Change Archives | Metalogue | Organisation Design Consultants

The problem with contracting: how to get it less wrong

While we’re all pretty well versed in contracting on tasks, deliverables and outcomes we’re much less comfortable with contracting around roles. And yet, in the absence of a good enough contracting, we are often left flailing, trying to find a safe place to work from, keen to deliver on the task we’ve signed up to, but ill-equipped to do so. Of course, contracting on roles typically requires an honest conversation about what’s needed, what each of us might be up for, and what’s possible in the current context, given power, politics, organisational culture, history and a whole load of other fun stuff.

Starting your Re-design Process? Ask the Audience!

So, you've decided to embark on an organisation re-design – what next? Well, you are going to need to decide on a design team to create a design, and they will need data, input and perspectives to work with. So you although you, like many of our clients, might like to jump straight to the answer, you will need an inquiry/discovery process, which involves asking people for their perspectives and input into the current state and what could be improved. In this blog we explain why you need to interview people, who and how many to speak to, and what you should ask them.

How did we get back here, again?

The anthropologist Gregory Bateson’s phrase “the difference that makes a difference” has a powerful and intuitive resonance. He was talking about how a ‘difference’ can represent information that helps us see a situation from a different angle. This can reveal new possibilities for understanding or acting. Bateson’s idea draws attention to how in a complex system a small change or shift can have a ripple effect, bringing about other shifts and changes. Even subtle differences or changes can lead to profound shifts.

Culture change – lessons from the field

Most of our clients are engaged in attempts to develop or change their culture in some way, shape or form. They tend however to tell us they find such initiatives to be tricky, demanding and, ultimately, disappointing. To understand why this is the case, we have been inquiring with leaders and OD practitioners into their experience of trying to change culture.

Any old change model will do

In the "University of Heathrow" (as an esteemed academic colleague of ours refers to it), waiting for a flight to the current round of difficult meetings, it's easy to get tempted into buying the latest expensive, glossy book promising the secrets of leading successful change. Full of case studies illustrating the successes of improbably wise and prescient leaders, not to mention

There’s no sexism here right?

So started the day. “We saw a pretty girl.” It’s been a long time coming. A company going through a radical transformation – a real one – where the way they work together, talk to each other, share information and make decisions is actually visibly changing.

Thinking about restructuring?

It is by no means business as usual for anyone during this crisis period. While the impact varies from individual to individual, we are all living with less certainty, often more anxiety, and questioning some of the taken for granted in our lives.

Learning from the mundane, everyday and taken-for-granted

One perspective that informs our consulting practice at Metalogue is cultural anthropology. We see value in trying to understand the symbolic meaning of behaviour, language, artefacts, rituals and ways of working. This lens often reveals new and different ways of making sense of what goes on in organisations.

How do we find new ways to make sense of Organisational Culture?

Finding new possibilities for how to enable cultural change and transformation. In our last blog, we talked about applying “a liberal dose of science and an equal measure of art” when exploring organisational culture and change. As practitioners, one frame we find helpful comes from John Heron and Peter Reason (2008), who talk about there being 4 “ways of knowing”:

What words should we use?

In our work with culture and transformation, we often talk about the importance of narrative and metaphor. In fact we wrote a report about this just recently. So it’s always pleasing when what we say is illustrated by others – in this case by Greta Thunberg in particular. If you managed to miss her speech to the UK parliament here it is.

Designing organisations and creating culture – two sides of the same coin

As part of our research into the practice of designing organisations, we spoke to leaders and practitioners about their experience and reflections on organisation design projects. Most of them acknowledged that, with the benefit of hindsight, they had not given sufficient attention to how changes would be brought to life.

From organisation design to designing

Throughout 2020, we conducted an action research project with our clients into the practice of designing organisations. One observation we made is that most organisations are in a constant process of redesigning themselves as they adapt to ever-increasing levels of uncertainty and complexity. Because of this, organisations are becoming more fluid and structures more transitory.

Virtual working – lessons from real life

Like all organisations we are looking how to deal with the effects of the Coronavirus outbreak. Our clients are thinking about how to keep making progress on planned work which involved bringing groups of people together, sometimes from around the globe, to tackle issues like strategy and organisation design.

Is Cultural Change really that controllable?

We have been working in and around organisations long enough to have noticed a cyclical obsession with changing culture as a panacea for transformation and renewal. But is it helpful to describe this kind of change as if it is something we can master by applying some kind of cause and effect approach?

Putting our insights to good use, our bite-sized blogs give leaders our latest thinking on strategy, organisation design, executive team development and culture change as well as other musings.