Organisations everywhere are being asked to change faster than their structures and habits allow. Public bodies are reforming services, companies are reorganising around customers and technology, and NGOs are adapting to new funding models. Each of these shifts depends on employees adopting new behaviours, and culture, the shared assumptions about how things are really done, is often the decisive factor in whether a strategy succeeds.

The Strategic Change, Culture & Organisational Development Training Course gives participants an integrated toolkit for leading planned change. It begins with diagnosing the organisation as a system and understanding the forces driving and resisting change. Participants then study how culture forms, how to assess it and how leaders can shape it deliberately. The middle of the week focuses on designing and leading change programmes, from building a case for change and engaging stakeholders to communication, sponsorship and handling resistance. The final days examine organisational development as a discipline, its values and its main interventions at individual, team and organisation level, and close with measuring and sustaining change.

Participants learn through case studies, diagnostic instruments, group simulations and reflective practice. Each participant applies the models to a real change in their own organisation, building a diagnosis and an outline change and culture plan during the course.

On finishing the programme, participants will be equipped to:

• Diagnose an organisation using systemic models such as 7-S, Weisbord and Burke-Litwin.
• Assess current and desired culture using the Cultural Web and the Competing Values Framework.
• Select and adapt change models, including Kotter, ADKAR and Bridges, to their context.
• Evaluate change readiness and map stakeholder support and resistance.
• Design a change communication and engagement plan with clear sponsorship roles.
• Choose organisational development interventions for individuals, teams and the whole organisation.
• Measure the progress of change and embed new behaviours in systems and routines.

The course is relevant to those who lead, support or advise on organisational change, such as:

• HR directors, HR business partners and people managers
• Organisational development and talent practitioners
• Change managers and transformation programme leads
• Senior and middle managers leading restructures or new strategies
• Strategy and performance management officers
• Public service reform and institutional strengthening officers
• Internal and external management consultants
• NGO country directors and operations leads managing transitions

Participants will take away:

• An organisational diagnosis of a live change situation using a recognised model.
• A current-versus-desired culture profile and priorities for culture shift.
• A stakeholder and resistance map with engagement actions.
• An outline change plan with sponsorship, communication and milestones.
• A menu of OD interventions matched to common organisational problems.
• Indicators for tracking adoption and sustaining change over time.

The programme draws on practitioner methods throughout:

• Diagnostic instruments completed for participants' own organisations
• Extended case studies of mergers, public service reforms and turnarounds
• Simulations and role plays of change conversations with resistant stakeholders
• Facilitated reflection on participants' experience of leading or living through change
• Peer consulting groups that challenge and refine each change plan

Participants who complete the diagnosis and change planning exercises and attend the full course are presented with a CPD-accredited Certificate of Completion issued by Vision Reach Global Consultancy.