ORA provides a professional context for leaders and managers of institutions

• to examine and articulate their current working experience
• to analyse it in its organisational setting to sharpen up the meaning of that experience in terms of purpose, systems and boundaries
• to grasp opportunities to find, make and take up their organisational roles more effectively
• to transform their contribution towards achieving the corporate aims of their institution

The following pages address each of the above points in more detail for managers and leaders who work in the public, private, professional and voluntary sectors of society.

1  ORA provides a  professional context

• A  series of one-to-one, two hour sessions with an organisational consultant
• A  disciplined and structured way of working which relates to the client professionally, as a person contributing to the work of their organisation through their role
• It focuses on the felt experience of the client
• It gives the space for the client to become aware of how they are behaving in their role, and to take their own authority to make decisions and act accordingly

2  For Leaders and Managers facing one or more of the following situations

• Trying to evolve structures which take account of new technological development and markets
• Where the rate of growth makes it difficult to define and manage boundaries
• Needing to build in initiatives to transform the way the institution works
• Developing new businesses
• Concerned to maintain control while encouraging institutions and empowering staff
• Accepting the need for change in their own behaviour to develop better teamwork
• Defining and developing commitment to the values underpining the organisation’s aim
• Knowing what needs to be done but don't know how to do it
• Conscious that their business is under threat
• Facing a crisis of confidence
• Assessing whether the quality standard of the institution requires continuous improvement programmes
• Involved in mergers and/or in group re-organisation
• Planning for the future with an ageing management and staff with low turnover of people
• Accepting the tension between working with organisational boundaries needed to define accountability and between disregarding the boundaries to develop networks with customers, suppliers, competitors
• Needing to improve the effectiveness of a management team  

3  To examine and articulate current working experience

• The content of sessions is provided by the client and accepted at face value as accurate
• The focus of attention is the manager's 'organisation-in-the-mind' which inevitably evolves as he/she carries out his/her work
• The assumption is that when a manager works in role his/her behaviour is not haphazard or disconnected but reflects a coherent pattern in the mind which can be traced out in discussion
• That mental pattern is formed around interactions in the company/organisation system, which are being influenced by and are influencing others
• The space provided in each session enables clients to examine their ideas, actions and feelings about these inter-relations and their outcome without being placed under stress
• The time given, including the spacing of sessions, allows reflection to bring to the surface issues which are normally hidden, for further work
• Being listened to carefully allows the client to articulate points which have been difficult either to frame cogently or openly to admit to others

4  Through analysing experience in an organisational frame which sharpens up the meaning of that experience

• The person's experience is understood corporately in relation to the institution, not primarily at the level of the individual
• Hypotheses are offered as to why the client finds himself/herself in the current situation, and is behaving as they do
• Hypotheses are also developed about the performance and behaviour of other managers and staff in relation to the client's perceptions of their own behaviour
• Hypotheses are developed looking at the institution as a system, with interdependent parts which mutually affect the functioning of every part; and hence to understand why the system is functioning as it is
• Clients are invited to test these hypotheses against their experience of the real world, both in the sessions and back at work
• Hypotheses lead the client to explore how far their experience may be related to values instinctively held by managers and staff but which are actually incompatible with the institution's overall purpose
• Clients are encouraged to examine the external influences and contexts which might explain why things are happening as they are
• Work with the consultant stimulates thought about possibilities and opportunities for action and for considering new strategies and innovation
• Motivations may be surfaced which have hitherto been unrecognised and hence not fully mobilised or taken into account
• Clients learn to appreciate that their feelings are important evidence when studying organisational behaviour
• Managers are enabled to become more sensitive to the feelings of others, both as individuals and groups, to discern what those feelings signify organisationally and therefore to know what to do about them

5    Finding, making and taking up roles leads to action

• The knowledge of the meaning of their experience gives them a tool to determine priorities and the incentive to act
• Grasping new opportunities may involve finding and recruiting outside resources and skills
• Assessment of the extra capability needed to achieve the institution's aims, and knowing how to go and get it by reassessing their own resources
• Enabling their thoughts, reactions, and feelings to be marshalled into a disciplined pattern, known as organisation-in-the-mind, with which to manage their own behaviour and work professionally
• Becoming more alert to the expectations of others, being able to receive them and manage them, but not to be controlled by them
• Realising that working-in-role enables people to focus on achieving  corporate aims rather than solely satisfying personal goals
• Discovering that a manager working-in-role enables others to experience the freedom to work-in-role and hence to manage themselves
• Initiatives can be taken by exercising authority, allowing others to be self-accountable for the consequences of their actions
• Becoming aware that finding, making and taking roles is painful and uncertain, a continual process of trial and error, requiring patience, persistence and skills

6  Transforming the client's contribution towards achieving the corporate aims of their institutions

• Appreciating that only if managers have defined the aims relevant to current best practice of their systems can they find effective roles to work from
• Accepting that unless aims can be regularly achieved they are not real aims but dreams and myths
• Being accountable for corporate performance, effectiveness and quality they realise that any transformation will probably have to start with themselves
• Differentiating between managing the process so that others can manage themselves to engage with it, and leading the people to motivate them to do it well and effectively to their full capacity
• Believing in the capability of the work-force and recognising how too easily managers under-estimate it
• Allowing subordinates to take ownership of their own work while holding them accountable for their results
• Assessing that if the ORA process has been effective for themselves, its principles can be applied in other ways for managers and staff at different levels: for example through individual and team sessions for senior managers and group work for middle managers, supervisors and staff