Practice within your organisation: not pretence
Most organisations say they want change, but many settle for the pretence of ‘better sameness’.
They want to rearrange the furniture - launching new values, glitzy initiatives, and buying Silver Bullet solutions - to manage and minimize discomfort rather than addressing how people actually behave or how power is used.
We don’t collude with that. It’s a waste of time, money and energy.
Moving past better sameness means not settling for just managing change as a project or throwing methodologies at the walls hoping that something sticks. It requires developing change practices.
This requires people with the nous to take the floor when the music changes and the skills to respond to what is emerging. This is key when working with the challenge of behaviour change and culture.
For clarity: we don't view culture as a set of values on a wall; rather ‘it’ is the sum total of your current behaviours, narratives, stories, and the worst behaviours the most powerful people in the organisation will allow. Working with these requires you to develop appropriate practices to navigate the messy challenges and problems you face.
It also means being clear that the two key areas skills development that are required here are in the domains of leadership and change.
The Work Proper
We support organisations to evolve and become more supple by focusing on leadership and change practice. That is our niche, it is what we are good at, and where we can make a difference.
Leadership Practice
We don’t do sheep-dip leadership programmes or ‘management therapy’. We view Leadership as an embodied practice and at an organisational level, a key Edge lies in the way that senior leadership teams work together, specifically can they do conflict well, can engage in effective collective sense making and do they have the skills to rigorously hold each other to account.
Our work with leadership teams focuses on the following in particular:
Presence & Impact: We work with you to help you hone understanding of how you show up, the impact you have and what might need dialling up or down.
Power & Accountability: We help you do the chewy work of navigating team dynamics and working the necessary muscles to genuinely hold each other to account.
Change Practice
Change is not an event; it just…is. The latest certifications, methodologies, and toolkits are useful, but not sufficient. We pick up where your change capability initiatives fall short by helping people develop the practices that ensure when you wield r tools and models, you do so with awareness and skill.
Beyond the Balcony: We help you to develop the nous to sense shifts in tempo and rhythm around you, and to find the courage to say, do and be different, even when that might be scary.
Reflexivity: We help you build the capability to sense shifts in context, to notice, to experiment, to test and to learn.
Cultural & Behavioural Practice
When clients say they want to ‘change culture’ or ‘improve ways of working’, the emphasis is on the lights and special effects of capability building and change management. Yes, that is important, and what is often overlooked is when you want, say, more ‘constructive conflict’ or ‘challenging up’. Too little attention is paid to what people need to learn and sharpen in order for enough of them to show up differently such that you experience a difference.
Good intentions are not enough: We support and challenge you to bridge the gap between good intentions and what it actually means to behave, collaborate, innovate, lead and more effectively.
The ‘cultural dance’: Given there is no agreed definition of culture, and debate as to whether ‘it’ exists, we bypass the academic conversations and help you work out what practices you need to develop in your context in order to dance differently and move forward together.
The kicker
You can have as many plans, consultants, methodologies, tools and development programmes as you like, and without attending to practice better sameness lurks and a different collective experience will remain elusive.
Are you ready to stop performing and start practicing?
“You helped me make sense of the system my organisation is, my relationship to it and where my solid ground lies.”
Nick Beazley
John Lewis Partnership
"Work with the fear that gets in the way of where you want to be."
'Developing yourself as a leader' means paying attention to how you practice leadership in your context.
"You helped me develop my ability to ask disruptive questions and agitate thinking. I [now] actively work at that and always try to push myself to the edge of my ability and comfort zone."
Richard Sandiford
John Lewis Partnership