OrgDev with Distinction – Details, episodes & analysis

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What does it take to deliver on an ambitious strategy – especially in a mission-driven organisation where the stakes are high and capacity is limited? How do you align people, processes, and systems to deliver on the organisation's ambitions? Our guest this week is the Maria Farres, Director of Organisational Development & Employee Experience at Cancer Research UK, where she leads work on org. development, leadership & talent, EDI, employee experience, and building change capability across the charity.

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

What really derails a change project – the plan, or the relationships behind it?
Our guest today, Sophy Pern, has spent her career helping leaders and teams untangle the relational dynamics that quietly shape whether strategy and change succeed or stall. An international consultant, facilitator and executive coach, she works with executive leaders on strategy engagement, organisation design, operating models, culture change and team development. Sophy is known for bringing depth, clarity and humanity to complex organisational challenges, and for building OD and Design capability in organisations and professional communities across Europe.

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

What does it really take to build a responsive, high-performing organisation – one that learns, adapts, and endures? Today, we’re joined all the way from California by one of the world’s leading thinkers on organisation agility, Dr Chris Worley – co-author of The Agility Factor and a pioneer in the fields of organisation development, strategic change, and design. In this episode, we explore what agility really means (beyond the buzzword), how AI is reshaping organisational life, and what it takes to lead through complexity.

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

Business Ethics - Corporate Scandals and Failure - CEO Failings
Why do good people do bad things? What drives epic ethical failure in organizations? Have you ever read about a corporate scandal in the news and thought that next time, it could be you and your organization? Probably not. We all tend to believe that bad things are done by bad people. And since we consider ourselves to be decent human beings, we don’t believe we would ever engage in similar behavior. And yet, most of the time, it is normal people like you and me who push organizations over the ethical edge.
In this episode, we’re joined by Professor Guido Palazzo. Professor Guido is a globally recognised expert on why unethical behaviour occurs in organisations. He is author of the brilliant book Dark Patterns (also available on Audiobook!)

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

What does it mean to take a systemic approach to leadership and change? It means focusing not just on individuals, but on the patterns, relationships,  between people, teams and different parts of the organisation. It also explores how leaders and team members make sense of what’s happening around them. 

Who better to help us explore this powerful approach to understanding the social worlds of organisations than Dr Martin Miksits. Dr. Martin is a leading consultant and academic in this exciting and fascinating field!

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

What happens when the Organisation Development team doesn’t sit in HR – but reports directly to senior leadership instead? What difference does it make reporting into the C-suite? How does it shape the culture, how decisions are made and ways of working? 

Thomas Lindqvist is Senior Director of Organisational Development at King – and he shares his perspective on how OD can play it's full role in the C-suite

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

Learning and Development that moves the needle. How do you design learning for high performance. What kind of friction is slowing your organisation down—and is it the kind that challenges, or the kind that quietly corrodes performance? In Organisation Development, we often look to build capability, improve systems, and align people to strategy. But sometimes the biggest gains come not from adding new layers, but from removing the friction that’s already there.. Our guest expert  Michelle Parry-Slater is on a mission to explore this area and offers a practical take on how to spot and reduce these points of drag

Michelle Parry-Slater
Follow Michelle on LinkedIn
  / michelleparryslater 

Go to the Kairos website:
https://www.kairosmodernlearning.com/

Buy the Learning and Development Handbook here: (use the code at the checkout)
https://www.koganpage.com/hr-learning...

Get your 20% discount code here: LDH2

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

Why does progress feel harder than it should, even when everyone’s working flat out? Why do good teams struggle to have the right conversations, make clear decisions, or follow through effectively?

In this episode of the OrgDev Podcast, we explore the invisible drag on performance: team misalignment. When people act on different assumptions, even the most committed teams end up stuck in confusion, slow decisions and fractured collaboration.

It’s not about effort – it’s about shared understanding. And alignment is what cuts through the fog. But alignment doesn’t just happen.

That’s why we’re joined by Lindsay Uittenbogaard, Founder of Mirror Mirror and a leading expert on team alignment, to discuss:

What alignment really means (beyond just agreement)
Why misalignment is often overlooked
How to make alignment a standard part of how teams work

If you’re leading change, running teams or supporting strategy delivery – this episode is for you

Go to the Mirror Mirror website:
https://mirrormirroralignment.com/

Follow Lindsay and Mirror Mirror on Substack:
https://mirrormirroralignment.substac...

Become a Mirror Mirror Practitioner:
https://mirrormirroralignment.com/get...

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

Agile Leadership.  How do you build an organisation that can adapt – not just survive, but thrive?How do you define organisational agility, and why is it crucial for businesses in today's rapidly changing environment? 

Across organisations, Expectations keep rising, while resources don’t and change just keeps on coming. This week, we’re joined by Dr Linda Holbeach – researcher, author and leading voice in organisation development. Her book The Agile Organisation explores how businesses can become more responsive, innovative and sustainable – not through surface-level changes, but by rethinking leadership, culture, strategy and people practices. 

In this conversation, we talk about:

• What agility really means in today’s world – beyond the buzzwords
• Why resilience, adaptability and innovation are now critical capabilities
• The deep tensions leaders face between control and empowerment
• And what HR and OD teams can do to enable lasting, meaningful change

Buy Linda's books  here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B001IZPJ16/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=3ff53028-63d1-4d26-bc22-4aa4426f753f

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

We'd love to hear from you so send us a message!

Things change when our thinking changes.

So why do so many organisations still rely on outdated mental models to tackle today’s complex challenges?

In this episode, From developing foundational theories like DSRP and VMCL, to shaping national education programmes and training leaders across sectors, we’re joined by two of the most influential figures in the systems thinking world

This conversation explores what it really means to think systemically—and why it matters now more than ever.

Visit the Cabrera Lab website here:
https://www.cabreraresearch.org/

Buy Derek and Laura's books here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Derek...

Subscribe to the Cabrera Lab Podcast here:
   / @cabreralabpodcast  

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 action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’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/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch