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This episode is part of a special new mini-series called Conversations with Tony. 

'Our' lovely Tony Nicholls has decided to ‘stop working’ from the end of March 2025. (He still finds it hard to use the ‘r’ word...). So we decided to make the most of him for these last few weeks that we have him . and try to bottle his wisdom and experience / milk him for content before he goes. We will be releasing one of these short 10min episodes every week for the next 8 weeks – which will take us up to his last week. Each episode will focus on a different topic – a different element of his time at Mayvin and/or his career at large. 

In this first episode our CEO - Martin Saville asks Tony about his change in career from a background in sales and the corporate world and then transitioning into the world of OD. How was that transition and what did he hold onto as he moved from one world to the next! 

Please do feel free to get in touch with us or Tony directly if you would like to pass on any well wishes for his 'r' word.

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In today’s episode you can listen back to highlights from our mission-led government event, hosted by Sophie Tidman and Carolyn Norgate. Who offered up our thoughts on the theory vs reality of a mission-led government, with some frameworks, techniques and methodology for how to begin implementing this new approach into the living system of the civil service and beyond.

We were joined by lots of lovely members of our community for some rich discussions and sense-making around what we are noticing about the new government’s mission-led approach, what’s new, what’s different and the potential challenges are to working in this way. We’re hearing that there is real energy and appetite for change, but people don’t know how or where to start. How do we harness that energy instead of dousing it with the ‘cold bucket of water’ that can be the pressures of delivering on the day job too.

You will hear Sophie and Carolyn referring to some slides, if you would like a copy of the slides used at the event please just drop us a line and we’d be happy to send you a copy. 

If you work in the civil service, just to let you know we have some open and closed offerings on the government campus should you wish to delve deeper into this with us. 

If you would like to talk more on mission-led with us, or anything else, please don't hesitate to get in touch, we're always happy to have an informal chat. 

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In this episode we are thrilled to be joined by Kerry Smith - Chief People Officer and Julie Jones - Director of Talent and Organisational Development at the British Heart Foundation, who talk to Mayvin Director Sarah Fraser about the BHF's 'Leading Our Future' leadership development programme. Mayvin is very proud to have worked with BHF in the innovative design and delivery of this award nominated programme (the awards nights are coming up soon - please keep your fingers crossed!)

The programme included 120 senior leaders across the organisation and took place over approximately a year, including whole cohort community days, small peer group learning sets, collective inquiry events and 'masterclasses' on capability building.  

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Sarah Fraser and Ed Shrager discuss the integration of AI into organisational practices. Ed highlights AI's potential in streamlining data crunching and reducing human bias, emphasizing its role in enhancing human collaboration rather than replacing it. They explore AI's use in job description creation, leveraging generative AI with retrieval augmentation (RAG) to improve consistency and efficiency. Ed stresses the importance of training AI to reflect organisational values and the need for human oversight to ensure AI's outputs align with strategic goals. They also discuss AI's role in cultural analysis and the iterative process of refining AI-generated insights.

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In today's episode, we have all the Carolyns, Carolyn Norgate and Carolyn Parker got together after our event leadership in a new era to discuss what came up and the insights we gleaned from it. We hosted the event just three weeks after the election, as we were already noticing a change in the ask from our clients with the new Labour government, our guests talked about feeling purposeful and hopeful and excited to see a shift happening. 

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In today’s episode our very own Operations Team talk about being a self-managed team.

Our operations team cover a wide range of responsibilities (such as accounting, compliance, HR, programme accreditation and client management). They are the rhythm and base of Mayvin, which helps us to do our best work with clients.

As Mayvin has grown, our operations team has grown too, and until last summer it grew with a traditional hierarchical structure. Last summer, we found ourselves with senior roles vacant, and so we put it to the team – would you like a new manager? Or would you like to experiment with self-management? 

They choose to become a self-managed team. A year later, 3 out of our 8 strong team, came together to discuss:

• Why they made the decision to become a self-managed team
• What the transition involved
• What foundations were already in place that helped
• What challenges there have been
• How they have recruited into the team
• And what the impact has been, which includes the team feeling more confident, that their voice is louder, that they have autonomy for change and that they find themselves stepping up and horizon scanning to protect this special way of working.

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Carolyn Norgate and James Traeger discussed the challenges of leading in a world with increasing ambiguity, particularly in the post-pandemic workplace. They emphasised the importance of trust, culture, and leadership in creating a productive and engaged workforce, and highlighted the need for organisations to prioritise creating conditions that foster trust, creativity, and safety. They also shared their experiences designing and delivering a leadership development program for a large non-profit organisation, and emphasised the importance of continuous learning and development for leaders in today's rapidly changing organisational landscape.

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In this episode Our Principal Consultants Tony Nicholls and Carolyn Norgate talk all things programmes – when is a programme not a programme? 

A client came to us recently saying ‘we don’t have time or budget for a traditional programme and we have a large number of colleagues to reach. Could Mayvin create something with impact using just two short sessions?' The answer was yes!
 Tony and Carolyn explain how. Talking through the key elements of our programmes that are consistent from these small bitesize workshops right up to our full length accredited traditional programmes and our Masters. 

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In this podcast episode, Carolyn Parker discusses her journey into OD and her excitement about joining the Mayvin team. She shares her background in psychology and HR, emphasizing the importance of pausing, reflecting, and fostering human connections in organisations. Carolyn highlights OD's focus on improving performance and relationships, as well as the personal and professional growth it offers.

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Today we're joined by Ash Thomas, previously with the British Heart Foundation and now a principal consultant at Mayvin. We're revisiting our mini-series "Why OD" to delve into Ash's unique journey into organisation development.

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