Gestalt is a German word. The closest translation is ‘whole’, ‘pattern’ or ‘form’. It has the sense that meaning cannot be found from breaking things down into parts but rather from the appreciation of the whole. In other words, Gestalt is a holistic process. It...
Back in the 1970s, less than 10 per cent of musicians in US orchestras were women. This had nothing to do with a feminine talent deficit it was more about unconscious bias and diversity. Major orchestra directors believed they were making rational decisions based on...
Last time, I began delineating the need for and role of diversity diversity in the process of organisational development. Given that none of us can be entirely free of presupposition, the task of cultivating a bias-free organisation may seem like an impossible one....
Linking organisational development and diversity may seem incongruous, sort of linking goat’s milk and lettuce. However, it’s a highly salient relationship. Organisational development aims to enable organisations to navigate the changes necessary for survival and...
When leaders want to make their organisations more efficient in realising strategic goals, many of them resort to behaviourist, carrot-and-stick approaches. However, there’s a big problem: despite all the scientific-sounding talk of “measurable” KPIs and clearly...
Dialogic Organisation Development views organisations as meaning-making systems, continually recreated and sustained by multiple conversations occurring between the actors and agents who populate them. “Reality” in this new paradigm is neither an objective fact nor a...