Karen Izod

I am a consultant, coaching practitioner, and academic working in the field of organisational change.

My work involves me in enabling individuals and working groups to surface and manage their complex business and organisational concerns, finding and establishing conditions needed to risk doing things differently. Within that framework, I specialise in how professionals develop the skills and presence needed to work with authority and bring about change in their organisations.

I work across wide-ranging sectors: financial services and banking, government, higher education, entrepreneurial business, knowledge and IT industries, and sustainable urban design. I am concerned with market, social and psychological conditions which enable individuals and enterprises to work to best effect and maintain brand and reputation.

A Professional Partner of the Tavistock Institute since 1998, I have designed and delivered educational events and programmes within its professional development activities. These have included:

• Founding and Directing the Practitioner Certificate in Consulting in Change (P3C), a co-constructed programme for those intervening in and effecting change (2009 – 2013)
• Co-Founding and Co-Directing the Certificate in Coaching for Leadership and Professional Development (2007 – 2011)
• Directing training in coaching skills for political leaders, designed as a bespoke programme for the Leadership Centre, Local Government, with the intention of enhancing political leadership capabilities at local level (2007 – 2011)
• Module Faculty for the MA Advanced Organisational Consultation and Change, Tavistock Institute/City University (2004 – 2009)

Approach

My approach draws on a mind-ful alertness to the moment, the pragmatic and the possible. I use experiential methodologies as a means of exploring and reconfiguring key issues for individuals and organisations and help to generate new perspectives through creative and performing media.

Academic positions

I hold a number of academic positions: Visiting Research Fellow, Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences, University of West of England, and Visiting Tutor, MSc in Coaching and Behavioural Change, Henley Business School. I have advanced training in clinical social work from the Tavistock Clinic, and an MA in Advanced Organisational Consultation, from the Tavistock Institute/ City University. My DPhil (doctorate by publication) concerned bringing relational psychoanalytic theories and practices to the task of understanding and consulting to groups and organisations.

Current research interests include

• The nature of representation: of communities, of organisations
• Identity, belonging and place

Publications

• Izod, K (2019). ”Here’ is where I have presence’ in Psychogeographers and Psychotherapists: connecting pathways, ed. Rose, C. PCCS Books
• Izod, K. & Whittle, S. (2009). Resource-ful Consulting: working with your Presence and Identity in Consulting to Change (2014) and edited Mind-ful Consulting (2009) a collection of stories from the field of consulting; both published by Karnac Books London.
• Izod, K. & Lawson. C. (2015) ‘Reflections from Practice: Supervision, Knowledge and the Elusive Quality of Credibility‘, Practice: Social Work in Action. Published online: 27 May 2015.
• Harlow, E. & Izod, K. (2015) ‘Special Issue – The Supervision of Social Work Practice’. Practice: Social Work in Action. Volume 27, Issue 4, 2015.
• Izod, Karen (2016) ‘Representation, Place, and Equivalent Realities: an Exploration of Relational Perspectives on Representation and Meaning‘, Organisational and Social Dynamics, Volume 16, Number 1, May 2016, pp. 110-128(19). Karnac Books.

Additionally, I am a published poet and write on landscape and relatedness to the environment. www.karenizod.com