Posted on: 11/12/2025

Thought Leadership

In her latest article, Michelle O’Neill explores why public sector transformation succeeds only when the human experience and organisational direction move in sync. She highlights how coaching and mentoring create the space people need to process uncertainty, rebuild identity and connect emotionally with what change means for them, not just the system.

By Michelle O’Neill, Principal Consultant Organisational Development, Leadership and Learning

There’s a line that gets quoted in every transformation conversation: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

It’s neat. It sounds wise. And yes, there’s truth in it. But honestly? It’s never quite landed for me.

Because in the real world, culture and strategy aren’t sitting at opposite ends of the table. They’re part of the same meal, feeding each other, influencing each other, impossible to separate. But in your organisation, what actually happens when they pull in different directions?

Some say you can’t deliver strategy without culture, and you can’t sustain culture without strategy.

Sure, you can deliver a strategy without culture but it won’t last. And you can build culture without strategy but it won’t lead anywhere.

They digest together.

Where Organisational Development sits in the middle

For those of us working in Organisational Development that’s the space we live in, between the system and the self, the plan and the people.

Transformation isn’t just about structure charts and new processes; it’s about emotion, belonging, identity, fear, pride, loss. It’s about what people tell themselves when change happens to them and what they believe when change happens with them.

And this is where coaching and mentoring matter so deeply.

They’re how we stay connected to the human side of transformation, while still keeping our eyes on the organisational horizon. They create the pause between “announce the restructure” and “make sense of it.”

They let people sit in the space between old and new and start to see themselves in what comes next. Who supports your people through that transition and who risks being left behind in the gap?

Change isn’t just a plan, it’s a feeling

Every time a new strategy lands, people don’t experience it as a document or a briefing. They experience it as a feeling.

For some, it’s hope.

For others, it’s anxiety.

For most, it’s a mix of both.

That emotional undercurrent either fuels transformation or quietly derails it.

You can have the clearest plan in the world, but if people are running on fear or fatigue, it won’t land. Equally, you can have the most values-driven culture, but without direction, purpose, or alignment, it drifts.

That’s why Organisational Development and transformation need to hold hands. One keeps the system grounded; the other keeps it moving. And if we ignore either, we lose balance.

Why this matters right now

The current public sector climate is as complex as it’s ever been - politically, financially, socially. We’re not just redesigning services; we’re redesigning what it means to work in public service.

That means we can’t afford to treat the human and the structural as separate projects. We have to build systems that feel human and cultures that are ready for what’s next.

Coaching and mentoring sit right at that intersection. They don’t just help people cope with change, they help people connect with it. They make transformation something we do with people, not to them.

That’s the real future of Organisational Development. Not trying to stop culture from eating strategy but helping the two finally sit down and share a meal. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do through the Public Sector Coaching & Mentoring Pool - creating the space, connection and reflection that hold both culture and strategy steady while everything else shifts around them.

It’s where development meets delivery, and where transformation becomes a lived experience, not just a line in a plan.