What ‘expert’ help or advice do you need to improve a business?

When I was 17 and still at school, I was part of a group protesting against the demolition of several historic buildings to build a new shopping centre in my home city. We sat in the gallery of the local Guildhall, visibly (and probably audibly) unhappy about the inevitable outcome. As we left en masse, the Chair of the Council’s Planning Committee shouted angrily up at the Gallery, “We’ve consulted the experts, and they say it’s good!” And there the shopping centre sits to this day, incongruously monumental, bland and unloved in what had been the medieval core of the city. What price expertise?

Well, you can’t win them all, but that parting remark has stayed with me. It raises interesting questions about what it means to be an expert, especially one, like me, working with companies to improve performance and create better places to work.

We know that the best companies succeed in creating better workplaces not because an expert sold them a blueprint, but because they were willing to learn and to experiment for themselves. ?My team and I have a lot of expertise in the broad principles of ‘what works’ in successful organisational change, but we don’t sell blueprints. Each organisation is different, and every client has to adapt those generic principals to their own particular context. That’s why we call it workplace innovation – a process of creating solutions individual to each company, informed by evidence and experience. We share our expertise, but you are the expert on your own organisation.

So the legacy we offer clients isn’t simply the introduction of better ways of working or a more positive workplace culture. We blend our expertise with yours, giving you the knowledge, skills and practical support you need to deliver an approach to change highly specific to your organisation but firmly grounded in international evidence and experience. Read Chris’s story

Our accredited programmes are for people at every level of your organisation, giving them the practical resources to make change happen - and make it stick. And if you sign up during August, we're offering flexible 8 week programmes for senior and emerging leaders leading to an ILM Award in Leadership & Management from only ￡850.

Contact us to learn more.