At Mayvin, we have been wrestling with the question of how Organisation Development meets Organisation Design in the real world of complex client systems. This blog adds to the conversation by bringing together two lines of inquiry articulated in previous posts. Claire Wightman offered an excellent summary of Organisation Development meets Organisation Design by describing how …
Dr Steve Marshall is the Academic Director of the Executive Doctorate in Organisational Change at Ashridge Executive Education. He is an action researcher and OD consultant using artful, creative methods to expand the ways we think about and relate to our organisations and workplaces. He is also a photographer and this is his story of …
Mayvin’s Principal Consultant Tony Nicholls looks at how the discomfort generated by something as simple as dress code can help us to better understand our sense of self. I’ve noticed several articles popping up lately about dress code and culture change, with headlines such as ‘Do we still need to dress for the job‘? An article I shared on …
Mayvin Director James Traeger challenges us all to face up to the political and moral dimensions of every choice we make as Organisation Development practitioners. Political positions of OD: insights from a group supervision session A recent group supervision session with a client provided an opportunity for reflection on the moral and political positions of OD. We started …
Ahead of the publication of Organisation Development: a Bold Explorer’s Guide, Dr Rob Warwick, Reader in Management and Organisational Learning at the University of Chichester, offers a different way of thinking about business ethics, one that focuses on relationships and how these change. Those small decisions and actions that we take daily that, over the course …
How might science fiction help us to understand organisations? Dr Rob Warwick, Reader in Management and Organisational Learning at the University of Chichester shares ideas from Organisation Development: a Bold Explorer’s Guide, an upcoming book co-written with Mayvin Director Dr James Traeger. James Traeger and I have been writing a book called Organisation Development: a Bold Explorer’s …
A year ago, Claire Wightman started a new role in the Civil Service Expert Organisation Development and Design team. During this time she has been reflecting on what it means to be an Organisation Development and Organisation Design Practitioner. To what extent are the two fields integrated? Is there an ideal blend of skills? Here, …
Giving up on making a big difference can generate the freedom we need to create change in complexity. Tony Nicholls blogs about this year’s Meaning Conference. I recently attended the annual Meaning conference in Brighton. People from all walks of life came together to listen to speakers and to meet like-minded people. They came hungry …
At our latest event ‘OD for Real’, we invited the Mayvin community to imagine the future of HR and OD. Here, Dr Rob Warwick, Reader in Management and Organisational Learning at the University of Chichester, describes how the event supports the research and writing of Organisation development: home truths of practice, an upcoming book co-written …
Mayvin Director James Traeger asks if an overload of OD tools and techniques is endangering reflective learning and practice. I received links to two documents on the same day, from completely different sources, that connected to each other. Coincidence or synchronicity? One was an articulate article by Judi Marshall and Paul Tosey, lamenting ‘The demise of …
My colleague Rob Warwick and I have been commissioned to write a book about Organisation Development. Here are two letters from us that explains our motivation for this book and in doing so a little about ourselves. The beginning of our Organisation Development book is an antidote to a traditional approach that introduces the authors to the reader in grandiose …
A Mayvin community event investigates what it means to put customers at the heart of OD interventions, the role of OD practitioners and action research techniques We all know what it means to be a customer: every day we purchase goods or services and expect a positive experience, one that many companies and brands focus …
We’re delighted to announce that Tony Nicholls is joining Mayvin as our new Senior Consultant. Tony brings a wealth of experience from working within organisations in senior HR roles, notably in the corporate sector, as well as ten years as an independent consultant. If you would like to find out more about Tony’s experience and …
It is unsettling to think we’ll be working alongside androids but it gives us greater perspective to define ‘real’ OD My colleague Rob Warwick and I have been commissioned to write a book about Organisation Development. We are delighted and daunted by the prospect. We want to write a kind of ‘truth about OD’ handbook: …
Seven tips for impactful Organisation Development interventions without climbing Everest by Sandi Drewett I’d love to trek the foothills of the Himalayas, sleeping in tea houses, connecting with people along the trail and walking for miles in thin air, one foot in front of the other. Currently, it’s not an option due to family commitments …
How uncertainty is an opportunity for more flexible and honest Organisation Development I started my year in an excellent way. I started it in a way that supports my counter rational sense that 2017 is going to be a good year. All around me, people seem to be filled with a sense of doom. …
Places are now available on the Here and Now Group 2017, Mayvin’s practice group for Organisation Development (OD) and L&D professionals. Modern organisations are chaotic, unpredictable and often moving so fast that we can miss what is happening in the moment. The Here and Now Group will help you understand and harness the power of …
A few days ago James Traeger and I were sitting in a rather lovely room overlooking the lawns at Ashridge management college. Here we signed a contract to write a book together; a moment that focuses the mind! We are writing a book on organisation development but one that pays attention to the ‘craft’ in …
Last week we welcomed colleagues, clients and friends to our latest Mayvin Community event: ‘Organisation Design – people matter!’ We inquired together about how to push the boundaries of Organisation Design to make it a truly people change experience. We all shared our thinking in response to the following questions: What are the main challenges you’re facing …
An Organisation Development consultant colleague of mine likes to tell the following story. Back when I had a ‘proper job’, I ended up redesigning a department following the arrival of a dynamic, new boss with a reputation for getting things done. She had spent a few weeks watching and asking questions and then declared that …
With the summer nearly over, we’re getting ready for our next Mayvin Community event: Organisation Design: people matter! Organisation Design is a complex people process. At Mayvin, we blend our deep experience of Organisation Development and change with the essential steps of effective Organisation Design. At the event, we’ll inquire together about how to push the boundaries of Organisation Design …
I stood before the Van Gogh in the National Gallery of Scotland. It wasn’t a well-known Van Gogh. There wasn’t a sunflower in sight. It was simple rendering of an oblique view along Parisian river. It was quite small; about the size of an A3 page. I was a meter away from it, all alone; …
“Activists often speak as though the solutions we need have not yet been launched or invented as though we were starting from scratch when often the real goal is to amplify the power and reach of existing options. What we dream of is already present in the world.” – Rebecca Solnit Planning and delivering a large …
Once, years ago, I worked in a boat yard. I spent a bright winter there, watching the grinding and welding of iron sparkle under the starry sky, reflections bouncing off the river under the glinting flight path of Heathrow, in Isleworth. The Christmas twinkle lasted from October to February, when I was fired. I wasn’t …
Trying to find some calm amidst the turmoil which has engulfed us, I found myself looking at the EU Referendum through the lens of the questions which I would ask when considering any large scale participative event. I have found it an illuminating exercise. 1. What was the purpose of the Referendum ? Overt: to …
For a moment I panicked. I stood with the spoon in my hand, standing over the salad I was preparing for my daughter’s graduation celebrations this evening, and I froze. It occurred to me that I was ten years old when we joined the EEC. I can remember the atmosphere of that poll, a similarly …
Two very different news stories have caught my eye recently. The first one concerns the very sad case of Nazanin Ratcliffe, a woman with dual Iranian / British nationality married to a British man. While visiting her family in Iran she was detained by the Iranian authorities, who do not recognise her British citizenship, and …
Public sector organisations are in a crisis of exhaustion. They are beaten down by everlasting austerity and increasing complexity. How can we restore relationships and learning in order to support their earnest intent to offer real wellbeing and service quality to their employees and customers? Restorative HR, a pioneering field of practice that brings together HR …
We’re excited to launch a new brand identity for Mayvin this week. We believe that it is time for a fresh, provocative story in the world of Organisation Development and Leadership, to challenge, stimulate and inspire. Since the company was founded in 2010, Mayvin has evolved; we’ve grown in size and aspiration and now work globally across the …
Could we be better at evaluating what we do in organisation development (OD)? Not just better, but bolder, prouder, blingy-er. I notice that the word ‘evaluating’ has the same root as ‘valuing’. Do we shy away from valuing what we do? It reminds me of a line from Marianne Williamson’s poem: ‘It is our light, …