OrgDev with Distinction

Rupert Brown, Chief People Officer turned change consultant and author of Lost in Transformation, unpacks why transformations stall in practice. He discusses leadership blind spots, rushed decisions and the emotional side of change. He also covers identity after mergers, the real role of HR and when to pause and reassess.

Rick Buccheri, an organizational development consultant and certified conflict coach, draws on two decades in mediation and federal consulting. He talks about surfacing hidden tensions, pacing difficult conversations, and using paraphrasing to help teams feel heard. He reframes conflict as a capability, explains when to name system-level issues, and offers practical steps leaders can rehearse to address workplace friction.

Alison Lucas, an executive coach and director focused on leadership and organisational change, and Lizzie Bentley Bowers, an executive coach who guides boards through transitions, explore why endings matter. They discuss everyday organisational endings, emotional processing, cleanly closing projects and rituals that protect trust. Practical ideas cover communication, HR’s role, shame and vulnerability, and preparing for future transitions.

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!What does it take to support people and organisations working under pressure, complexity, and trauma?In this episode of the OrgDev Podcast, we welcome Gareth Evans, Lead for Specialist Organisational Development at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. A facilitator, coach, and thought leader in relational and trauma-informed OD, Gareth is the developer of the Conversational Spaces Framework and co-developer of the OD Practice Framework for working with organisational trauma.Together, we explore how organisation development can create the conditions for connection, collaboration, and meaningful work in complex and emotionally demanding environments.Topics include: trauma-informed OD, organisational trauma, conversational spaces, systems thinking, complexity, and relational practice.Wish you had a handy recap of the episode? So did we.That’s why each week in our Next Step to Better newsletter, we’re sharing From Pod to Practice – a 2-page visual summary of each episode designed to help you take the learning from the podcast and into your work.You’ll get: ■ Key insights from the episode ■ A reflection prompt ■ A suggested actionSign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/About UsWe’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.Find out more at www.distinction.live We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:linkedin.com/in/danibacon478https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

Glenda Eoyang, founder of Human Systems Dynamics and pioneer in applying complexity science to organizations. She explores Adaptive Action, the CDE model (Containers, Differences, Exchanges), and simple, practical tools for leading amid uncertainty. Short, usable practices like the Same and Different T-shape and inquiry rules show how to work with shifting patterns rather than control them.

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!Why do so many organisations struggle to improve productivity - even when they invest heavily in strategy, transformation and new ways of working?Nelson Repenning, co-author of There’s Got to Be a Better Way, describes the hidden systems that shape how work actually gets done. Drawing on decades of research at MIT and real-world organisational transformation, Nelson unpacks why well-intentioned improvements often fail - and what leaders can do differently.We explore the core ideas behind work design, the structural causes of inefficiency, and why fixing productivity isn’t about working harder, but redesigning how work flows across teams and systems. This conversation gets underneath the surface of strategy execution, operational performance, and organisational effectiveness - offering practical insight for leaders, HR, and OD practitioners trying to make change stick.If you’re dealing with slow execution, overloaded teams, or initiatives that never quite land, this episode will help you see the system differently - and act on itWish you had a handy recap of the episode? So did we.That’s why each week in our Next Step to Better newsletter, we’re sharing From Pod to Practice – a 2-page visual summary of each episode designed to help you take the learning from the podcast and into your work.You’ll get: ■ Key insights from the episode ■ A reflection prompt ■ A suggested actionSign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/About UsWe’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.Find out more at www.distinction.live We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:linkedin.com/in/danibacon478https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!Why do leadership teams say the future matters - and then fail to make time for it?This episode examines a common pattern inside organisations: strong strategies, but limited execution. We explore how top teams prioritise, make decisions, and enable strategic change, and why leadership effectiveness is often constrained not by capability, but by how time, attention, and work are structured.Here are the links to Stefan’s latest editorials:Why strategy fails – the five tensions future-ready executive teams learn to steward: https://www.hultashridge.com/en/insights/article/strategy-and-transformation/Your executive team doesn’t have a strategy problem – they have a time problem: https://www.hultashridge.com/en/insights/article/faculty-column-transformation/Wish you had a handy recap of the episode? So did we.That’s why each week in our Next Step to Better newsletter, we’re sharing From Pod to Practice – a 2-page visual summary of each episode designed to help you take the learning from the podcast and into your work.You’ll get: ■ Key insights from the episode ■ A reflection prompt ■ A suggested actionSign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/About UsWe’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.Find out more at www.distinction.live We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:linkedin.com/in/danibacon478https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

Dr Jean Boulton, a theoretical physicist turned complexity scholar and strategy practitioner, joins to explore how complexity science reframes strategy, power and change. Short takes cover why traditional strategy fails in messy systems. Topics include patterning and history, sensing context before acting, balancing structure and improvisation, and designing organisations that scale adaptively.

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!Why has HR’s operating model barely changed in 25 years – while everything around it has?In this episode of the OrgDev Podcast, we speak with Perry Timms about the uncomfortable truth at the heart of modern HR: we’ve spent decades optimising processes instead of redesigning how HR actually works.As organisations evolve at pace – driven by digital transformation, new workforce expectations, agility, and shifting power dynamics – many HR functions are still operating with models built for a different era. Perry argues that incremental improvement is no longer enough. What’s required is a fundamental rethink of HR’s operating model, its role in organisation design, and its contribution to business value and societal impact.We explore:Why traditional HR structures struggle to support adaptive organisationsThe limits of efficiency thinking in transformation workSelf-managed and freedom-centred work systemsThe future of HR operating modelsWhat “Better Business for a Better World” really means in practiceWish you had a handy recap of the episode? So did we.That’s why each week in our Next Step to Better newsletter, we’re sharing From Pod to Practice – a 2-page visual summary of each episode designed to help you take the learning from the podcast and into your work.You’ll get: ■ Key insights from the episode ■ A reflection prompt ■ A suggested actionSign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/About UsWe’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.Find out more at www.distinction.live We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:linkedin.com/in/danibacon478https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!What if organisations can’t be engineered into better performance — only invited into change?We’re joined by Gervase Bushe, one of the most influential contemporary thinkers in Organisation Development and a leading voice in dialogic OD.For decades, many change efforts have assumed that if we design the right structure, define the right process and implement the right plan, performance will follow. Bushe’s work challenges that assumption. Drawing on his research into dialogic Organisation Development, Clear Leadership and complexity-informed change, he argues that transformation emerges through conversations, shared meaning and shifts in collective attention.We explore what this means for organisational culture, leadership in complex environments, and the future of OD practice. For HR leaders, OD practitioners and senior executives navigating uncertainty, this conversation offers a grounded and practical lens on how meaningful change actually happens.Wish you had a handy recap of the episode? So did we.That’s why each week in our Next Step to Better newsletter, we’re sharing From Pod to Practice – a 2-page visual summary of each episode designed to help you take the learning from the podcast and into your work.You’ll get: ■ Key insights from the episode ■ A reflection prompt ■ A suggested actionSign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/About UsWe’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.Find out more at www.distinction.live We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:linkedin.com/in/danibacon478https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch