//those chewy conversations...

There will always be a mythical element to organizational change theories and practices, not least because humans like to create and tell stories. In that narrative process, however, what can happen is that heroic elements are amplified, uncomfortable data is edited out, and the tale is simplified to make the telling and swallowing a lot easier. After all, it is a lot easier to swallow a smooth and nugget-like change meme than something slightly more nuanced that requires chewing before digesting it. This means it is as important to acknowledge and engage with myths as it is to bust them. In this webinar, Mark Hughes, author of many organizational change journal papers and books and a critical voice in the field of organizational change over two decades, joined me for a conversation, as we explored what he learned over a long career as an academic, researcher and practitioner. In this session, we explored with Mark three of the biggest myths he attempted to bust during his career: - The mythology of research-informed teaching in universities - The 70% of organizational change failure myth? - The myth that the shift from managing change to leading change was empirically rather than culturally informed. Mark’s Myths and where to find them... 1. “The desirability of research-informed teaching has always appeared an eminently sensible belief. However, the research in support of this belief was lacking. This was the myth that inspired me.” (Mark Hughes) Hughes, M. (2005) The mythology of research and teaching relationships in universities. In Barnett, R.(ed) Reshaping the university: New relationships between research, scholarship and teaching. Open University Press, Maidenhead. 2. “Academics and practitioners regularly asserted a Harvard Business School statistic that 70% of change initiatives fail. I decided to explore the evidence in support of this assertion, discovering an absence of evidence. This was the myth that made me.” (Mark Hughes) Hughes, M. (2011) Do 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives really fail? Journal of Change Management, 11(4), pp.451-464. 3. “Over two decades, I witnessed a profound shift in interest amongst both academics and practitioners from managing change to leading change. I wanted to know why this shift had happened. I concluded that this shift had been rhetorically rather than empirically driven; this was the myth that broke me.” (Mark Hughes) Hughes, M. (2016) The leadership of organizational change. Routledge, London. Hughes, M. (2016) Leading changes: Why transformation explanations fail. Leadership, 12(4), pp.449-469.

What Silver Bullets and unconscious processes of shame and anxiety can tell us about nonsense... Unbeknownst to each other, Steve Hearsum and Paul Sweeney spent time in their respective dens in the past few years penning two different, yet weirdly connected, books... Paul’s frustrations with what he views as nonsense thinking, and the resulting practices, spawned Magnetic Nonsense: A Short History of Bullshit at Work and How to Make It Go Away. Steve was fascinated by the never-ending appetite for Silver Bullet, quick fix solutions and the psychological processes that drive the collusive behaviours behind the buyers and sellers of these things. That inquiry gave birth to No Silver Bullet: Bursting the bubble of the organisational quick fix. The overlaps are several, and we decided it might be fun to have a conversation that then opens into a wider inquiry with others. This was a packed and provocative hour, marred only by my failure to have my self-view on so I am merely present aS a disembodied voice. A god-like being hosting and facilitating... If you do not know me personally, just think Brad Pitt on a slightly off day.

Dave Ulrich joined Steve Hearsum for the latest in a series of conversations about the functional collusion that exists around 'Silver Bullets' and quick fix solutions to complex problems in organisations. Leaders are under huge pressure to find answers to complex challenges and there is no shortage of people out willing to meet that need. Whether it be the packaging up of old ideas as new fads, or crafting elegantly polished sales pitches around methodologies, tools and techniques, you don’t have to look far to find purveyors of Silver Bullets. Dave and Steve, plus our audience, had a rich and engaging conversation, not short on opinion and stories from real life, that touched many of the issues that arise when leaders look for certainty when little exists, yet many are prepared to sell solutions that purport to work, whether they be new fads or old packaged as new.

Business schools and executive education, and arguably many of the organisations that they support - consultancies, accountancy firms, business gurus, etc - are based on a fairly narrow set of assumptions about the nature of organising. Market managerialism dominates and, whilst there are exceptions, the vast majority of what is taught and researched assumes that we design work in a narrow way. - Hierarchy is necessary; - Power is concentrated in particular roles; - The departments/functions we create exist to support this way of organising, not to challenge it or suggest alternatives; - 'Value' is still largely defined primarily in monetary terms, rather than social or environmental value; - Anyone who dissents is categorised as being an outlier, outsider or utopian. Martin Parker is the author of a book that challenge's the orthodoxy that business schools are fit for purpose when it comes to developing leaders and managers, and offers a radical solution: shut down all the business schools and replace them with Schools For Organising.

This is the first of two webinars that were held on the same theme. Naomi Stanford is a well-known consultant, theorist and practitioner, most often associated with Organisation Design. Naomi has ample experience of leaders and organisations flailing around looking for guaranteed ‘right’ answers and solutions, and sometimes a magical 'Silver Bullet', looking to her, as the expert, to provide one. The reality is, there is #NoSilverBullet. Naomi joined Steve Hearsum, writer and researcher of a new book on the functional collusion that surrounds Silver Bullets, as they discussed the search for guaranteed answers by leaders, organisations, consultants and practitioners of the various different disciplines of organisational change (HR, OrgDev, Change, OrgDes etc). Questions that drove our inquiry included: - How far is the projection of expertise useful and when does it become an ethical consideration? - What can we learn from our experiences as consultants and practitioners about how to work with clients' expectations, however unrealistic they might be? - What happens, as it has with Naomi, when guru status is conferred and how does that amplify the problem? - In amongst all the theories, can there ever be one that passes for a Silver Bullet? There will be two webinars, catering for different timezones, and both will be recorded. The format of the session will be a short dialogue between Naomi and Steve, short break out sessions and a Q&A.

This is a recording of the first of two webinars that were held on the same theme. The phrase "There is no Silver Bullet for....." is increasingly used in conjunction with many of the complex challenges we face today. COVID-19 on its own has repeatedly been talked about in terms of how there is no simple answer to both the virus or the social, political and economic challenges it has catalysed. In the last #NoSilverBullet webinars, we considered what drives the need for certainty. This time, Steve Hearsum was joined by Dr Mark Cole, author of Radical OD and a soon to be published book on Unlocking Leadership. We considered how Leadership Development - in how it is construed, bought, sold and delivered - is one more facet of the collusion that goes on, often unconsciously, that there are certain answer to complex problems. As Mark himself would say, "it is the myth of fixability." The questions we covered included things like: - Leadership Development is the answer to what question? - To what extent are we as purveyors of or practitioners in Leadership Development culpable in creating a false sense of security in clients? - What role do business schools and executive education play in this dance? - What needs to change, if anything, to change this culture of co-dependency?