Tarr Advisory exists
…because change is hard and deeply human. I work with individuals, leaders, and organisations to understand what is really blocking progress, and to build the capacity to move forward sustainably.
My Approach
My approach draws on systems-psychodynamic thinking – a framework that integrates psychoanalysis, group relations and the dynamics of power and authority, and Open Systems Theory. In practice, this means paying attention not just to what organisations say they are doing, but to what they are actually doing – the unspoken assumptions, the patterns that persist despite everyone's best intentions, and the anxiety and defensiveness that shape decisions. It treats organisations as human systems in which the behaviour of individuals cannot be understood apart from the groups and structures they inhabit.
This provides a perspective on both the visible dynamics of organisations and the less visible patterns that shape people's behaviour within them.
Simplifying complexity
Organisations are not complicated machines. They are human systems shaped by history, anxiety, competing interests, and the stories people tell themselves about why things are the way they are. I help leaders see that complexity clearly, without reducing it to a framework that loses what matters most.
Elevating leadership
Leadership is not a set of behaviours to be optimised. It is a role to be inhabited — with all the authority, responsibility, and relational complexity that entails. I work with leaders who want to lead with greater depth, clarity, and authenticity.
Humanising change
Most change programmes fail not because the strategy is wrong, but because they treat people as variables to be managed rather than human beings navigating uncertainty. I work with the human experience of change — what it asks of people, what it stirs up, and what it requires of those leading it.
What this means in practice
Several principles shape how I work, drawn from the systems-psychodynamic tradition developed at the Tavistock Institute:
Emotion is information. What people feel in their roles - the anxiety, the frustration, the pull toward certain behaviours - is not noise to be managed. It is data about the system they are operating in.
The person cannot be separated from the role or the organisation. A coaching or advisory conversation that focuses only on the individual misses most of what shapes them. I work with the whole picture: who you are, the role you occupy, and the system you are part of.
Boundaries reveal dynamics. Where roles are blurred, where authority is unclear, where certain conversations never happen – these are not incidental. They tell you something important about what an organisation is managing, and what it is avoiding.
The hardest conversations are usually the most important ones. I do not shy away from what is difficult to say. That is often where the most useful work begins.
Not-knowing is a legitimate professional position. Rushing to answers closes down inquiry. Sitting with uncertainty and thinking carefully before acting is where genuine understanding develops.
Further reading: Five tips for systems-psychodynamic coaching, Tavistock Institute.