How to Develop your OD Skills

OD is difficult to define, yet sits at the heart of any planned, holistic approach to improving organisational performance – one which aligns strategy, people and processes. OD balances the need for organisational effectiveness and well-being with adapting to the external environment in which it operates. While the boundaries between OD expertise and other related fields are not clear-cut, it is the way in which the expertise is used that makes OD what it is. More and more HR practitioners now have an OD function in their job, but many don’t understand what it is or what it requires.

Check out this great article written by Sylvia, and published by People Management magazine in February 2009.  Follow this link to our website to access this article:  http://www.labyrinthcc.com/Organisatonal-Development.html

Masters Students get a taste of Embodied Leadership

Sylvia spent the earlier part of this week with her Masters Students (OD & People Development), who got to experience a whole day of learning about embodied leadership. The event was designed using Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey (1949). When we as leaders are called to action, our declarations can be fulfilled if they become truly embodied. When we start to encounter the trials of the underworld, we embark on practices that shape the body thereby building the capacity to overcome the trials. We also learn to face the ultimate trial of the Self which results in us returning to the overworld in a more accomplished way.

Participants found this to be a deeply moving, and transformative process, and could certainly see how this type of development and coaching would be of benefit to themselves and their organisations.

Achieving OD Traction

At the recent CIPD one day Organisational Development event, we co-hosted a session with Martin Saville on Achieving OD Traction.  This was a lively, interactive affair, which got 150 people in the room talking about OD issues in their organisations!  The theme of the presentation is that while OD is a vast and ambiguous subject, the best way to get traction is to just get started. Expertise and knowledge grows with practice