Organisation development

At its simplest level, organisation development (OD) is about helping organisations deliver better outcomes through people. If you want your organisation to improve performance, you need to help people deal with current problems. You also need to be proactive and deal with anticipated problems as well.

In Tammy’s own words: “OD projects are challenging, but they are also exciting and fulfilling. I enjoy partnering with organisational and internal change leaders to work out what’s needed and what will work. It’s an incredible privilege to help people to create more effective and successful organisations and to make their organisations better places to work.”

• To plan and introduce change. Effective OD is psychologically informed and draws on evidence from behavioural and social sciences. Organisation leaders may know what change they want to achieve. But they may need effective OD support to help them achieve it. OD practitioners typically work with leaders and key stakeholders, to co-design and implement agreed cycles of change based on a shared understanding of the issues and what will work. They work scope, develop and introduce planned change in a manageable, productive and effective way.
• To develop climate and culture. Having the kind of organisational climate and creating the kind of culture in the organisation that will enable to succeed is critical. Without it, your strategic intentions and your mission may flounder, and your vision may fail altogether. OD can help you gain a clearer perspective on your existing culture, as well as design and implement the incremental, as well as the bigger shifts you need to make to install, create or sustain the culture you need.

• To build a more resilient workforce. The challenge may be around helping teams to overcome turbulent or troubled times, or it may be to help organisational members to deal with a plethora of internal and external stressors and demands, whether these are to do with psychological well-being, technostress, or to do with an uncertain external environment. There are several OD interventions that can enable groups and teams to recover, adapt and develop new perspectives, habits and perspectives – often helping people to move forward and the organisation itself to become healthier, and more robust.
• To unlock people’s potential. Working through a strength-based lens and using solution-focussed approaches can be a powerful way to recognise an organisation’s hidden and underused potential, and to energise and animate a host of imaginative solutions to a range of organisational challenges. Doing this without denying or underplaying problems and weaknesses, is about placing an emphasis on what might possible, and inspiring the desire for a better future. Rather than starting from a deficit perspective (what’s wrong?) or a tell-and-sell-off-the-shelf-solutions (here’s a menu of fixes for you), our Strength through Solutions TM OD approach, helps you to discover where your organisational strengths lie, and what solutions or simple steps toward them, already exist unrealised.