INTERVIEW
Spotlight on… Beverley Aylott
Beverley Aylott has been quietly transforming organisations – here she tells us about her work and inspiration
B
everley Aylott has over 20 years of experience in developing people and organisations. She is an Organisational Development (OD) practitioner with a particular
focus on transforming organisations through people development interventions.
She has had a very full and varied career to date; covering banking, engineering, charity, public sector and pharmaceutical sectors as well as three years as an external consultant. Beverley has won recognition for her work
over recent years. She received a bronze award in leadership development at the TJ Awards 2013 and while at Imperial College Healthcare won the HPMA Award, again for leadership development, and was shortlisted in the OD category too. All of Beverley’s roles have been newly
created positions designed to enable some kind of organisational change, she has never moved into an existing role or had a handover from a previous incumbent. Beverley belongs to a number of professional
networks believing that it is vital to stay on trend with best practice and latest thinking and to share thoughts and experiences with peers. Beverley believes that everyone deserves to
feel good about themselves at work. That going to work should be a positive, safe and fulfilling experience. No one should feel fearful or anxious walking through the door in the morning. We must value difference and embrace all types of people in our workplaces.
Why training and how did you start?
I started in HR and a time when it was called Personnel! I quickly realised that my passion lay in developing people. I gradually moved across into L&D and then OD, and now I am Head
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of Learning at global pharmaceutical company AbbVie. I love the breadth and creativity of L&D, the complexity of understanding what makes people tick and being able to help people to become more than they thought they could be. L&D keeps evolving and we are finding out
new things all the time. It’s a wonderful field to be in; challenging and rewarding. I am also addicted to learning myself so it’s fantastic to be immersed in learning all day long!
Who or what inspires you?
In my last role at Imperial the nurses that I met really inspired me, their selflessness, their innate drive to care for others is so humbling. I was at a seminar recently delivered by neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield who outlined worrying research showing that levels of empathy are falling in the 24/7 digital world. I read somewhere recently that engagement is
about relationships not initiatives and I totally believe that. If you can get the relationships between individuals, teams, managers and leaders working well that is the key to a healthy, sustainable and successful organisation. New ideas with common sense inspire me. I
am a voracious reader of management books. I have just finished Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last and his concept of the ‘Circle of Safety’ really resonated with me. I am also an advocate of positive psychology and believe that we should enable people to do what they do best every day – we’re all different with different talents – let us be different! I was at a seminar by Google last year and their motto is, “If you give people freedom they will amaze you”. Unfortunately most organisations are not brave enough to give up the control (or illusion of control) that a ream of policies and procedures gives them. At this point I do have to give a big shout
September 2015
www.trainingjournal.com
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