Putting people at the heart of your ambition and change

Venbridge helps organisations throughout their change journey, from understanding the change needed to implementation across different stakeholder groups and scaling up. One of its practitioners is Edward Parkes, who specialises in engaging people on this journey, building confidence and engagement to create lasting change.

Trust a key component of wide-scale change

One of the key elements of managing change at scale is the ability to bring together different mindsets and align them to a common purpose, fostering a collaborative approach to addressing complex problems.

Edward works with teams at all levels to help them adapt to the changes in their environment. He says: “I specialise in the human dimensions of change, bringing together leadership development with organisation development. There should be mutual benefit – helping the organisation grow and supporting the individual in their own aspirations.”

While Edward recognises the importance of governance and action plans, he says equally important is building trust, creating a space where “people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts on what is working and where the challenges are”.

“My real interest is in harnessing collective insights and capabilities and innovating in a practical way to address live strategic challenges. It’s about helping people connect with where they fit in and what their contribution might be. You will only get so far with a strategy and delivery plan, but it’s only when people are engaged in the process, and it comes to life, that things start to change on a more collective and wide-scale basis.”

Ownership vital to continuous improvement

Edward believes understanding the psychology of individual and group behavioural change is a vital foundation to the work Venbridge does. “My focus is on how we can create behavioural change within organisations, adjusting mindsets to drive innovation and continuous improvement. What I’ve found is that it’s as much about creating the energy and the appetite as it is about using the improvement methodologies.”

He describes change as an ongoing process of evolution. Working in this area is like “stepping into a river”, he says. “At any point it is moving.”

Measuring success is traditionally about performance, service quality, and staff engagement, but these attributes take time to build, says Edward. “For me, a critical sign of success is that the organisation owns the intervention and evolves it. I aim to gear up that internal capability and confidence. If people are steering it and forging new territory on their own – that’s when I feel like we’ve reached a place where the change is sustained and sustainable.”