Speaking at the CIPD's HRD event in London yesterday, Williams (pictured) described how growth and change at her business meant practitioners had to put themselves and their values at the heart of the OD agenda, or risk not being authentic enough.
"We need to think about who we are in HR and put ourselves at the heart of our practice and be personal about it," she said. "We need to think about what we are doing for our values, which are hopefully aligned with the organisation's values."
"It's not about the 'what' but the 'how'," she continued. "How are we behaving with our people? When it's authentic, that's when the leadership team prick up their ears as it resonates with their values. You can start a meaningful discussion, not just skim the surface of what you think you should be doing."
Also speaking yesterday morning at HRD was Stephan Thoma, Google's global head of talent and development. He told delegates about the challenges of creating learning opportunities for young talent who are constantly experimenting with technology.
"They are always learning anyway, and they will do it anyway," he said. "How do you create a learning agenda for them? What do we do with training in that kind of world?"
To cater to the L&D needs of its young talent, Google uses innovations such as 'hangouts' on its social network Google+, 'Googler-to-Googler' knowledge sharing, where anyone is free to upload training videos, and even 'training documents' stuck on the back of toilet cubicle doors. It is also creating a crowd-sourced skills database, where employees can tag themselves as experts on topics.
"Innovation can come from anywhere, and learning can and should happen anywhere," said Thoma.
