Supporting organisations with a cause
to evolve and succeed
As an NGO or social enterprise, your mission is urgent and important.
But there’s always more to do. Your vision is evolving—so must your organisation.
Is your success presenting you with unanticipated strategic challenges?
Has your organisation outgrown its current structure and systems?
Are there internal disagreements about the right direction?
When your organisation is no longer functioning well, or your people are not aligned, it can be incredibly frustrating and painful. Although everyone is working hard, you are not getting anywhere. Your scarce resources are not being used effectively. Eventually your best people will leave to find their meaning elsewhere.
The context in which we all live and work is complex and changes quickly. It might be leading you to re-think the way you work, it might be forcing you into painful choices because of income challenges or dramatic changes in demand for what you do—or it may present new opportunities for creating change.
It’s time to surface and address the core strategic questions, set priorities, and bring your people through the change needed.
I can help you clarify your options and take effective action.
“Janet worked with Climate Catalyst for almost six months, in the earliest stages of our journey designing and building our ambitious new venture. The advice and support she provided on organisational design and recruitment was tremendously valuable. Janet is strategic, thoughtful and creative, drawing wisely on her long experience as a leader in the international environmental movement. She also brings a sense of calm, positive energy and humour to every conversation, which makes her a pleasure to work with.”
Stephen Hale, Chief Architect, Climate Catalyst
“We had the pleasure of working with Janet in the set-up of a new global platform for action. Janet was sensitive to our needs in creating a diverse but also action-oriented platform. Janet helped us to focus on the core matter at hand and brought her unique organizational experience to help us. Feedback from our international partners was also extremely positive: focusing on how calm and effective Janet is.”
Rebecca Collyer, European Climate Foundation
“We contracted Janet to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the joint leadership structure at Start Network. The assignment entailed investigating the impact of the model on the performance of the organisation in terms of decision-making, team effectiveness, organisational positioning, and risk management. We found Janet thoughtful, insightful, sensitive to nuances and emphathetic to those involved. She was able to sift through many differences of opinion and provide clear recommendations to help us move forward. Janet drew on her own experience and her passion for leadership to provide a clear and succinct report. She was a delight to work with.”
Noreen Gumbo, Start Network Trustee
“It was a pleasure to work with Janet and also productive. Her support to the leadership team enabled us to step away from issues which had been holding us back, reach agreement on our shared purpose and begin to plan the future. Janet was an empathetic listener who provided insightful inputs for us individually and as a group. We made a lot of progress in a short time period.”
Mary Clegg, Chief Executive, Green Party of England and Wales
Who am I?
I bring to my clients three decades of leadership and change experience, in change-making organisations. From campaigning directly for change and leading the global climate campaign in the first part of my career, I moved to a focus on organisational development, leadership development and people & culture: where people meet purpose. Now I combine the two.
To ensure that people were taken seriously as Greenpeace’s most important asset, I put in place the organisation’s first global People Strategy, the core of which was a full-spectrum leadership development program. To help ensure integrity and fairness, I led the development of a comprehensive integrity system, setting in place clear expectations and a simple but effective way of dealing fairly with any breaches.
In short—I have managed the issues you are facing, in one of the biggest and fastest moving NGOs in the world. I know what it takes to lead change in a mission-driven organisation when hard choices need to be made.
This experience, together with my calm, direct and empathetic approach, will help us get quickly to the root of the problem(s) so you can develop an ambitious but realisable roadmap, specifically tailored for your organisation. I offer a personal approach combined with professional attention to your needs—not an off-the-shelf process from a big consultancy. I’ll stick with you through some of the hardest unsung work there is, to get you back on track.
Keen to resolve the strategic issues that are stopping your organisation from soaring?
The bird featured on these web pages is a kea. It’s a New Zealand parrot that lives in the mountains—the only alpine parrot in the world. They are intelligent, curious, beautiful, cheeky, funny, gregarious and a little bit fierce, just like you.
Photo credits
Mountain with boardwalk: by Roell de Ram on Unsplash
Janet Dalziell: by ASA Fotograaf Tessa Witvoet
Soaring kea: by Karl Anderson on Unsplash