Category Archives: Organisational development

Critical Thinking and why we need this more than ever

In a world characterised by complexity, ambiguity, rapid change and AI, critical thinking is no longer a desirable trait — it is a fundamental leadership capability. Leaders who think critically can interpret complexity, distinguish signal from noise, and guide teams with clarity and intentionality. Rather than repeat parrot fashion what we’re told and what we read.

When I was researching for the article on AI last month, I kept reading that critical thinking was becoming more and more essential, which makes sense.  We need to be able to critically review, as well as embrace how AI helps us.  So, I thought it would be helpful to write about it – this article blends research insight with actionable guidance to help you build or enhance your critical thinking as both a mindset and a capability.

I hope you find it interesting and helpful – do let me know what you think!

Rose Padfield

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AI – Human Collaboration: Harnessing and integrating the value of both

Does the thought of artificial intelligence excite or scare you, or does it do both? What can you do to lead the collaboration between humans and AI into the future?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how humans and machines work together. But most organisations still focus on the technical aspect of AI implementation. Companies need to pay attention to the profound cultural and organisational changes the adoption of AI brings. What can you do to pioneer bringing together the value of AI and the amazing and unique gifts of your people? This newsletter gives thought to this topic. I hope this will be of interest to you – do let me know what you think.

Rose Padfield

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Learning matters – but what learning approach is best for your organisation?

I don’t know of any leaders who would disagree with the importance of learning, at both an organisational and an individual level. It is key to gaining a competitive advantage and is seen as an imperative to keep pace with technological advances and to attracting and retaining the best talent. But not all leaders have stopped to think about the best way to lead learning in their organisation and about their philosophy regarding the outcomes of this knowledge. Why does learning matter and who benefits from it? In this newsletter, we explore and expand on research conducted by Gianpiero Petriglieri, associate professor of organisational behaviour at graduate business school INSEAD. I hope this will be of interest to you – do let me know what you think.

Rose Padfield

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Agility

How (and why) to be an agile organisation

As mentioned in last month’s article about Artificial Intelligence, the world of work is continuously evolving. This demands that we all operate in a more agile way.

Being an agile organisation is a competitive differentiator. Not many organisations have completely transformed, although some are moving towards it. For example one of my clients is introducing agility in a big way. They’re transforming the way they work and disrupting the traditional ways of operating. Some organisations haven’t started yet, particularly those who are strongly wedded to hierarchy. But, if they don’t keep up, their business will disappear like Kodak and other big names who are no longer trading.

This article looks at the key factors to become more agile at the organisational level, some of the things you’ll need to let go, and the mindset you’ll need to embrace (especially if you’ve been working in the traditional way for ten years or more).

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Family

Being an authentic organisation

Last month, we talked about Being your authentic self. In short, it’s about being who you are and being comfortable with that.

Authenticity can apply to organisations as well as individuals, particularly as we move further towards a world that’s run by technology. The danger is that the workplace becomes an impersonal environment that ignores the emotional and social needs we have as human beings.

How can you create a culture that embraces technology and enables people to be their authentic selves? This month’s article comprises two complementary ideas about how to be an authentic organisation.

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How to design an agile organisation

In today’s complex, interconnected and rapidly changing environment, it is more important than ever that organisations can respond quickly whilst still achieving efficiencies of scale. A key enabler of this is having the right organisational design, and recognising that the design of yesterday (designed for efficiency and assuming predictable patterns) will no longer work in the digital age, where agility and speed of response is key.

Matrix working – please click to enlarge the image

All your practices need to combine in the service of cohesively driving the business strategy in this environment, and good organisational design does this by taking into account:

  • Customers
  • Processes
  • Systems
  • Culture
  • People practices

Nowadays, whilst hierarchy is still present, organisations also model matrix working, cross-functional working and flexible teams. Flexible teams, in particular, are key to enabling the agility required to compete – coming quickly together and then disbanding quickly.

In addition, I am seeing communities being formed to drive specific agendas and influence their organisation’s culture (e.g. employee wellbeing; building a reputation for innovation; creating a feeling of community at one site where there are disparate functions). This is typically done at site level, but could also be done at functional level.

What this means to you as a leader
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6 stages of change management

Last month, you learned about the award-winning change management project I ran recently together with my associates. This month, you’ll discover how you can apply our unique six-stage methodology to your own change programme, with its focus on yourself and others (know yourself and know/support others).

Note that it’s important to accomplish each phase before you move on to the next, as each step builds on the previous one – if you skip or skim over a phase it’ll come back and bite you!

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Award-winning change management

Award

L to R: Lesley Pugh, Lisa Hancock (client), Rose Padfield, Emily Sun

As you might have seen in my recent LinkedIn announcement, The Padfield Partnership has won an award for excellence in change management, presented by the Association for Business Psychology.

The award was granted for a large change management project I worked on with two of my talented associates. Please read on to understand the work we did and discover the implications for your business.

This links to my article Start with Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action

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Vision

Setting your company vision

Research often shows the first trait employees want from their leaders and colleagues is honesty. The second trait they want is for their leaders to be forward-looking.

Setting the direction is therefore a key part of your role as a leader.

You have probably heard the expression ‘start with the end in mind’ from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

In this article, we look at the points to consider when creating a vision statement. (I have previously shared some exercises to create your vision – see at the end of this article for links to Organisation Development parts 1 and 2.)

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Futurism: Future-proofing yourself and your business

Every now and then, it’s a good idea to be curious beyond the day-to-day operational imperatives to consider what the world will look like in 30 or 40 years, and decide what we can do now to be part of that.

This month’s article gives you food for thought about the interesting topic of futurism – in researching this article, I was amazed and fascinated at what is happening out there, and have included a few of the lesser known developments in case you find them as fascinating as I do.

In a work context:

  • As an organisation, you need to balance the demands of today with making time to prepare for the future
  • How will you manage the demands of customers (whether they are internal or external) in the here and now, who are not thinking long term?
  • With the increasing pace of uncertainty and change, how will you manage your own stress levels and support your employees, and keep yourself and them marketable?

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