Digby Morgan’s inaugural OD Thought Leadership lunch took place recently and was attended by a mixture of past and present clients and colleagues representing companies such as The Royal Bank of Scotland, EDF Energy, 3, SAB Miller, Laing O’Rourke and BP. Attendees demonstrated a diverse range of backgrounds and included various Heads of People Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development and OD with the main theme under discussion throughout the lunch being the ‘meaning of OD’.

Following a short welcome and introduction from Digby Morgan’s CEO, John Maxted, the Group Head of OD at Amey, Matthew Joint, opened the discussion with an overview of what his remit has been at Amey and what it took to win the Personnel Today Award for Talent Management.

Matthew was brought in by the Group HR Director to completely overhaul Talent, Resourcing and Learning and Development throughout Amey. Having defined the values of the organisation, the most challenging part of his role was to implement a Talent Programme for all 10,000 employees. 550 employees applied for the programme of whom 330 were assessed and 42 were selected for a fast track scheme. Matthew insisted on CEO buy-in from the outset of the programme and used this to ensure that those on the Amey Talent Programme had regular access to, and communication with, the executive board.

Matthew’s short talk prompted a wide-ranging discussion that can be summarised by the following:

What is OD?

• The general consensus amongst guests was that OD can generally be defined as ‘the way organisations develop people’.
• The specifics of OD differ from company to company and range from Organisation Design, Learning and Development, Leadership Development, Talent Management and Resourcing.
• For OD to be truly successful, it is essential to have the buy-in of the CEO

What are the challenges facing OD leaders today?

• Developing talent frameworks that incorporate the needs of both the Baby Boomer generation and Generation Y.
• Managing the expectations of Generation Y - and the Millennium Generation in the near future - around speed of promotion, work/life balance and socio-environmental issues
• Retaining ‘steady performers’ that organisations rely on for the success of the business as well as the 10% of mavericks that could potentially be brilliant
• Integrating disparate frameworks post-acquisition or merger

Successful interventions included:

• Including company executives in graduate inductions to break down the generation barriers and get buy-in to the company’s values
• Reverse mentoring – using junior employees to mentor executives on technology or other issues
• Use of the ‘executive assistant’ model to give fast track talent the opportunity to work closely with, and learn from, executives
• Ensure regular feedback between staff and managers to ensure continuous development rather than dealing with under-achievement at annual appraisals

Digby Morgan will be hosting additional OD Thought Leadership lunches in the coming months. Please contact Iain McAdam at iainmcadam@digby-morgan.com if you would be interested in being added to the contact list for future events.

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