Philosophy
Enabling you to do things differently is our strap-line – it is also our practice. Our philosophy is to support you to lead change effectively and deliver strategic improvement.
Specifically we:
- listen to you to develop a joint sense of your unique situation and agree what specific initiative have most chance of making a real difference;
- recognise that most difficult change is complex change and requires meeting different values and demands, adapting cultures , being innovative and experimental;
- recognise leadership must come from within your organisation and our role is to challenge and support those providing it with all its demands of clarity (in confusing times), commitment, courage and consistency;
- will exit the organisation as early as possible leaving you with capabilities embedded in the organisation
- will only use the consultants who make the proposal to you – what you see is what you get!
Practice
We offer four broad types of support that could be tailored to meet your needs:
- Tailored workshops which tackle specific in-house or partnership challenges. They workshops concentrate people and time on specific issues to produce clear action. (See our New Political Leadership and New Managerial Leadership offers). Recent examples have been the two cabinets of South Holland and Breckland District Councils identifying their shared priorities with their new shared services and management; a series of workshops with a departmental management team in Plymouth City Council moving to a patchwork of service providers; and the five borough chief executives in the South London Partnership seeking to radically lift the level of their shared services.
- Facilitating the strategic transformation of organisations and partnerships. This ranges from organic to transformational change but the focus is the same: effective political and managerial leadership. We support leaders through the vision and commitment, planning and problem solving, culture changing and delivery stages. (See our New Organisational Vehicles and Transforming Cultures). We have contributed to recent radical changes in the London Borough of Kingston (One Council One Kingston transformation programme) and Plymouth Community Homes (in its transition from the city’s social housing to a new housing association of 15,000 homes).
- Developing leadership programmes for individuals and groups undergoing radical change. Tailoring programmes which sew together organisational and managerial development either as organisations go through change or as leaders from different organisations facing similar change in parallel. (See Management Gym and Challenge Workshops). Recent examples: A decade of provision of the personal leadership module of Local Government’s flagship programme for leading local politicians, The Leadership Academy; Leadership programmes for Aster Housing Group and for Plymouth Community Housing; Strategic Leadership in Housing for Directors and Chief Executives in association with a range of universities; Senior manager development in complex change at the Finnish Civil Service College; development of change agents for Top Teams in Victorian municipalities, Melbourne, Australia.
- Tailored analysis and resolution of individual and organisational challenges. Designing and delivering a ranging of coaching for individuals with specific challenges. Work with organisations to tackle their key problems; jointly analysing, designing and delivering ways of resolving problems or radical changes e.g., new competencies (managerial and political), use of 360 feedback. (See Executive Coaching and Challenge Workshops). Recent examples: a range of executive coaching with individuals in government, local government and third sector organisations; new competencies for a council's management and 360 feedback using it; Board member appraisals in a housing group.
