Our work is centred on a core belief: if you want organisations, teams and individuals to become more skilled at change and leadership, you need to focus on developing the practices that make that sustainable and repeatable. 

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Make best use of the talent
and skills you already have

 

We help you develop the practices that matter, namely:  

 

Build and maintain relationships

Navigate messy reality

Understand how you show up
and the impact you have on others

Improvise and adapt 

Develop the muscles to hold each other
to account more effectively

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All of this centres on practice, knowing not just what tools are available and theories you can deploy, but having the awareness and reflexivity to work skillfully and ‘do’ the dance of change. This is what we help with.

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We skill you up

 

Healthy, adaptive and high performing organisations require internal leadership and change practice development. We ‘up skill’ teams, individuals and organisations, to strengthen internal muscles and reduce dependency on external experts. 

This bridges the gap between conventional capability building and reality: it is the missing link between KNOWING what to do, HOW you do it and translating that into practices that stand up to the pressures of organisational life. 

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The big gap

Our work is grounded in helping our clients to learn how to orientate themselves when the pace and pressure is increasing, and to focus on building relational practices to support wise action. 

“Relational capacity is eroding at the same time it is being asked to carry more. This is not due to failure of care or commitment. It is a capacity signal. When relational infrastructure weakens, every other strain intensifies.” Charleen Johson

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For individuals, we help people understand:

 

What kind of situation am I in right now, exactly?

Is this a technical challenge, which can be addressed by tools and methods, or something more complex requiring learning, navigating relational dynamics, power and more? 

What are the ethical challenges? Am I doing what is most of service, or paying more attention to career progression, when doing the right thing may jeopardise the former?

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For teams, we focus on collective sense making:
What, exactly, is our challenge? 

What assumptions underpin our reading of the situation?

How are we working with anxiety, in the team and wider system? And is this even being acknowledged?

How are we colluding with others to achieve little more than better sameness?

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For organisations, we help you develop practices where most needed:

To what extent do you view change as something that can be managed, or led top down? What will happen when you take your foot off the peddle?

What happens when good governance, tools and processes are found wanting? And how will you ensure change happens at the local level, far beyond sight of a Programme Office or project plan?

What practices will support effective change work?

 

Own your change

For cultural and behavioural change, the evidence is that you are far better off building internal capability. 

Firstly it is cheaper: the cost of internal strategy advisors for a typical project is four to six times lower than the rates of the big strategy consultancy firms.

Secondly, internal change consultants or change agents have a higher success rate in embedding change. They navigate the ‘unwritten rules’ of the organisation more effectively than outsiders. 

If you’re ready to build the muscles to dance without us, let’s talk.
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