel almost apologetic we want to fit in and that gets in the way but so people who do the inner work so in terms of my inner work uh besides learning and starting with NLT groups, learning a lot about myself in that TA group, I learned particularly that I didn't think I
(21:54) should be angry and and and you know that was a hard learn for me. Um so by being in that uh setting I learned things about myself. At the Geston Institute we did personal groups, we did uh groups of a different nature. I also um worked with uh personal trainers and guides.
(22:20) So I work with a woman who know a lot about I don't know how to call it but um she knew a lot about u quantum physics laws of attraction. So to I think to be an effective person it helps you to step outside of the science. So now we're into the art. This is the art of becoming the whole person who can you know who who can do the work effectively. So I learned so much from her just about using your mind.
(22:47) I mean some of the stuff was just like magical and I've used it ever since and it works. So that was sort of an extreme. There are all kinds of things I did separate from just learning OD to build my inner strength. A part of that for me is also spiritual. So, you know, I grew up in a spiritual setting and one of the things I always knew there was something bigger than me that I believed in. So, I had a fall back.
(23:19) So, that morning when I was uh trying to decide as I'm walking toward the building, what am I going to do? I knew that there was a spiritual connection somewhere that I was going to get I was going to make the right decision. It's like a fall back. So that and that is a part of who I am.
(23:41) I don't know that that's a part of everyone but just in terms of that interior condition. So one of the questions that you ask about what is it like being out building relationships with the I always remember there was a boundary between me and them. And so one of the places where that gets acted out, oh, we just stopped and picked up a person who uh had been injured and they're put in the IV and they said, "Francis, you got to get that bubble out of the court for us.
(24:10) " I'm thinking, I'm out there helping them get and then we're back at the firehouse, you know, laughing and talking about it. I still have to remember who I am and who they are. I have to keep that boundary even though, you know, we having fun. So where that becomes important is around confidentiality.
(24:30) So if someone during one of those bleed times says something about city manager about their department head, I didn't validate that and I didn't share anything. So that's a part of that dynamic. But the inner that that inner building who you are gets to be so very important because I can look at my slides that I don't normally. So a part of it is to be is to be in touch with yourself confident and in and what chick sit higher flow knowing how to get yourself in that condition before you step into a situation or if you're suddenly in it think I didn't expect that I'm suddenly in it. So how do you have an interior strength? What have you
(25:10) done to build yourself so that you feel confident so you're in that flow? And so being in that flow. So I can think of two times when I absolutely met chick sent me highest criteria for being in flow. I was just pee and I had been working with um the post office service in the in different parts of the country and the manager in DC asked me to come in because he wanted to send me to the big post office.
(25:42) I cut my teeth on the small one. I felt so grounded in what I had seen and what I'd probably have to do. But that morning, I was just high for some reason. I was so ready to talk with this guy because I had my groundwork, etc. And I just felt good. I went downstairs and I got in the elevator of the building and a woman stepped in the elevator.
(26:07) She said, "Who are you?" I don't know this woman. I said, "Oh, I'm just a consultant in town." She said, "No, no. who are you? And I didn't know how to answer that question. She said, "There's a glow about you." So, some things you can see, you know, and I felt it. And there's more to that story that I wouldn't want to put on the tape.
(26:26) Yeah. I I love that story. And I I guess because being confident and being an OD consultant can sometimes be challenging because it's about because often in the as an OD consultant, we're in the not knowing.
(26:42) So it's it's not necessarily it's you know if you if your confidence is built on being in certainty and being in control that's not enough is it because you have to put yourself in places where you generally don't know and you're sitting alongside the client saying let's not know together and find out. So, one of uh the in the British journal of OD um of Gestalt the the uh two of the writers wrote about being energeticly available but fluid and responsive and that's what you're talking about. You have to be fluid and responsive.
(27:13) So that means that you have to have a process of how do you get from everything that's going on? I'm here. this is going on etc to the one that we call that the ground in Bashaw that's the whole picture why they call me why I'm here what's going on what's the history all of that is the ground and my job is to find the figure the one figure in that whole big mess that's going to be important that's going to not just solve that problem so to connect with what Pearl said not just solve the problem but build the person I don't want to just solve the problem. I want
(27:50) to help them transform the si from the situation that caused the problem. I was going to ask a bit more about presence. So, you've talked about that quite a lot. What does it look like when when presence is kind of inevit? So, when presence is in evidence and you have your own experience.
(28:11) There are people whose presence you like to be in and for some reason you trust them. You like to hear them talk or present. you like to have them on your team doing work or whatever, you just you just trust them. So what presence look like there's several parts of it. Part of it I talked about with this embodying the knowledge.
(28:33) So you the process and the content at the same time. When you're being in the presence of someone, you feel like they can accept all of you for who you are because of the way they respond to you. like they they can accept all of me for who I am and work with me.
(28:57) So they're trying to calibrate their um trans trans you know how many frequency of vibrations they're trying to calibrate to meet who who who you are. So one example is a a a woman who was referred to me and of all that ground she presented you know she was just really upset and people in honor of her on her job etc etc etc. Um one thing became clear to me is that she is between being bigger than that job and holding that job. So she has her feet.
(29:31) So for me to say that to her is is to say you you need to accept and feel okay with the fact that you've outgrown that job, but that you need that job. So you're trying to get them to respond to that tension and they can't do that. They only want to have you do the job. So let's write up the ideal job prescription description that would use the talents that you have that they're not using. and she was excited about that. I mean, I only saw this woman or two times.
(30:01) Uh, and she presented it and they thought, "This is a great idea. It would help them at work." But what happened was I had to calibrate where I was to where she was. So, I'm this doctorate with all these degrees and all of this experience, etc. This is just a woman who is working in a um in a recovery program where she also does work. and I had to get to where she was, what it must be like for her.
(30:27) But when I could name it, that just she wrote later said, "I just can't believe how well you understood me. That that was exactly what I was dealing with. I couldn't name it, etc." So that's what that's another thing. So I'm trying to look at what the things I wanted to tell you about the so at the core of Gish work is awareness.
(30:46) There's a lot of rigor about awareness and a part of what you practice you you develop what we call an awareness in intelligence is um being aware like I said of those of everything but also being aware of and seeing you know if if if I if you looked at an article on article on your desk right now that you like and I asked you to look at it and tell me everything that you saw.
(31:19) You would describe little grooves in it that you've never noticed before or where the color changes because you'd be in deep concentrated awareness of what that piece is and you've you've you've seen it every day. You you hold it, but you never really seen it in all of its glory, you know.
(31:40) So that level of awareness is what we walk around with all the time. Um, so that's one of the other things you notice that the person that woman would say, "I was so aware of who she was or what she was what what she was uh what she was dealing with." Obviously, one of the things we do as consultants is we go into new organizations, don't we? We we we walk up into the building.
(32:04) We're welcomed in reception. We walk into the corner, we sit at the on a chair, we see members of team walking past for the first time. Like what what are you looking for and noticing when you're in that kind of space? Atmosphere, energy. That petroleum company that that petroleum company that I worked for for 13 years internally, which you can believe was a challenge because they're big, they're successful, they manage money, they own the Fortune 500, they never get below 10.
(32:36) So that's the environment I worked in for 13 years. So talk about being fluid. Um, but they built a new headquarters in Houston and I went to the headquarters. I've worked for the company for 10 years by this time. I go into the headquarters and it is so sterile.
(32:58) You know, the couches are straight, the colors are, etc. And uh, I notice I'm noticing the atmosphere, what the atmosphere is like. It's like that in other parts of the company, but you think in a day and time we're building a new building and it would be warmer and moreospitable. And um what was I there for? I was there to interview managers about um mentoring that mentoring was mentoring used to be the way people got developed in that organization.
(33:28) and someone was mentoring you, carrying you along, making sure you got the right assignments, you did the right things, you wore the right clothes, you clean your fingernails, you know that the mentor, there was always someone a mentor and as the the environment changed, there was less time for that and so um I was wanted to ask them what's replacing that for the high performers that are coming up.
(33:54) So that my first day I go in I see that. So as we are working I'm there for a few days interviewing people and notice came out. Oh I I went I asked one of the people I want to interview let's go to the lobby so it'll just be you know more relaxed and he said we can't go to the lobby. There was a policy employees are not to sit in the lobby.
(34:17) That says so much doesn't it? It says so much. Now, I want you to know that when I first went to work for this company, I went to the original oil headquarters in Texas and I'm coming out of NTL and Gestalt and uh all of these relaxed environments and everything. And so, one of my roles was management, executive education.
(34:42) And I don't know why they felt like they needed someone because they didn't develop people like that. They developed people through experience and through mentors and all of that. But they wanted this program because I think General Electric had a big one at that time. But um so I'm putting together these programs and I have I can call uh experts from any university, business school, textbook, I can hire them. I can afford to hire them and bring them in.
(35:11) So I am I'm bringing them in. Um but one of the things I realized I said this is cutting edge. It is out. It's in conflict with the culture of this organization. But the exact upand cominging high performing people who got to attend that course loved what they were hearing. And they would often say to me, Francis, it would be nice if things were like that here.
(35:37) So I said to my manager, um, I need a senior manager to be a part of every one of these programs. So they're adding they're balancing adding reality to here's what works here's what doesn't work here even working with the consultant to you know that and she said to me Francis the president I said I want I'd like for the president to come she said Francis the president doesn't talk to employees and I thought wow where have I the president doesn't talk to employees well in about nine a month nine or 10 months I I made this plea. The president was talking to employees
(36:16) and what happened was these courses were two weeks. They come for a week, they'd have a they go do projects in their companies and come back for the second week of training and um what's my point I'm trying to make? Oh, what happened is so in the second week, these guys are really hyped. They're just excited.
(36:39) and someone says, you know, the problem is we can use 20% of what we've learned and the company has invested thousands of dollars and we wonder why they do that. So, it was this collective cognitive dissonance. These guys just started talking about how unrealistic and I, you know, we've done all of this work. So intuition, I put four flip charts in front of the room and I said, "I want every person to tell me what you're feeling about this tension." And I wrote up everything they said.
(37:10) And I tell you when I looked at it, I know the lawyers would tell me, "You should not have written that down because it was a you know, it it spoke to the organization about this its weaknesses, its blind spots, you know, just about that culture. and these are the high performing people.
(37:31) So anyway, um I I had them write it all down. And even as I was rolling up the paper, I was scared to death. I realized, "Oh my god." Cuz then they said, "Okay, Francis, we need you to get that to the 35th floor to the president so he'll know what's going on down here.
(37:50) " And everybody was laughing, but I knew we were all in trouble because we shouldn't have I'd work with Valdis and you know, things like that. And I the lawyers will tell you don't put certain things in writing that you don't want to get to the newspaper or to the senior managers. And we had put all this in writing. It was really damning to uh to this conflict.
(38:12) But anyway, uh I um took it back to my manager, the woman who said, "The president doesn't talk to the employees, and she said, "You put it in your drawer." And um you don't take that paper until I tell you. And when she told me, she uh she told me to write it up. And she changed it and meant so much. It didn't have any of the guts any of the but in one of the refineries the people who report to those managers were getting ready to go to their program.
(38:43) So they said in their management committee we want to write a white paper like Francis had them to write under last you know all hell breaks loose then what white paper. So that got upstairs and um the si the senior managers wanted to know what was in the white paper that everybody's talking about and I got a chance to tell them u more of what it was and everything.
(39:05) The president said is this what my high performing managers are dealing with? Why why is this true? And he said I'll come not only will I come to management I'm going to come to every management three they have. So I'll be there to talk to them about where we're going, what we need, etc. So they'll have some some context for that.
(39:27) So that was one of the dents I made in that big petroleum company was that from now on in the highlevel executive programs, not only the outside instructors, but we had senior managers to come and be with the uh be with the employees. Now speaking of atmosphere, that sounds good, right? You know what people in all those organizations do to impress the senior managers? You know, they paint the sides of the tanks where the car is going to go by kind of stuff.
(39:58) Well, in preparation for that, we had to seat people. We didn't want to seat anyone next to the president who was going to be taller than he was. He need to be able to make We had to have his favorite mints at his desk where he was going to sit. We had to do everything. I told him, I'll turn this place inside out to get him there.
(40:16) But those senior managers was overjoyed to have this conversation and ask him questions and have him respond. He became a real person. And um speaking of atmosphere and a real person, I have to finish this story. So, one of my jobs was before each program, I'd go up to the president's office and let him know who's there, you know, what business lines they're from, what issues they may be dealing with in terms of management relations, all that. I'd really prep him.
(40:48) So, uh, I was in the elevator one day. Several of us got in the elevator. I don't know how these executives end up getting into our elevator, but we're in the elevator and the president walks in. So, nobody in the elevator is talking. It's push. And um the president looks around. He said, "Hey, Carol, it's so good to see you.
(41:07) When are you going to come up and brief me on the next management three?" And I said, "Mr. Bow, I'll be up there in about three months because we have one coming up." So, when they step off, everybody in the elevator cracks up. They said, "Francis, he call you Carol.
(41:24) Why didn't you tell him?" I said, "Listen, a year ago, this man didn't even talk to employees. some point if he gets me confused with the other black woman. This is not this is not a time to call him on that. Um but so you know when I reflect on those things I realize in terms of having a presence there are things that did come naturally to me in terms of discernment that work for me and then I of course start to develop those after people told me that I had presence. I guess what one of the big things you're doing there is getting to see people that have been there for a long time that potentially are what's
(41:58) that word institutionalized to get them to look at their organization with new eyes and and it's by you noticing those things isn't it and and challenging it and you know because organizations can't function effectively if they don't understand reality and what you're doing is is surfacing all that even if it's painful for them as well and you know and to me so what I learned at gestalt is my job in going in any situation is to make a difference with my presence. I should represent a presence that's not otherwise there for
(42:27) the reason that you said. So most of the people working at my level grew up in the organization. I'm from outside. So I don't know that you certain things you don't say to senior managers. And I'll give you uh one good example. when I was doing these programs, I wanted a committee of advisors from each business line so that I'd be shaping it to, you know, what's important to them.
(42:58) And so to do that, I went and talked to the management committees and I wanted someone not lower than the vice president because I wanted someone who had authority, etc. to speak for the business line. The first group I go to, um, I'm I'm giving my pitch, right? And when you're making a pitch to the the management committee of a business line even, you don't want to be interrupted about to ask you question because you're it's supposed to be perfect.
(43:24) So I'm making this statement about why they need this uh leadership program tailored to who we are. And the president stands up and said, "Excuse me, where are you from?" I had just transferred from Houston to New Jersey. I didn't know if he meant where's my accent from, where am I? So I said, 'Well, I just transferred from Exxon USA. He said, 'Okay.' And he sat down.
(43:53) I didn't know what that meant. But I was just so at break my manager came over and said, "Let's let's talk to this guy and find out." So we said, "Why did you ask that?" He said, "Employees don't talk to uh senior managers like that. She's telling us that we hire people off the campus, the the highest performing students we can get.
(44:17) We bring them in, but we never give them any education from the real world about leadership and management. We just do it ourselves. So, she's telling us we're incompetent. You know, employees don't tell us that. He said, "I'm not assigning anyone to the committee. I'm going to be on the committee because I'd like to work with somebody like that. I think, you know, we can do something.
(44:36) " So, it's I've never taken a low road. Fabulous. So I know one thing you wanted to talk about was the difference between pres being present and the use of self. So yes, could you tell us a bit more about that? At the Gestau Institute that you're there to disrupt, to um shake things up to, you know, there to provoke people by by your presence.
(45:04) Otherwise, you're you're just like another employee. So one of the things I found uh is that people talk about presence being presence and the use of self they use them interchangeably and matter of fact they you know your presence and use of self well those are two different things.
(45:30) The presence as we've talked about it is when you are this living embodiment of the knowledge and theories and for each person who is creating a presence for themsel we've selected a body of knowledge that we believe in and that this is the information that's going to be essential to helping the people change and transform. So that's that body of knowledge that we're carrying.
(45:56) And presence is also what you evoke in people. The impact you make just by the way you show up. I'll give you a quick example is uh it's not easy to define presence. But one example is I have a a colleague who was doing a big program after uh 911. She they pull all these people together in New York from different places and uh politicians, actresses to talk about the results of money level, what they're going to do with that space.
(46:30) And it was a big deal, you know, um uh our former president was was was going to be there. As a matter of fact, he was one of the former presidents was the sponsor. And she said to me, "Trancis, I want you to find the middle of the room in the audience and you sit in the middle of the auditorium." So, what she wanted was the energy that she gets from me.
(46:58) She wanted it directly in front of her. And you know, I've heard stories like that before. I haven't experienced it with someone else, but uh she said it with me. And Ed Nevice said that because of the way he had worked in an organization over a period of time, it got to a point when they were having the critical meetings, he could just be there and not say anything during the whole meeting and they said it made a big difference with them because they felt comfortable, felt confident, they trusted him. If something was needed, he had provided
(47:30) otherwise he just stepped in. So it's presence is what you evoke and this work that you've done with these concepts that you've embodied and it's also uh defined as energetic availability. You know you're alive and there and fluid responsiveness which Darren asked me about a little while ago.
(47:55) Now uh Otto Sharma in his work on presence talks about presence as the quality of your your uh attention. That's I was fully there. I was paying full attention. Um there was no one else in the room. I just felt like this person could really see me and it's demonstrated by all of that. That's being present to the person or present to what's going on.
(48:14) So that's being present and which is different from your presence. Now part of good presence is that you practice that quality of attention. Um but those are different things. Use of self is when we use what we've learned and what we do through our presence to understand what is happening but how you choose to act on that that's the use of self.
(48:43) So when I um crossed the picket line, I was using myself to make a statement to do the work but also to establish to to make a statement. Several other things I've talked about the the use of self when I'm speaking and telling the truth to the senior managers, I'm using my I'm using my I'm using myself when I'm facilitating uh a session.
(49:09) I'm using myself to get people engaged etc etc. I meanwhile have a presence that they hear the knowledge and values that I have. They can hear my world view by just the the way I give instructions, the way I uh describe the information, the way I tell stories. So presence is a way of being. Being present is the quality of your attention.
(49:36) And use of yourself is how you act on both of those. How you choose to act on both of those. 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 two, so we made one. It's called from pod to practice.
(49:54) 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.
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(50:29) What do you enjoy most about the work that you do? What I enjoy most about the work that I do. Gosh, there are moments I will give you uh a couple of moments that will let you know what uh what I enjoy about the work. So when and I haven't named Exxon, but the petroleum company I was working for was Axon. So another program that they did is they wanted to do a highlevel management leadership program for the highest performers AC from across the world.
(50:58) So they asked all these business lines to pull in their highest performers to be a part of this program. This is the future and we know we had people like null tishi we had all kind of people coming in to to work with him. It was also two weeks as you can imagine in the real world there's so much competition for who's going to be involved and if you're not chosen and everybody know that's what that then you know it saves a lot.
(51:29) So um in that pro it was a big program and it it really went well but in the interim and between the weeks these managers had to go back to their organizations and apply some concept that they had learned in an active part of the business something real online was important and they would come back and they had to report that when they came back we had asked the senior managers who referred them to the program in the beginning to also come to that session.
(52:01) Well, during the first week, the guys had that they had been put into these teams that now went out to work and they had complained about this one person who just wasn't pulling his weight. He wasn't taking it seriously. They don't know why he was selected. Well, when the presentation time came, so I'm in some part of New York with all of these participants who are the highf flyers, their managers, the vice president for HR who sponsored this all and we are doing this coll this collaboration putting everything together. It was so powerful except this guy was really really weak. So I know it
(52:39) ruined his career because he didn't take this seriously and um but anyway it went really well. Now we you know you can imagine that there been some of resistance and blah blah blah and you know Francis we don't want this person and I'm flying all over hiring these consultants and blah blah blah blah blah. At the end of it I was so it was so successful I was so tired.
(53:04) So I had to drive from Connecticut to New Jersey. I got in my car and I drove to a spot that I stopped and I just cried because I had no other way of expressing how full I felt, how satisfied I felt with the way that whole thing went and I had coordinated, you know, the vice president was just out of this world with it.
(53:30) So that's one of the re that's one of the that's what I get out of uh out of doing the work. The other is um I worked with a uh uh in my coaching I worked with a uh consultant who um we were on a project. They had asked he and his partner had asked me to come with the project and I was not sure I wanted my name on this project but they said come in as a resource.
(53:57) I was resource and said you got to be a part of the project. At some point I decided I don't want to be a part I can't have my name on this project. I don't believe in it and you shouldn't have my name. And the guy just went off on me. You know, he really insulted me. But people don't insult me. Everybody loves me. You know, I'm not used to being insulted. I froze.
(54:16) And there's a part of me that grew up on the streets. You know, I had all the language to cut him down and all of that. And I said, you know what? I'm not going to respond to that. I'm going to let that sit between the three of us until we meet in two weeks. and then we all respond to it.
(54:36) So that is what I can't remember his name now, the guy who was in the Holocaust who wrote all the books, but it's that was what he called the space between the stimulus and the response. And he said in that space is very fertile. Things can happen, things can change. I created that space.
(54:57) I surprised myself by saying, "We just going to let that sit there." And I took my hurt and my anger with me. When we came back in two weeks, he apologized. He said, "No, that was on what I was that was on me. I was disappointed and I was angry and blah blah blah blah blah and all." But that still happened between us.
(55:16) But I was so proud of myself that I didn't handle it. Two years later, I get a call from the same guy. He's in a delicate situation where he needs a consultant and he called me and said you were the first person I thought about and I thought wow that is it's that satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing you did you made an impression etc but also from that same guy from this then I co I coached him through this situation when he goes on LinkedIn and write he writes about what he learned from me or what he learned about from Gestalt and all those kind of But for it to come back, you know, uh,
(55:54) and see the to see the results, those are the highlights for me. And in my culture, just to see people shift, you know, they have just little shifts that creating of the space. And there's often that phrase is let the silence do the heavy lifting.
(56:13) And it would have been very easy to engage in a real kind of ding-dong kind of like dialogue and it wouldn't necessarily got but by leaving a space and leaving silence to do the heavy lifting, it then achieved the result almost, didn't it? Yeah. So when O'Brien talked about the inner condition, it's the person who's capable of doing that because I still remember who I am and why I'm here in that moment rather than I I'm going to be in combat with this person. So it's that consciousness. So it didn't take anything away from me.
(56:46) It actually helped me because later on he called me because he knew I was going to be truthful. I was going to be candid and I was going to be I was going to be provocative. So but the thing that that adds me is that uh that inner condition means that we've learned how to take care of ourselves.
(57:09) So when I didn't when I didn't discuss with him, I needed to get that stress out of my body in some way. I didn't get enough of it now. That's why I have rheumatoid arthritis. I think it's all the stress, all the fights, all the times I didn't tell someone off and all of that. It sort of went into my body.
(57:28) But that we need to, you know, and I know people who every so often they're going to go on vacation, they're going to go to a spa, they're going to but we have to have ways of taking care of ourselves. And so that's the thing I really would like to add to this the spiritual dimension having some type of contemplative practice like I meditate.
(57:48) So before I got on today I when I got up early and I sat and did my meditation and what happens is in my meditation is when you're successful you're not always successful you quiet yourself but you enter a space of effortlessness. So you're not thinking about anything, you're not being with anything, you're just peaceful. And on the days I do that, I can tell a difference all day long.
(58:14) But everybody needs something, some way of feeding themselves, you know, um, making themselves, keeping themselves feeling well. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Because obviously with the story you're sharing there, isn't it? where you'd you know you'd held the process and you'd put it all together and it had it the production of it with you know people's careers being transformed and all that as well.
(58:39) Often we don't realize how much we're holding do we through the process and we're holding on to people's anxieties and whatnot and people are projecting all of their anxieties onto us. It it it's the difficult piece isn't it? It's a difficult piece and um and one of the things that uh I would go back and forth on is being a black woman in this corporation.
(59:00) I was the first black woman to be in an H OD position in this big corporation. So, a lot of people had not seen someone like me in in authority in some ways because I could talk with senior managers and get them to do things. Is that um I would not I I think there were only two occasions when I was aware of what it must mean for me to be a black woman in front of the room.
(59:26) And these are all white men all the time until one day one of the managers asked me said, "Francis, how do you do it?" And I said, 'What? How do you handle all of this, all these white executives all the time as a black woman? Don't you feel? And I said, I have to tell you the truth. I'm looking in white men faces all day.
(59:44) I don't even remember that I'm a black woman until I go to the bathroom and I look in the mirror. I'm not conscious. I am comfortable with who I am because the successes I've had, I've done as a black woman. So, black woman works for me. Um, but it's just it's it's a it's a lot when you stop and think about that. You know, I'm Kevin whip here, you know, I'm choosing this person, rejecting that person, paying the consultants, you know, and all of that.
(1:00:18) And uh it is it's it's it's just a lot to hold all of those pieces together. And that's when I use that management committee of uh this team from all the different business line. I would meet with them every so many weeks. They had my back and they were taking care of all the things I needed taken care of.
(1:00:38) But I still had to see it, you know, for it to to work with them. OD is definitely a team sport, isn't it? It's uh it's too much for one individual. It's too much for anyone. It's it's really too much to even be the leader of it. I found that. So this is a um quote by um Beethoven the musician and he said don't only practice your art but force your way into all of its secrets.
(1:01:05) Art deserves that for it the art and knowledge can raise man to the divine. And I just think that is so so I think when we are working at this level when we're trying to you know make a difference with our presence that's what we're doing. We're into the the art of it.
(1:01:31) One question we love to ask on the podcast is one of the original missions is to inspire the next generation of organization development practitioners or wouldbe uh guest practitioners well that are coming through. What advice would you give them as they're just making the first steps now all that knowledge that you've gained? What advice would I give some? Well, that's interesting because I teach roy consultants uh in this doctorate program people who are becoming I think if you're going into this field you need to treat it as a calling. It's more than a job.
(1:02:01) It's you have a calling to make people, groups, organizations, communities, countries better. That's your calling. That's what you're here to do. And in order to do that, you have to do exactly what Beethoven said. You got to dig deep into what this is all about. It's not enough to learn the concepts, not even all the skills.
(1:02:28) Is there going to be times when you have to use yourselves in a way that no one's ever taught you? That is a part of your intuition. So I would say think about it as a way of life. For me, OD became a way of life. And then Gestalt just polished that off. But I would say if you're if you're doing this work, think about this is a calling and I'm going to dedicate myself to helping people to live more effectively with more grace, with more dignity, and help organizations to be more effective at what they do in their in their business.
(1:02:59) How do you help strike that balance as well? because and dignity and things like that exist in alignment um with you know the organization's needs as well on the slide that we didn't see there you had the ying and the yang and and I guess part of that is the work isn't it trying to get constantly kind of strike that balance so the needs of like the organization and the needs of the individual as well one of the oldest questions in OD right because and this is a good start orientation is that we always working
(1:03:31) with the person in the relation in their relationship with their environment. So when I was working with the woman who was confused, who was sort of trying to be more than that organization can handle, I work with her on her relationship with that organization with her environment because that's it's not just you or your family, you know, you're not it's you in relationship to the environment because that's what we're learning all the time. how to be effective in the environment I'm in.
(1:04:03) So when I was working with uh um with the petroleum company, I knew what that environment was and I could I could bring creativity, but I knew where where the manager stopped when I was working with people in the seminary, you know, where they're teaching pastors, etc. That's different.
(1:04:26) So it's always in the context of the environment in relationship to the environment. Francis, we want to say just a huge thank you. It was it was really interest because in the preparation for this, you said something on a podcast and you said basically that um some a wouldbe OD practitioner approached you and they said how do I get into the field and you said well everyone's context is different but I'm going to share two stories with you and you shared the stories with them and they wanted and they at the end of it they said that's exactly what I needed to hear. Yeah. Yeah. And and it just really
(1:04:56) reinforces the power of the story, doesn't it? The sessions. It is the power of story because the feeling is there and the experience is there and your weaknesses are there. Is a story is authentic in other words. So yeah. Brilliant. I I've got I've really genuinely enjoyed this. I've actually had a cathartic moment about my practice during this session today that I will go away and have a very very very deep think about. But I just really enjoyed it. It's been really it's been a joy. I I appreciated preparing for it because I
(1:05:28) realized how complicated it is. They chose presence which is my quest is really trying to understand it and demystify it. I but I realized I said you know I can't talk about everything. So I just need to decide what I want to talk about.
(1:05:46) But you made it easy because you asked questions and that was more important to me than making my and and I can't think of anything that uh I was going to say that you didn't ask about. So that's what I would say to keep going. Fabulous. Danny, what are you taking away from the conversation? Oh, it's it was such a rich discussion. I've I've really enjoyed it.
(1:06:02) So I think it's been some really helpful definition in there for people around what do we mean by gesttor and presence and you know being present and and use of self. So I think those definitions have been really helpful. Um I'm just left with that kind of the importance of that consciousness about who am I and why am I here? Just having that kind of foregrounded in in the work that we do.
(1:06:25) And I also love the the way we talked about kind of OD and being a kind of blend of science, it's an art, it's spirituality, that kind of that blend and that mix has been has been really interesting. Perfect. Yeah. And and all of those things as well. I guess again some of my sort of takeaways. You talked about, you know, that being fluid and responsive.
(1:06:43) I just I really like um what you're saying there and just that really clear definition and ground us in the fact you talked about the fact of, you know, we're we're helping them develop their relationship with the organization or with the system. And that's that really grounds us in what we're you know fundamental task is and that that means it stops us from taking too much responsibility because it's easy to take all the responsibility for people isn't it whereas no no it's their relationship with the organization and challenges will come and go and you can fix the topic of the challenge of the day but
(1:07:06) you need to fix or help them you know solve their own problems moving forwards don't that's where that's where they have to live and be successful you know brilliant well I I know that so many people are going to get so much value from this if you are watching this and you know people either that are kind of searching for developing their practice and maybe Gastau is something that of real interest for people or you feel that there's loads of different stories in there that um that Francis has shared that people find then please do share this podcast. Uh one of the things we're
(1:07:34) always really warmly surprised with Danny isn't it is the fact the number of shares we get every single week. So people seeing it going do you know what I I think someone else could benefit from it as well. And that's really how sort of you know organization development and gestalt thinking really sort of spreads as well. Um, if you have enjoyed it, we love it if you hit the like button because the algorithm gods really appreciate it.
(1:07:53) Um, but um, Frances, above all, we want to just say a huge this this conversation could have been about seven hours and we still would have wanted more. I feel we've we've just just literally just scratched the surface as well. So, we want to say a huge thank you. I'm glad because I could fill up two hours with stories and then the rest of time.
(1:08:12) No, it's been wonderful. We really appreciate. Thank you for being so generous. I enjoyed the two of you. you made it very comfortable. I just, you know, I I love talking about this and you just asked the right questions. I sometimes I couldn't believe and I kept saying to you that's a good question which I don't like. That's what the politicians say.
(1:08:34) No, it's been it's been absolutely wonderful. So, thank you so much for answers and thank you for just giving so much service to OD and playing such a huge part in so many people's lives and careers and practice as well. So, thank you. It's very rewarding. Thank you.