How can Organisations Reimagine Inclusive Organisational Development?
Dr Marcelle Moncrieffe‑Newman (United Kingdom)
Coaching and organisational development are celebrated as tools for performance and growth. But for many Black and marginalised professionals, OD has not felt developmental at all. Dr Marcelle Moncrieffe Newman — author of One Step Forward Two Steps Black — makes the case for an equity-led redesign, and explains exactly where coaching fits in.
Restructures are announced. Leadership programmes are launched. Culture change initiatives promise opportunity. And yet, for the Black professionals whose experiences shaped Dr Newman’s research, the outcome has remained stubbornly familiar: White-dominated top teams, and their own careers stalled at the margins. The architecture changes. The distribution of power does not.
This is the central challenge Dr Newman puts to coaches, HR professionals and business leaders: if our organisational development work is not consciously inclusive, it will unconsciously reproduce the status quo. Neutrality, she argues, is an illusion in workplaces shaped by histories of racism and exclusion. Treating equity as a late-stage add-on, a programme bolted onto the side of a change initiative, is not enough. Inclusive OD demands that equity becomes a central design principle — built into the architecture from the start.
“If our OD work is not consciously inclusive, it will unconsciously reproduce the status quo.”— Dr Marcelle Moncrieffe Newman
The first question that changes everything
Traditional OD begins by asking: how do we align this organisation to its strategy? Equity-led OD begins with a different question entirely: development for whom? Rather than assuming every employee benefits equally from change, an inclusive approach interrogates the design before it is locked in.
The questions inclusive OD asks firstWho is likely to gain or lose power, voice and progression from this intervention?How will this land for those who already face racialised barriers — especially Black colleagues?What would need to be true for this change to genuinely expand opportunity, not just redistribute it among those already near the top?
Coaches, Dr Newman argues, are uniquely positioned to surface these questions before decisions are finalised — acting as a reflective mirror on whose interests an OD agenda truly serves.
Four pillars of reimagined inclusive OD
Drawing on research and the lived experiences gathered in One Step Forward Two Steps Black, Dr Newman identifies four interconnected shifts that move organisations from performative inclusion to genuine structural change.
One finding from her research stands out with particular force: leaders described as technically strong but racially illiterate — capable of discussing strategy and transformation at length, yet freezing, minimising or becoming defensive the moment race was raised. This is not a gap that a training module closes. It requires coaching that explicitly incorporates race, power and systemic bias as part of the conversation — and organisations that treat inclusive leadership not as a moral preference, but as a performance imperative.
From initiatives to a coaching-informed OD culture
The Black professionals in Dr Newman’s study had seen the cycle too many times: a wave of activity after a public tragedy or a new strategy launch, followed by a slow slide back to old habits. Inclusive OD interrupts that cycle not through better programmes, but through a different culture — one where leaders habitually ask who is missing, who is harmed, who is heard before decisions are made, and where measurable progress on equity sits alongside every other performance metric.
The opportunity for coaches is clear. The tools already exist — deep listening, honest reflection, courageous conversation. The shift is in applying them not only in one-to-one sessions, but in how structures, processes and cultures are designed. When inclusive OD becomes the way you do transformation — not one strand of it — the movement stops being one step forward, two steps back. It becomes future-fit design that allows every person, and therefore the entire organisation, to thrive.
Source: iCN Issue 53 (Wellness & Holistic Coaching: Well-Being & Balance); page 20
About Dr Marcelle Moncrieffe-Newman
Dr Marcelle Moncrieffe-Newman is the author of the new book One Step Forward, Two Steps Black: Navigating Anti-Black Workplace Culture, out now. She is a distinguished HR Executive, speaker, and consultant specialising in workplace culture, race and leadership.
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcellemoncrieffe
