May 2024

As we head firmly into summer we’re looking forward to seeing many of you in July at our party, and thought we’d also offer a few options for conversations and learning together between now and then… And of course read on to find out what we’ve been up to both with clients and in terms of developing our practice and thinking.

This year so far has seen us on the road a bit more working face to face on a number of different continents, as well as supporting clients virtually.

We’ve been working with several global organisations helping them position strategic OD work in support of their transformations, thinking not only operating model but also about questions of stance, purpose and brand.

With a major multinational we’ve been looking at approaches to asset management and the social and technical aspects that affect performance both from an organisational efficiency perspective but also in terms of climate and societal roles.

Healthcare remains a dynamic and fascinating environment for our work and we’ve been facilitating participative organisation design in the context of changing strategies and funding landscapes in the UK’s National Health Service.

In other sectors (electronics, fashion, travel & tourism) we’ve been working with HR and Finance Business Partner communities, building their capability, and exploring what is needed of them in support of their new corporate strategies.

We really enjoy this mix of types of organisations. It feeds our curiosity as practitioners, keeps us learning, and hopefully benefits our clients as we share our experiences and thinking, including through case studies: https://metalogue.co.uk/case-studies

Sophy Pern hosted a webinar with ODNE on the topic of working systemically with wellbeing, following on from some earlier thinking around ways to minimise the risks of burnout.

And finally- on the research front Andrew Day and Sophy Pern have been writing up two papers following from the work and thinking they presented at the ODNE conference in the Hague last year around the nature of contracts and potential games in OD consulting- watch out for a series of articles and blogs over the coming few weeks.

If you’d like to talk more about any of the above, do get in touch:?[email protected]

As well as working with clients we’re also enjoying plenty of opportunities to connect and learn with colleagues and friends through the early part of the summer.

A few dates for your diaries:

Dev Mookherjee and Simon Martin will be hosting a session with our friends from Mayvin at the 2024 ODNE conference in Glasgow around broadening our reach as OD practitioners- and they hope to see a few friendly faces there!

There are a few places left for our virtual session on the 20th of May exploring how to work with transformation in practice through an organisational development orientation (including key findings from our practitioner research).?Sign up here – and join Andrew Day and Simon Martin with your lunch boxes.

Our partnership with the People Director and People Partnership networks continues and on May 21st?Sophy Pern will be hosting a session on Organisation Design in difficult times for People Directors, while in July Simon Martin will be talking with HRBPs about building brilliant partnerships with Exec teams.

There’s also been a lot of writing lately, and so for those of you who like to reflect with some reading over coffee, here are a few offers and recommendations.

For organisations moving to a matrix design —?or indeed those who already operate in a matrix Dev Mookherjee and Kevin Power have identified and captured?7 questions to set a matrix organisation up for success, while?Andrew Day and Dev Mookherjee offer some thoughts on team size, and the vexed questions of spans and layers in this article?‘Does team size matter?’

Sarah Beart has been continuing to question?the split between “suits” and “cardigans” (the more technical vs. more social disciplines of change) and arguing for a much more integrated approach in an article in Business Age. She’s also been capturing the consequences of the split for HR leaders, who often find themselves relegated to the dreaded 3 ‘Cs’ of comms, culture and clearing up in the wake of organisation design projects.?More on that in this HR Magazine article.

We hope these prompt some useful thinking and action for you!

In the words of Jack Nicholson “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.?

Some of you may remember we threw a 5th birthday party for ourselves a few years back, and we had so much fun we’re doing it again at the wonderful October Gallery in London this July. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you there: clients, colleagues, partners and friends, and wall to wall sunshine is guaranteed…

Until then — with warm wishes,

Andrew, Dev, Jayne, Kevin, Sarah, Simon, and Sophy