I am an organisation development practitioner.

I serve groups who, by working together to deliver a product or service, create organisations. I help them see and appreciate more fully the uniqueness, ongoing development, and importance of the health of their organisation. I help them understand how the invisible stuff of organisation has the power to amplify or diminish the potential of their individual and collective contributions. I accompany organisations through their phases, stages and often crises of development. I help them develop learning-driven systems and practices that make them more effective in their purpose by becoming more human, inclusive, and ecological. I am driven by conviction that it is time to be creative in imagining and experimenting with new forms of human organisation that build on the achievements of the past and the demands of the future.

For thirty years I have been associated with the Community Development Resource Association (CDRA), a Cape Town based agency that has pioneered organisational development services for non-profit organisations. I am now an associate practitioner and board member, but have also served as executive director for nine years. I have worked as grandparent, fieldworker, facilitator/trainer, consultant, leader/manager and occasional writer in the field of social and organisational development since 1976. I have been privileged to work in many countries on various continents but remain most deeply connected to the challenges in my own country – South Africa. My other pastimes include furniture making, fishing, motorcycles and very occasional long distance bicycle races.

You can reach me at james(at)cdra.org.za.

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