Who We Are: Dublin
Michael Nolan
I was a founding member of Sheppard Moscow Ireland when we set up 14 years ago and have enjoyed and learned a lot since then - including building and maintaining our brand; developing long-term business relationships with our clients; balancing business and team member needs; the disciplines of cash flow and budgeting in a business of innovators and idealists; and benefiting from being a local unit within a global organisation.
As an Organisational Consultant with Sheppard Moscow, my focus is on bringing about positive change in organisations. My work usually starts with an initial conversation then progresses to deeper discussions, enabling clients to get a fresh perspective on their organisation. I then suggest ways that we can help them work through identified change and create the outcomes they desire. The work takes many forms such as facilitation, recommending change processes, development of capability and one to one coaching.
In recent years my work has spanned diverse sectors including establishing and building the effectiveness of global teams in a manufacturing organisation; developing leadership capability in both Financial Services and Pharmaceuticals; advising on organisational transformation in a national sporting organisation; and currently, doubling the business size of a major bank's asset financing arm.
In 2002 I completed my Doctorate in Management. Here I developed an interest in the issue of 'practice' - what we do every day and how we explain it to each other and our customers. Practice is deeply embedded in our actions and often taken for granted. Individual and joint reflection on what we do creates better understanding of our own practice and at the same time enables change to the collective practice. Consequently I am championing the idea of practice development both within Sheppard Moscow and in client groups and am particularly interested in uses of reflective writing and story telling as a development vehicle. Overall the doctorate has led me to deeply question the validity of most of the current thinking about organisational change and to look at different ways of engaging with organisations to make sense of their situation and enable emergence, creation and change.
I live in Dublin and have two daughters in secondary school who are the joy of my life. I have a lifelong passion for music of the more edgy kind but until recently had never played an instrument. This year, however, I bought a guitar and 'Hey Jude' is coming on just fine. I also have a keen interest in art and design, but nourish my spirit with the abundance and beauty of nature that surrounds us.