The OD School
Redesigning organisations, starting with yourself.
The OD School is a ten-week executive programme for senior leaders who are leading or part of an organisation redesign, with live workshops, one-to-ones and a small peer group.
Created and led by Jill Foley and Carla Henry, it combines the Circle Line, our eight-step organisation design method, with fifty years of doing this work and live coaching, so you leave with the structured thinking and practical tools to design your own organisation.
We believe the best people to design your organisation are the people inside it.
Our first round ran in spring 2026 with leaders from different industries, continents and roles, each with a live business challenge.
They left with practical tools and feeling less alone. We run two open programmes a year, in spring and autumn.
Built around your own redesign
Your redesign is the course. You bring a live challenge and work it through the Circle Line week by week, with feedback from Jill & Carla and the group as you go.
Design and development, as one conversation. Design is the hard wiring of your operating model, and development is the culture, skills and leadership behaviours that make it work. At every step we look at both, so your design is one that can land in your organisation, with its context, its leadership appetite and its culture, and you are confident to lead it.
A mixed group that learns from each other. Each small cohort brings business leaders together with the HR and OD leaders who partner with them, across industries and continents, and our first cohort told us they learned as much from each other as from us.
A community you stay part of. When the programme ends, you join The OD Collective community, where you can keep learning, contribute to other people's redesigns and be supported by Jill & Carla and alumni from every cohort.
You will leave with a better operating model, and as a more confident leader of organisational change.
Who is it for?
This programme is for you if you are:
Leading, co-leading or sponsoring a redesign of your organisation
Considering embarking on a redesign and not sure how to tackle it
Asked to guide the business through one
For example, you might be a CEO, COO, CPO, Head of a Division, Head of Transformation or Strategy, or an HR or OD leader partnering with any of them.
Introducing the Circle Line
The Circle Line is our eight-step organisation design methodology, refined over decades of real redesigns.
It takes you from the strategic questions (purpose, outcomes, future work) through to the practical ones (processes, structure, capability, culture and measures), in an order that stops you jumping straight to the organisation chart.
By the end of the programme you will have worked the full line, on your organisation.
The OD School: 10 week journey
How The OD School works:
Each programme starts with pre-work and access to Carla and Jill a few weeks before the first module.
All six modules are facilitated live by Carla and Jill via Teams, at a time that works across the UK and Asia, and the dates and times for each cohort are in the brochure.
They are interactive and built around group work and shared experience.
Alongside the modules you will have three 1:1 mentoring sessions with Carla or Jill: before the programme, at the midpoint and at the end.
What you will learn
The programme is organised around the steps in The Circle Line model. Each week, we cover a new step (or steps) and the design questions that need to be resolved.
We will share tools and practical guidance on how to use them as well as bringing insights, examples of good practice and lessons we have learned about what typically goes wrong and how to avoid the most common pitfalls.
Module 1:
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Redesigning your organisation is an opportunity to refresh, recharge and reinvigorate your business. It is also an inherently risky endeavour.
OD projects are unsettling for colleagues, a distraction from business as usual and complex (there are no right answers).
In week 1 we introduce the 8-step OD model The Circle Line and explore what it takes to deliver a successful OD project.
When to redesign and what to redesign
Ensuring leaders are fully ready for what lies ahead
Shaping your approach and setting up the right design team
Building capability beyond this project – enabling ‘always on’ OD
We will also give you space to introduce yourselves, get to know each other a little and explore the business challenge you are bringing to the programme.
Module 2:
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Building a compelling case for change is arguably the most important step in the design process. It sets direction and articulates clear outcomes and success measures.
Your case for change is the foundation that underpins all subsequent steps in the design process.
In module 2, we explore how to get to clarity, alignment and confidence on:
The purpose and scope of change – a compelling narrative that connects, engages and inspires at all levels
The goals and quantifiable benefits of change – how this change makes us a better business
Clear design guiding principles – that inform and guide design choices
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In module 3 we cover the steps in defining future work:
Starting from a clear understanding of the work that drives disproportionate value – the things you need to do brilliantly to sustain competitive advantage
Defining where and how that work will be done e.g. centre / region / offshore, in-house vs external
End-to-end process design
We will also discuss the emerging implications of AI through stimulus and inputs from thought leaders
Module 3:
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Organisation charts set out reporting relationships and impact the way power and authority are allocated, which can be highly emotive. We will explore organisation charts and design beyond the hierarchy of a chart and what organisation design models can work
In this module we cover:
Workforce shaping and resource planning
The basics of job design
Building the organisation chart, from organisation models to spans and layer, team sizes what really important and what’s not
Matching talent to value, how do your people add value today and tomorrow and designing talent strategies future back
Module 4:
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Every organisation design creates a cultural shift, whether you intended it or not. Structure shapes behaviour, and behaviour shapes results.
Yet most OD projects skip over these questions entirely or leave them until it is too late.
In module 5 we tackle the design choices that matter most but are hardest to draw on a chart.
How your new design will change the way people lead, collaborate and make decisions
Identifying the behaviours that will make or break your new operating model
Designing the leadership shifts required – not just the structural ones
Navigating the political and emotional realities of change
Module 5:
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A brilliant design that does not get implemented is just an expensive PowerPoint.
In our final module we focus on what happens after the design is signed off – the part where most OD projects quietly fail.
Aligning performance measures and incentives with your new model
Governance – who owns the design and how it evolves
Transition planning and the critical first 90 days
Building ‘always on’ OD capability so you are not back here in three years
Module 6:
Jill & Carla lead every session themselves
Jill Foley, Co-Founder, The OD School, creator of The Circle Line. Jill has worked in organisation design throughout her career, at PwC, then as Head of OD and Organisation Effectiveness at Nortel. She founded On3 Partners in 2010, and teaches organisation design at the London School of Economics.
Carla Henry, Co-Founder and MD, The OD School. Carla trained as an organisational psychologist and has designed and implemented operating models in house at Vodafone and SABMiller. She was APAC Managing Director at BRIDGE and founded The Purpose Collective.
Between us we have more than fifty years of organisation design experience, on both sides of the table, as clients and as consultants. Read more about us
What participants say
Here is what some of the leaders on our spring 2026 cohort said about the programme.
What You Will Get
Fifteen hours with Jill & Carla, plus every tool, template and workbook to keep. Here is everything that is included:
6 x weekly virtual workshops (2 hours each)
3 x 1:1 mentoring sessions with Jill or Carla (before, during and after)
Weekly applied exercises (approx. 1 hour)
Tools, templates, frameworks and the workbook, all yours to keep
A curated peer group of senior leaders
Access to all materials and our learning platform
Twelve months' access to The OD Collective community
Total commitment: about fifteen hours with Jill & Carla over ten weeks, plus a weekly applied exercise of about an hour.
What we ask in return
We offer you our support, experience and guidance. In return, we ask for your full commitment to the programme:
Attendance: attend at least 5 of the 6 live workshops in person (they are interactive, so recordings are no substitute)
A live challenge: bring a real organisation design project, something that is live now
Engagement: complete the light weekly tasks
Your learning carries on in The OD Collective community
While your programme runs, your cohort has its own private space on our learning platform. It holds the recording, recap, tools and templates and applied exercise for every module, so everything is in one place when you come back to it.
When you finish, you have twelve months' access to The OD Collective community. Alumni from every cohort meet there and share what is working in their redesigns, and they join our monthly Let's Circle Back conversations with leaders who have led redesigns themselves.
You will also receive a certificate of completion to share on LinkedIn.
Questions people ask us before they join
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Yes. Please bring a real organisation design project that is live now or about to start, because you will apply each step of The Circle Line to it as we go. You will finish with work you can use straight away in your organisation.
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Yes. The programme is for anyone leading, sponsoring or guiding a redesign, so each cohort includes business leaders and the HR and OD leaders who partner with them. All members of the programme are hand-picked by us, as we try to balance out industries, geographies and business challenges to make the cohort diverse and rich for everyone.
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The open programmes run live online on Teams, at a time that works across the UK and Asia, so you can join from wherever you are. The dates and times for each cohort are in the brochure.
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About fifteen hours with Jill & Carla over ten weeks: six two-hour live workshops on Teams and three 1:1s. There is also a weekly applied exercise of about an hour, which you do on your own challenge.
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We ask you to attend at least five of the six live workshops, because they are interactive and built around group work. If you miss one, the recording, slides and notes will be in your cohort space, and we will catch up with you before the next module.
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The live workshops are where the programme happens. Each one is a small, confidential space where you work on your own redesign out loud, test your thinking with the group and get coaching from Jill & Carla in the moment, and everyone learns as much from each other's challenges as from the content. That's why we ask you to attend at least five of the six live. The recordings are hosted on our platform with the slides and notes, so you can catch up on a session you miss and come back to them afterwards.
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Yes, a little. Each programme starts with a short questionnaire about your challenge and goals and your first 1:1 with Jill or Carla before Module 1. Everything is on our learning platform: each module has its own reflection questions, tools and templates, so you can prepare before each session and come back to them afterwards.
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We run two open programmes a year, in spring and autumn.
Autumn 2026: six Wednesdays, from 4th November to 9th December, 8 to 10am UK / 4 to 6pm Singapore.
Spring 2027: dates to be confirmed, with enrolment opening in January 2027.
The full dates and session times for each cohort are in the brochure, which you can download here.
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The programme fee is £3,000, and we can be flexible for group bookings and for people paying for themselves. We will invoice your organisation or you, depending on your preference, and VAT is added for participants based in the UK. If paying in instalments would help, or the fees haven't been budgeted for and you are committed to joining, talk to us and we will find a way to make that work.
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Booking takes a few simple steps:
Register your interest using the short form on this page. It asks about your live challenge, what you hope to get from the programme and where you're based, so we can plan for time zones.
We will be in touch personally to arrange a short conversation. All members of the programme are hand-picked by us, as we try to balance out industries, geographies and business challenges to make the cohort diverse and rich for everyone.
We confirm your place and send you everything you need to pay.
You receive your welcome, with access to our learning platform, the pre-work and a time for your first 1:1 with Jill or Carla before Module 1.
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Places are non-refundable. If you find you can't attend, let us know at least two weeks before the programme starts and we will move you to the next cohort. We run two cohorts a year, in spring and autumn.
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Yes. Everything shared in the sessions and in the cohort space stays within the cohort, and recordings are for cohort members only. Some participants use a codename for their organisation, and you are welcome to do the same.
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Yes. When you have completed the programme and shared two or three things you are doing or thinking differently, you will receive a certificate of completion to share on LinkedIn.
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You keep all the methodology, tools and workbook for your own use, and you have twelve months' access to The OD Collective community and our monthly Let's Circle Back conversations.
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Yes. We run The OD School in-house for project teams working on a redesign together, using your own redesign as the live case. It can run over ten weeks like the open programme, or as a shorter face-to-face intensive alongside the design work. Talk to us about a version for your organisation, or see how we work with clients.
Interested in joining The OD School?
We run two open programmes a year, in spring and autumn, so enquiries are always welcome. Download the brochure for the dates of the next cohort, or register your interest below and we will be in touch personally to answer any questions.
We also run The OD School in-house for project teams working on a redesign together. Talk to us about a version for your organisation.
