Welcome to the June 2021 Newsletter

Hello there and I hope you’re well?

This month saw us tip into the second half of the year and I came across this poem by Morgan Harper Nichols with its reminder of 'the abundant room for you to believe in the possibility of what could be', which felt spot on. 

And since last month:

• another week at Rhossili beach, this time with family, which was glorious. Partly because it was sunny and warm. Also because the rinse-and-repeat cycle of walk, bodyboard, eat, read and sleep is pretty perfect.  And there’s no Wifi there which means I really do put all work to one side.  I feel like I've gone back to factory settings. 
• had breakfast at Bill’s a couple of times, which has made me disproportionately happy. Sitting in a café with some work or a podcast and a flat white is something I’ve really missed this last year or so.
• a piece of client work that was difficult and bruising and left me a bit tender.  I'm not sure I fully understand what happened but I'm trying to hold it with humility and grace.  And being mostly successful.  Plus, I’ve pulled out of the second part of the work, which feels wholly the right thing to have done.
• several new coaching clients - always a privilege - and as you might expect, they are much less focused on working towards specific goals and much more about wanting a safe space to simply making sense of what they’re thinking and feeling.
• am really getting a lot out of a new coaching supervision relationship and this month  made some important links between my way of working and an event that happened over 40 years ago.  I shouldn’t be surprised at how the past still shows up – it’s like bindweed, you can only manage it and not get rid of it.
• and discovered Call My Agent and Fargo as my summer online entertainment - both wonderful.

(pics: breakfast at Bill's, sand patterns on Rhossili beach, plus the walk from Llangennith to Broughton)

I mentioned last month Megan Reitz's new work on employee activism and how we might encourage ourselves and others to speak up.  A similar theme has been bubbling up for me this month, especially in relation to my work in Organisation Development.  What does OD have to say that needs to be heard right now?  How can the voice of OD be stronger?  This is particularly relevant for me as I develop a new OD programme for a client and take myself right back to talking to people about OD who are new to the field, including at Exec and SLT levels.

Conversations with colleagues throw up questions like: what does OD need to be for today and tomorrow? How can OD gets its voice heard at the most senior levels in the organisation?  How can it be seen to have a rightful place at the strategic table?  Is OD a leading or a following discipline and how can it be more of the former?  Should it have more ‘teeth’ and if so what might that look like?  What does the most progressive form of OD look like? It’s a field with permeable edges – and so how can OD practitioners help others (and themselves) to be clear about what it is and what it isn’t?

And so for those of you wondering along similar lines, you might like this webinar from Matt Minahan about OD, its relationship with HR – how it is very different from that field and how HR has neutered OD. His video is part of the Just in Case series of webinars, by Mee-Yan Cheung Judge, which has some really good stuff in there from some excellent practitioners in the field. 

I’m also reminded of the work of Deborah Myerson who talks about the need for those of us who are seeking to create change in our organisations to act as ‘tempered radicals’.  Radical in that we have to have a cause - a bold vision for something different – and one that we never lose sight of.  But, in order for us not to be SO different that the system rejects us for being too different, we need to temper that radicalism and use our wisdom and discernment within the structures and politics of the system we operate in.  

I suppose I'm wondering if OD is more tempered than it is radical.  And I'm noticing I want the radical t come bit more to the fore.  I sometimes find OD difficult to define clearly.  And yet the more I spend time in the work, the clearer I am about its value.  Because the core principles and practices of democracy, inclusion, participation, big picture thinking and working with the human dynamics of a system feel more important than ever.

I'm looking forward to thinking and talking more about this over the coming year - and if you have thoughts and views too, I'd love to hear them.