Renewing as You Go
Renewing as You Go keeps the development solution your programme delivered fit and improving, and builds your own people's ability to run and evolve it. Your organisation's own habit of reviewing and renewing becomes standing practice, so the change keeps working long after the programme ends. You can keep us on a light ongoing rhythm alongside that, or take it fully in-house and run it yourselves.
Renewing as You Go keeps your delivered development solution fit and improving, and we work on six things: making your own renewal practice a standing habit, making the new ways the normal ways, aligning the rewards and routines that keep them in place, spreading the practice so it outlives the people who started it, sensing and calibrating against your baseline, and refreshing as conditions change. The result is a solution that stays embedded and keeps getting better, owned by your own people.
This is a blend you scope with us. We build the internal ownership, feedback loops and review routines your people need to sustain and keep evolving the solution themselves. From there you decide how much you hold and how much we hold: take that capability and run it alone, keep us on a light ongoing rhythm of re-measurement and health-checks, or both. The capability we build into your people is the core, and the ongoing rhythm is optional and deliberately lighter than the programme.
Less than one-third of leaders say their transformations both improved performance and sustained those improvements over time. Keeping a delivered change fit is its own piece of work, and that is what this stage does (McKinsey & Company, 'Losing from day one', 2021).
When this helps
Renewing as You Go is where a delivered change becomes a lasting one. These are the situations we are most often asked into. If one sounds like yours, this is a good place to start.
The situation | How it helps |
|---|---|
You delivered a change and want it to last | Embeds the solution as normal practice and builds the routines that keep it improving, so it stays in place rather than fading once attention moves on |
A past change faded once the programme ended | Puts named owners, feedback loops and a review rhythm behind the solution, so it keeps working after the initial push is over |
You want to own and run it in-house | Builds your people's own renewal practice, so they can evaluate and evolve this solution, and future changes, without us |
You want a light second opinion on call, not a big programme | Gives you an outside eye at the cadence you choose, so you get periodic health-checks without the weight of another engagement |
The world is shifting and the solution needs to flex | Sets a refresh cycle that reads the change and adjusts the solution to new pressures, so it keeps fitting the organisation as the organisation moves |
You inherited a delivered solution that is quietly decaying | Reads what is still holding against the original baseline and rebuilds the ownership and routines that keep it fit, so it recovers rather than drifts further |
What keeping it fit involves
We keep six things fit, and make each one a practice your people can run:
- Make renewal your own standing practice - We stand up your people's own habit of reviewing and adapting the solution: named owners, a community of practice, and the feedback routines that turn each review into the next small improvement. This is the change-and-renewal capacity we used to bring as our method, handed over as the thing you keep, so it outlives the people who started it.
- Make the new ways the normal ways - We embed the solution as how things are done here, socialised into onboarding, role-modelled by leaders, and reflected in everyday language and expectations. It becomes standard practice rather than a project people remember.
- Align the rewards, roles and routines that keep it in place - We tune incentives, responsibilities and management routines so continuing the change is the path of least resistance. That closes the gap that lets organisations slip back to old habits once the programme ends.
- Spread it so it outlives the people who started it - We diffuse the practice across teams and bake it into induction and documentation. The solution survives leaders moving on and staff turning over.
- Sense and calibrate against your baseline - A light recurring read against the original Organisational Development Diagnostic baseline spots drift early and shows what is holding. It references that first measurement to recalibrate, and does not re-run the full assessment.
- Refresh as conditions change - On a periodic cadence an outside eye reviews the health of the solution and adjusts it to new pressures. It keeps fitting the organisation as the organisation moves.
Why these six
These six are what makes a delivered development solution persist rather than decay. The first four make it stick: your own renewal practice keeps it evolving, embedding it makes it normal, aligned rewards and routines make continuing it easy, and spreading it makes it survive people leaving. On their own those four can still drift out of fit as the world changes, so the last two keep them honest: a light read against your baseline catches drift early, and a periodic refresh adjusts the solution to new conditions.
The six follow the established organisational development frameworks for institutionalising an intervention and building a self-renewing organisation, so the work covers what makes a change last, not just a reminder to keep going. We use them to make sure nothing that holds a change in place is left out, rather than as a model to run at you.
How it works
The method produces one thing: a delivered development solution that stays fit and keeps improving, owned by your own people. It works as a blend you scope with us, and runs in four modes.
- We scope how much you hold and how much we hold - We agree the balance with you up front: how much of the sustaining your own people take on, and how much light support you keep from us. The core is the capability we build into your organisation. The ongoing rhythm is optional, and the balance can shift over time as your people take more on.
- We build the capability into your people - We stand up the named owners, the network or community of practice, and the review routines and feedback loops that let your people sustain and evolve the solution. This is the deliverable, not the scaffolding: your organisation comes away able to run its own renewal.
- We set a light rhythm you run - We put in place a recurring, light read against the stage-01 diagnostic baseline, a regular review, and a refresh cadence. Your people run it, so the rhythm continues whether or not we stay involved.
- We step back, and stay available as much or as little as you want - Once your people are running it, we hand it over and move to the edge. You choose whether to keep us on call for periodic health-checks and a fresh outside view, at whatever cadence suits you, or to run it all yourselves.
The thinking behind the method
A delivered change does not stay fit on its own. Once the programme ends and attention moves elsewhere, a solution with no owner and no rhythm quietly slips back toward the old ways. So the work here is not another push of energy, it is a standing capability and a light rhythm that carry the solution forward without one.
That is why the capability we build into your people is the core of the offer rather than the by-product. In the earlier stages, building your capability is the method that carries the work. Here the owners, the feedback loops and your own renewal practice are the deliverable itself. The ongoing rhythm sits alongside as an option, because some organisations want an outside eye on call and some want to run it entirely themselves, and both are right depending on where your people are.
What you get
By the end, you have four things:
- The solution stays fit and keeps improving - the development change your programme delivered stays embedded as normal practice and keeps getting better, rather than decaying back to old ways.
- Your own people own and run it - named internal owners, a community of practice, and your organisation's own renewal habit, so you can sustain and evolve this solution, and future changes, yourselves.
- A light rhythm and the feedback loops in place - a regular read against your baseline, a review, and a refresh cadence, set up and running inside the organisation.
- The option of us on call - a light ongoing partnership at the cadence you choose, for periodic health-checks and an outside view, or none at all if you would rather run it alone.
Owned by your people, supported by us, as much or as little as you need, and that balance shifts your way over time.
When we step back - and staying on call
This is the final stage, so it closes the loop rather than opening another. Once your owners, routines and renewal practice are running, we hand the solution fully to your people. It is now theirs to sustain and evolve, and the capability we built is the thing you keep.
From there you decide what you want from us. Some organisations keep us on a light rhythm of periodic health-checks and a fresh outside view, at whatever cadence suits them. Others take it entirely in-house. Either is a good answer. And when the world moves enough that a bigger reset is needed, the light re-measurement loops back to the diagnostic, and the four-stage cycle begins again on a clear read of where you now stand.
Where this sits
Renewing as You Go is the final stage in how we approach organisational development. It follows the Organisational Development Diagnostic, whose baseline it re-measures against, and the Organisational Development Programme, whose delivered solution it keeps fit. It is the stage that keeps the whole four-stage investment working over time. When the world moves enough that a bigger reset is needed, the light re-measurement loops back to the diagnostic and the cycle starts again. It also stands on its own: if you have a delivered or inherited development solution that is quietly decaying, you can start here.
Common questions
How is this different from the Organisational Development Diagnostic?
The diagnostic assesses your organisation from scratch and sets a baseline. Renewing as You Go re-measures against that baseline rather than starting over. It is a light, recurring read that catches drift early and confirms what is still holding, so it recalibrates the solution against the first measurement instead of running a full assessment again. Re-measure, not re-assess.
How is this different from the Organisational Development Programme?
The programme delivered the change across your organisation. Renewing as You Go keeps that delivered solution embedded and improving over time. It sustains and evolves what the programme built, and builds your people's ability to run it themselves. It does not re-deliver a programme.
Do we have to keep you on retainer?
No. The core of this stage is the capability we build into your people, and once it is in place you can take it and run the solution yourselves. The ongoing rhythm of health-checks and refresh is optional, scoped with you, and deliberately lighter than the programme. You can keep it, drop it, or change the cadence as your people take more on.
What will our own people be able to do?
They will own and run the solution without us. You come away with named internal owners, working feedback loops and review routines, a community of practice, and your own sensing-and-calibration habit. That is a self-renewing development capacity, so your people can evaluate and evolve this solution, and future changes, on their own.
Isn't this just continuous improvement?
It shares the instinct, but it is more specific. Continuous improvement is a general discipline. This stage institutionalises one delivered development solution, grounded in established organisational development frameworks for making an intervention persist and for building a self-renewing organisation. It embeds that solution, aligns the rewards and routines that hold it, and stands up your people's own renewal practice, all measured against the baseline the diagnostic set.
How much of this can we run ourselves?
As much as you want, and that is the point. We build the ownership, loops and rhythm into your people so the solution can run entirely in-house. From there you choose: run it all yourselves, keep us on a light critical-friend rhythm, or start with our support and take it over as your people gain confidence. The balance is yours to set and yours to change.
Ready to make the change last?
Tell us what you have delivered and what you want to keep fit, and we will talk through what sustaining it would look like for you. We will scope how much your people take on and how much light support you keep from us, so the solution stays embedded and keeps improving, owned by your own team.