In today's episode, Tony is joined by Carolyn Norgate as they look back at Tony's time with Mayvin and in particular, our accredited core practice programme, as that's how they first met. They talk about the impact the program has had on Tony's individual practice and approach with clients and Mayvin practice more generally, including leading to our latest offering of Kickstarter programs.
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Claire Newell 00:09
Hello and a warm welcome to the Mayvin podcast. This episode is part of a special, new mini series called Conversations with Tony. Our Tony Nicholls has decided to stop working from the end of March 2025, he still finds it hard to use the R word, so we decided to make the most of him these last few weeks that we have him, and try to bottle his wisdom and experience, slash milk him for content before he goes. We will be releasing these short 10 minute episodes for the next eight weeks, which will take us up to his last week with us. Each episode will focus on a different topic, a different element of his time at Mayvin or his career at large. In today's episode, Tony is joined by Carolyn Norgate as they look back at Tony's time with Mayvin and in particular, our accredited core practice programme, as that's how they first met. They talk about the impact the program has had on Tony's individual practice and approach with clients and Mayvin practice more generally, including leading to our latest offering of Kickstarter programs. This is the kind of programme I want to see all leaders and managers do says our Tony, I'll pass you over. Enjoy
Carolyn Norgate 01:18
So Tony, this is one of our series of podcasts. Wipes tear from eye. I'm laughing to mask the sadness as you enter the last couple of months before you leave us here at Mayvin so which I'm genuine, genuinely sad not to be working with you as we go further into 2025
Tony Nicholls 01:39
Me too. Carolyn, me too.
Carolyn Norgate 01:41
Bless you. I was thinking about when our paths first crossed, like at Mayvin. And I think our paths actually crossed briefly a few times, because we were a part of the alumni from the masters programme we both did, yeah, but my main first, my first Mayvin experience of you was I was in the civil service. We were re tendering the OD capability programme that Mayvin and was already providing. And you pitched up with Martin, I think, and maybe one of our associates, to talk about the kind of recasting of the programme and and I really got a flavor of what you were bringing into it as well, knowing the programme as I did, yeah, so, and my impression is that that was a big part of your early days in Mayvin. I saw you a lot as we were read, redesigning the programme, and we put a lot of people through that version of the programme. But yeah, you were, you know, we got to know each other really well in that time, and that seemed to be a big part of your Mayvin world, yeah, yeah. Was it? I mean, I'm curious because obviously I was, I was on a different side
Tony Nicholls 02:46
Of the side of the fence, yeah, yeah. It was actually, yeah, because I'd, I'd done my masters in 2009 finished my master in 2009 and then did a few years of sort of interim and consultancy as a sole trader, in effect, sort of playing with these new tools and ideas that I got from from, you know, learning this, you know, looking at this field of practice code called OD, but I then made a deliberate decision that I wanted to join a consultancy, partly to work with great people like James and Martin and Sarah, who I didn't know at the time, but I felt like I wanted to join a consultancy, to have my practice stretched still further, and also get to do bigger programmes, which an individual, you know, sole trader, can't do. So found Mayvin joined Mayvin and core practice was absolutely everything I would hope for. So it was one of those programmes that brings together lots of the different element, fundamental elements of OD practice into one programme and develops capability in a way that's in many cases, quite transformational in terms of world view and sense of self and ability to make an impact in very complicated, politically charged environments. So it was, it was hugely impactful on me in terms of both developing a love of developing OD capability in others, finding my voice and my presence in a programme that needed a particular kind of presence in order to create psychological safety and a space for people to do some quite deep reflection. And also, quite, you know, I enjoyed the process of, there's an element of teaching in it. And I enjoyed that process of, you know, sharing models and getting people to make sense of them. So, you know, it also informed, I guess, my growing sense that there was more we could do in with OD in the world. And I think one of the fundamental things I spotted fairly quickly in that programme, having delivered that programme, is that this wasn't just about developing OD capability. What I noticed in the room were leaders and managers. So they were both od practitioners, but they were also leaders of people. They were also. Managers of large projects. They were also quite senior people in running, in some cases, prisons and things like that. And I think what we were also developing at the same time was a broader set of leadership and management capabilities within that badge of OD. And that's what inspired me to start to think about, okay, this is the kind of programme that I want to see all leaders and managers go on and just relabel it as something else. It's not just necessarily about OD, so yeah, quite, quite impactful on me.
Carolyn Norgate 05:29
Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure I know earlier, because colleagues sometimes joined to colleagues earlier. They're going to talk about your book a bit, and you mentioned it and the one with Martin, but yeah, that really underpinned, yes, writing out in there. So yeah, that thread going through. But so there's something about the kind of the way that, for me, sort of, there's something about your practice in there, and how you could see, how Mayvin could do things differently. But what about when you were with clients? How did, how was that informing when you were out in the world practicing?
Tony Nicholls 06:02
Yeah so I think there's something about, you know, if you, if you if you need to, if you teach something, you really need to know it, you know. So if you're, if you're sharing that, so, so I think there's a sense through which that, as I, as I was a facilitator on the core practice programme, in particular, I developed my own sense of understanding these particular concepts around use of self and instrumentality and and what complexity is, and how complexity actually arises in organizations, and therefore what you can do to intervene in that capacity. I guess in some ways, I was I was learning. I was teaching myself. I was on. I was almost a participant in the programme as well as a facilitator, which sounds odd, but I think there was a way that that is the case. I would always come away from each cohort having learned something fresh about my practice. So I think that helped me then go into other interventions, team coaching, one to one, work with other clients, and I was, I think I was able there to bring a fresh perspective to the models and tools that either I was using overtly with the client or that I was using covertly in the background to frame the conversations, and it sharpened my practice, and I understood those things better. I think because having been a facilitator on that programme
Carolyn Norgate 07:13
I really get that point. It's it's that in order to teach it, as a different way of making sense of it. Yeah, because you're not making sense of it in a way that, how can I, how can I use this with a client who maybe doesn't care so much that it is a model, they just want to, they just want me to help them think about something that's really difficult. And so, you know, I might, I might gently use a model, and I might show it to them, because it's the only way you're using it. But equally I might, I might just go, how about if, yeah, and you can get quite adept at that. But then when you actually got to teach it and help people think about using their practice, there's a whole other loop to go around, which I think, yeah, it just, you just come at it in a completely different way, which then, you know, enables you to come at it a different way over the client. So there's another kind of loop that you've gone through.
Tony Nicholls 08:03
Yeah and I think, I think working with with students who are learning this, these models and tools and techniques, they offer a critique, because sometimes they reject it, and sometimes they'll resist it, and sometimes they'll go, Yeah, but what if? So I think there's always a process of of looking under the bonnet and going, Oh, that's interesting, that's a different perspective on it, and I think that that helps us stay alive to us not becoming too comfortable with with our favorites, yeah, processes and models.
Carolyn Norgate 08:30
Yeah, definitely, yeah. I can really I mean having known Mayvin as a client and and then working with you and other colleagues at Mayvin on the redesign of that programme, and then joining Mayvin some years later, and being here five years I can, sort of, I can, I can almost kind of go, Oh, that was a time when we're using that a lot, and that was the time that, you know, there's certain things that have underpass have underpinned our practice, but there's other things that had a bit more currency, and that's partly because the world changes, yeah, But I think the programmes we're working with really influence that
Tony Nicholls 09:04
Yeah and I think, I think out of the core practice programme, and you know, other programmes that we're on, what we might call traditional programmes, you know, the six to nine months in length, it could be accredited, sometimes they're not, a sense that the context was shifting and the market was shifting in terms of, well, in these times of challenging costs, can we afford and can we put everybody through that kind of programme? Of course not. It's just too expensive. So what's the alternative? And, you know, I think that's where you and I started to really think around so what's the shorter version of that? And can it can be, can it be impactful? And you found yourself doing some work with NHS England, you know, doing that, doing that, what we're now calling Kickstarter events, which is shorter events, couple of events added together with some quite deep an opportunity to do some quite deep work with clients quite quickly getting quite quickly to do some good work. So you know that they're all, they're connected in terms of the the approach we take to creating safe spaces for people. People to do some to bring some vulnerability and some humility, and feels comfortable to do that, and they have to do some work quite quickly. So our programmes, offering as it evolved because of that, and definitely flows from what we did in core practice. In essence, I think it took Mayvin a while to notice what it was doing on core practice. It was an amazingly good programme. I think we had to decode it for a little while and go, How are we doing this really great work? All right, okay, so those particular things that we were doing that we've now taken out and put into our shorter Kickstarter type events,
Carolyn Norgate 10:30
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think you coming in to the programme when you did, you know, you brought your fresh perspective, yeah. And we had a newish member of the team as well, in the team I was in civil service, so we kind of had the kind of the view of what worked already, because it was a huge amount that worked, and then some new perspectives, which is great, yeah. I mean, it seems to me that we've talked quite a lot about the sort of personal, transformative nature of it that you know, whether you're a leader, whether you're an OD or change practitioner, there's something about needing to know yourself well. And you know, how do you stay grounded in all of the flux, chaos, wonderful, you know, whatever is going on around you that can really buffet, buffet you. So those programmes encourage that, yeah, but you also mentioned mindset, and the other thing that those programmes do for me, it's we don't share tools and models for the sake of it. We share them because they might help you, help your client think differently, yeah, but I think the one of the innovations you brought in was the brown paper exercise, which for me, you know, I still teach on that programme. That's the starting point for, how do we help people think differently about change? So given you brought it in, do you want to say a bit about it? Because it's still got huge currency I think.
Tony Nicholls 11:57
Yeah and you know the depth of that as a case study is in the book managing change in organizations. But essentially, that came out of a conversation I was having with a group of people who were really good quality programme managers and project managers who were frustrated by the fact that change, they were doing everything right, and they had really engaged sponsors and managers who wanted to see this change through, and yet it was still really difficult, all the politics and all the cultural challenges that came with it. And so I created this exercise to say, well, we've all we've got all these models, tools and techniques, we've we've been developing them literally over 100 years or so to understand change. And so shouldn't we be getting this right by now? And you know, they're all, all those models are scribbled on the top of the brown paper. Turn the brown paper over and look underneath and start to describe what gets in the way. And of course, it's lots of people stuff. And the the essence of that exercise is to demonstrate that it these are just models. Then they're not that you cannot, you cannot put everything, cannot pull all of human nature into any single model, or even any collection of models, because we have to deal with what's in front of us, and the human beings are in front of us, and therefore it will always be messy, because we're all individuals. We all make sense of the world differently, and when we come together, inevitably, things like politics and fear and hope and love and hate all come into it, and therefore that's what we're dealing with on an everyday basis. And that never goes away, and no single model or collection of models will just make that disappear. So the brown paper exercise definitely, I think, was a turning point for me and for myself in really understanding and critiquing all the models and tools we bring, but we hold them lightly, because what the real work is actually getting into and having those conversations with real human beings face to face and bringing some presence.
Carolyn Norgate 13:53
Yeah, the ones we use are all useful in some circumstances, in some contexts, but they're never going to be fully sufficient. No, and that that's exercise, really beautifully illustrates that. And I think really sets people on a a bit of a kind of so what does that mean? You know, I reached that because it worked really well last time with that client and that context, is it really going to work here, and it builds the critical thinking as well, which is, it's a master's level programme, absolutely, it's, you know, the first, it could be the first step for people in the Masters so, you know, we need, you know, it's, it's one where critical thinking is, is I was about to say, critical, Paramount! Paramount!
Tony Nicholls 14:38
Paramount, paramount. Yeah. So just noticing time, what, what's in my head as a as a sadness is that I won't be continuing that kind of work for the foreseeable future, at least. But I do have hope. I do have hope that Mayvin will take forward the idea that the brilliant programmes we run could find a broader audience. They're not just for OD practitioners. I think, I think we've got the future of leadership and management development in our current offering, and we need to find a way to to find people who are looking for that. And I think we have, in some cases, we've worked with a couple of private sector organizations where we've done that kind of programme with leaders and managers. So I think if we could do more of that, then my hope is that more leaders and managers go through the kind of programmes that Mayvin creates and offers, because I think they will be transformational for the individuals, and I think they'll be transformational for the organizations themselves.
Carolyn Norgate 15:37
Yeah, and that's sort of the essence of people and organization development, yeah, right, really coming at it from both ends.
Tony Nicholls 15:43
Yes, yeah, great much.
Carolyn Norgate 15:46
Lovely. I've loved working with programmes on you over the over the years. So yeah, thank you.
Tony Nicholls 15:49
I've enjoyed it too. Thank you too. Cheers. Bye.
Claire Newell 15:53
Thank you so much for listening to us today, and we hope to see you next time. Take care. Bye. Bye. Thank you.