Hi everyone, I’m Harry Malcolm and I hope to become a Board Member of ODN Europe.

I’d like to bring several things to the Board:

My whole self- best friend and husband to Hanna; dad to Hillevi (6) and Harald (3); gravel cyclist; recently diagnosed type one diabetic. Pretty self-aware, full of foibles and passionate about supporting organisations to be humanistic and to work with complexity, not against it.

It’s not long ago that my career turned towards OD and I remember what it was like to discover this is where I wanted to work and feeling alone in this newly discovered treasure of an occupation. That motivates me to help develop an association that is welcoming to everyone interested in organisation development; an association that supports its members across Europe to develop, whether they are new to the field or have been around for decades. I relish developing organisations from people, strategic and business perspectives and I approach my work with calmness, curiosity, challenge, integrity, and empathy.

I have broad organisational and personal experience from life and work:

• Industries: renewable energy, product development and central government (multiple departments). I currently work in the OD team of the UK Home Office
• Ownership forms: family-owned, publicly listed and state owned
• Roles: strategy, commercial, business development, lean transformation, OD&D (including partnering executive teams and boards), primarily as an internal consultant, with a small amount of external consulting
• Countries: 12 years living in Sweden, and three years in Australia, Finland, US and Spain collectively; 21 years in the UK. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with teams in Norway, China, Hungary and Germany
• I would bring my international network, my Scandinavian language skills and business development experience to help the association achieve its aim of being truly European

My time with such varied colleagues and organisational priorities means I understand the OD needs of different types of organisations in different places and I’m curious about discovering more. I can translate this knowledge into how we offer a great service to our members, attract new colleagues, create the conditions for member development and how we work with partners. ODN Europe is a wonderful organisation today and it has huge potential!

Thank you for considering me.

Harry.

The most valued gift I would really like to bring is the opportunity to be part of a rich, diverse, learning community to encourage inspired debate and discussion that builds our global OD community and holds as a beacon for our OD profession going forward.

It’s a pleasure and a joy to offer an application to go onto the Board of ODN Europe, in this the strangest of times and years.   I’m passionate about the practice of OD and the difference and impact our field can make.  For me, more than ever with all the challenges in the world I think this is a time to continue to build our OD community and connections.  To be ambitious and bold and create valuable spaces to bring the richness, our diversity and difference of thought and practice together.

I’ve been a member of ODN Europe since it began and have really valued and wanted to be part of an OD network that aims to build a community and move continually forward the theory and practice of OD.  It seems to me now is a great opportunity to be part of helping shape a future vision for our network.

To this role I would bring my passion, commitment and care for our OD field as an experienced OD practitioner and developer.   As a national OD lead and influencer in the NHS I can share our experience and voice of the ‘internal’ practitioner and share the joys, challenges and tensions we are experiencing in the field of OD.  The insight from leading a national OD network built with our community on key values of co-creation, collaboration and inclusivity.

A bit about me –  I live in the South West in Bristol, UK and I juggle a busy home and work life with two teenagers keeping me on my toes.  As a national OD lead I work within the National Health Service(NHS) in the UK to develop OD capability across our service, ultimately to support and enable change and transformation in the most challenging times within the NHS.

I have a beautiful family – a wife I’ve loved since I was 13 and two artist boys I’m proud of. I’m based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania – since 1994 I have worked for the Center for Development in Management Foundation, which I have been running as executive director since 1997. I have worked with different OD hats (trainer, coach, facilitator, consultant, project manager, etc.) in Romania and in other countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Slovenia, Hungary, etc.) with pragmatic and ambitious leaders, from giant multinationals to SMEs, or EU funded projects.

I graduated in Automation and Computers in 1990 and I hold a PhD in management since 2016. I’m an accredited coach and Human systems dynamics (HSD) associate.

I am member of the board of directors of Hr Club (largest Romanian HR association) for the last 13 years – there I was involved both in strategic management and as volunteer for various projects. I also was member of the board of administration of two for profit companies (PLC), representing major shareholders.

I believe that the power of a professional association lies in its ability to create synergy between its members, capitalizing on the resources of experience and goodwill of its members, and the quality of bridges with other organisations or people. That’s way CDM decided to be one of the ODNE supporters ( as community builder) and we organised OD Masterclass sessions in Bucharest and in Cluj.

I see in ODNE a platform that allows the acceleration of learning by building relationships between its members, productivity for the organizations we serve (or come from), an open international structure, flexible and adaptable that allows the sharing of ideas, good practices, doubts or mistakes. That’s

The main contribution I’d like to have is to support the development of strong and useful spaces that allow ODNE members to contribute to the flourishing of people in organizations, by:

1. The qualitative increase of the ODNE spaces (structures, processes, etc.), through:
2. The improvement of the key internal processes ODNE has: strategic, decision-making, operational – and their visibility to members and other partners
3. Access to resources (from members, companies, European funds, etc.)

iii. Nurturing functional action groups and communities of practices for various dimensions or interests (e.g geography, branches of OD field, methods and processes, etc.)

1. Involvement through participation of members and bridges to other organisations
2. Defining and improving some key services to ODNE members
3. Attracting new members, by
4. Regional and national structures that attract both internal and external OD people
5. Actions different levels (local, etc.)
6. A more active presence of ODNE in the rest of Europe, using existing expertise
7. Recognition of ODNE as a representative voice in the OD field and also other social movements, by being more active in:
8. Conversations about OD values and contributions, in org. and society
9. Joint actions (with organisations with similar values and missions)

As a Board Member voted for by you, I will of course bring my personal and professional qualities to this role, and most importantly I will also bring my energy, experience and effort to work collaboratively with Board colleagues on the future of ODN Europe.

I have been an OD practitioner for over 20 years and have worked with organisations from the inside out, in order to bring about development and change, I have focused on person centred approaches that help others grow through learning and I hold myself to the highest standard by asking myself a very specific question – ‘Have I left others feeling stronger and more capable?’

In recent feedback I was told that I am ‘confident with drive and experience and have a great energy and a real curiosity and can pretty much handle anything.’ This will be how I will represent you on the Board. None of these things come without intentional effort and using my strengths, and passions to make the right decisions for the network.

I have worked on myself as much as I have worked on my professional experience and capability, this is important because to be able to represent you and to be able to bring knowledge, ideas, innovation, analysis, tenacity and competence to the role will require me to be my very best self. I will ask for help if I need it and will be true to the purpose of the network and the Board.

My Board experience includes ‘Community Gateway’, a University initiative working with community groups to share expertise to achieve common public goals. The Guardian Public Leaders Board (2017) and I have remained part of a core group that meet with The Guardian once a year to discuss public leadership challenges in the UK and I am a member and reviewer for the British Academy of Management (BAM)

I am a published author, mostly notably ‘Developing Resilient Organizations (Kogan Page, 2014), ‘Developing Mental Toughness’ (Kogan Page, 2015) and ‘Public Value – Purpose, Passion and Perseverance: creating public value through public sector leadership’ (Routledge, 2019).

I believe in people and the power of relationships; we rarely do anything on our own and this should be a focus for the Board and the offer to the network. How I behave matters to me, it is not enough to be right, you have to be able to listen and to influence what really matters. I want to give my effort, energy and enthusiasm to the Board and for the ODN Europe network.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.