Change:

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As a general rule with change projects, it is important to change or improve the quality and nature of working relationships, in such a way as to underpin and enable the commercial and strategic objectives. In our experience, improvements to working relationships in teams and across organisations leads to more fast-flowing, more flexible and higher performance change. Change projects that don't pay attention to working relationships (and the behaviours, mindsets and emotions that arise within relationships) will often fail.

We've worked on a wide variety of change projects. For example: organisation design and implementation projects; culture and behaviour change; project methodology, working process and team changes; culture change 'temperature checks' and metrics; learning and skills development; team and organisation performance improvement; reward and recognition; good practice sharing and implementation; and supporting individuals and teams through transition (such as a promotion, a role change or new responsibilities).

Sometimes the teams and organisations we work with are working well already and want to get even better. Sometimes there are specific relationship or other issues that are blocking change or making it slower or more difficult for the people concerned.

Case study: A large-scale pan-organisational culture change programme

The challenge: Refresh an organisation and change programme that aims to create a more customer-centric organisation and culture across 13,000 people. 

What we were asked to do: Provide consulting support to the internal change team and senior stakeholders as well as leading specific projects.

This involved:

• Working in partnership with the change team and stakeholders across the organisation.
• Developing an integrated wide-scale change programme, combining large-group workshops, one-on-one and team coaching with the change team, senior managers and the board, large-scale training programme design and delivery and the implementation of pilot projects. Drawing on Apprecitive Inquiry, Action Learning, complexity thinking and Gestalt coaching and counselling methods for enabling change in relationships, across teams and across organisations
• Developing a participative methodology of assessing and tracking changes to the culture over time and measuring the impact of the change work. 

• The organisation is now rated as being one the top places to work in the UK by the Sunday Times and the Finanical Times.
• There have been significant improvements in rentention and quality of service metrics in areas touched by the programme.
• A number of new initiatives have arisen from the work and, based on the success of these, the programme has been allocated a long-term budget and head count.

The challenge: To support an executive from the pharmaceuticals sector through a personal transition - from working for a large company to running his own business.

What we were asked to do: Provide a series of one-to-one coaching sessions.

This involved:

• At initial trial meeting we decided on the focus of the work and contracted for how we will work together (including what kind of feedback the client would like and what he would not like).
• Drawing on traditional solutions-focused executive coaching methodologies as well as a deeper Gestalt coaching approach to look factors that help and hinder the executive's success in the area of focus. 

What happened:

My client said: "I'm not sure how we got the place we did - it seems like a kind of magic. But it's been tremendously useful and has helped me both think about and experiment with doing things in completely different ways."

Case study: coaching an executive in transition

The challenge: To help a senior manager who works for a fast-moving media company shift up a gear in terms of impact.

What we were asked to do: Provide one-to-one coaching.

This involved:

• Meeting outside the manager's normal place of work.
• An initial trial meeting, after which we decided whether and how we would like to work together.
• An agreed series of futher sessions.
• Drawing on traditional solutions-focused executive coaching methodologies as well as a deeper Gestalt coaching approach looking for recurring patterns and useful deeper insights. 

What happened:

My client said: "I was a bit unsure about what coaching was all about before we started, but I've been amazed by how useful it's been. I have a much clearer picture now of what's going on at work - and the part I play in it."

Case study: training in organisation change

The challenge: To design and deliver a seminar on organisational change for a very large group of primarily HR managers and directors.

What we was asked to do: Work with a small professional services organisation to design and deliver a seminar for their key clients.

This involved:

• Designing a three-hour seminar to delight and stimulate knowledgeable HR professionals. 
• Finding ways of making the learning real and offering opportunities for practical application.
• Designing in networking opportunities.
• Mark Gawlinski acting as presenter, trainer and facilitator.