Who We Are

MJA is a leadership, learning and organisation development practice built around one enduring question:

What enables people to become more capable of doing consequential work together?

Founded by Dr Mark Jenner in 2004, MJA brings together more than three decades of work in leadership development, organisational learning and team effectiveness. Mark’s inquiry stretches back to doctoral research into team performance and continues through work with leaders, teams and organisations around the world.

Development is more than acquiring knowledge. We are less interested in moving people towards a universal model of the ideal leader than in helping them become more capable of responding to the situations they actually face. That can mean seeing a wider system, holding competing perspectives, exercising judgement under uncertainty, working differently with other people, or recognising when familiar ways of thinking and acting are no longer enough.

The aim is greater range and choice — not simply more content.

Development happens in context. People do not develop separately from their work. What becomes possible is shaped by the challenges they are facing, the roles they occupy, the relationships around them and the wider organisational system. That is why we use real work wherever we can. Consequential challenges create the stretch; feedback, inquiry, experimentation and reflection help people learn from what happens.

We design the conditions. We cannot manufacture development or prescribe the perfect set of behaviours. But we can create better conditions for it — through leadership journeys, live enterprise challenges, stronger team environments, coaching, communities of practice and connected leadership and talent systems.

MJA works through a trusted international network of faculty, coaches, researchers and practitioners, bringing together the expertise each challenge requires.

Across Leading, Learning and Teaming, the intention is the same: to increase the capacity of people and organisations to do work that matters.

Real work. Deliberate stretch. Better conditions for performance.

"Mark's design approach; the questioning he drives; and his facilitative approach to bring together all stakeholders across the design team and company, were key in moving the programme forward directionally, to meet the business requirements. Secondly, Mark has a talent for understanding and navigating our complex stakeholder environment; and a lovely manner in building relationships and partnerships across different cultures, from emerging leaders, via diverse contributors and faculty, through to senior leadership. Finally, Mark is flexible, pragmatic and kind - an absolute pleasure to both work with and know."
Senior Manager, Group Talent, Prudential Plc