Keith Elford has been helping leaders of organisations across the sectors make the changes required for sustainable success since 1998. He encourages clients to look at the whole organisational system (identity and culture; present performance; future direction; changes in the environment) and to consider the relationship between both the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors at work. This enables clients to achieve step changes in performance by both improving results now and making the changes required to sustain success into the future.
His role is to help leaders see things ‘from the balcony’, and make sense of what they see, both rationally and emotionally. This allows clients to think differently about what they do and the context in which they are working: this, in turn, opens up new ways of operating and different outcomes. Keith is particularly adept at helping clients to articulate the strategy (purpose and values, vision of success, key initiatives) and to manage the human dimension of change: engaging people, defining and shifting mind-set and behaviours.
Keith has worked with leaders of organisations of many kinds and continues to do so. He has a special passion for those that are explicit about making a positive social impact, and for Church-related organisations in particular – hardly surprising given that he is also an Anglican priest – but he works with people of all faiths and none. Keith’s route into consulting was unusual – it started when, as the Bishop’s Chaplain, he co-led a major change project in Guildford Diocese. He later became a partner in Telos Partners, an international management consultancy, and there worked on a number of organisational and business change projects between 2001 and July 2013.
Keith enjoys crossing the boundaries that get created throughout modern western societies (between business, community, art, religion, for example) and realising the essential ‘connectedness’ of life. For him, organisational effectiveness is one aspect of a wider body of wisdom about how people and groups work and achieve their potential. ‘Creating the Future for the Church’, his book applying principles of organisational success to the Church of England, was published in September 2013 (you can find out more about it on the publications page). Keith is currently a part-time PhD student at Roehampton University, researching organisation and theology in the Church of England. He is sponsored by and works as an associate for the Susanna Wesley Foundation.
Elford Consulting supports leaders who want to make sustainable and transformative changes to their organisations. These pages provide information about how Keith Elford and his partners can help you, as well as blogs on a variety of themes.
Elford Associates Ltd, 15 Canford Drive, Addlestone, Surrey. KT15 2HH
Company Number 06031292
