What Our Clients Say

Theme: Team Development

Industry: Aerospace

In 2017, as part of streamlining performance within Programmes it was identified that one of the teams needed to be realigned into a different and single reporting line.

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Theme: Leadership Development

Industry: Local Government

Watford Borough Council and Three Rivers District Council have a Shared HR Service. Following the global financial crash, in 2011 they identified a need for specific leadership development to steer their way through significant delayering and outsourcing of services to meet significant budget savings.

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What our clients say

Working with Growing Vision has been and continues to be hugely beneficial. Feedback from participants in the coaching sessions has been resoundingly positive and the programme is making a real contribution to employee engagement as well as individual and team development”

Dave Pople, Head of Manufacturing, Engineering and Quality, GKN Aeorspace

Excellent as always. I liked how detailed we got again. Digging into the detail of people process + spent time on the call to finish it.. which was great because it made me have less work to do after the call (which can feel daunting sometimes)

Chris PinnerInnerfit

I liked how John gave me the opportunity to think things through for myself and helped me with suggestions when I was struggling to come up with them on my own.

Alex WoodSynertec Ltd

Very intuitive and considered response to invoke self-reflection. I find John’s approach helps me to help myself!

Amy BirdSynertec Ltd

Leadership Development at Watford Borough Council

Audience: Middle Managers/Head of Service and Section Heads

Location: Hertfordshire, UK

Date: 2011-18

The Organisation

The Challenge

The major challenge was to deliver the frontline services throughout massive organisational restructuring to achieve more for less and to commission services. The two Council Leaders (MD and CEO) recognised that their Leaders were not equipped to deal with operating in such an ambiguous and volatile world.

They wanted a challenging programme to equip the middle management group and first line supervisors with the skills and theoretical framework to address the commercial and human challenges facing the councils, with confidence, energy and commitment.

Some of their programme objectives were:

Intrapersonal – Create a plan to make the most of their personal strengths, and to address any areas for development which may be blocking full performance potential
Interpersonal – Describe how their Leadership style is perceived by others in the organisation and community
Leadership – Develop coaching skills and describe how a coaching approach can improve team and individual performance.
Strategic – Describe techniques for problem solving and decision making and addressing workplace challenges
Long lasting approach – to create a programme of shared learning and language across the organisation, which all managers could relate to and put into practice long after the formal development programme had ceased

Solutions

Growing Vision designed, and delivered a highly practical, high impact, leadership development programme that supported participants to become more effective leaders. To reflect the challenges ahead the branding was the Step Up to Leadership (Middle Manager) and Step Up to Management (First Line Supervisor) programmes.

A six-month blended learning programme set in the context of the strategic challenges being faced
Over 160 Local Government Officers developed through 14 programmes, 10 x middle manager and 4 x first line manager level between September 2011 and December 2018

We built the programme on our 6 key principles for development of Awareness, Intent, Choice, Commitment, Capability and Action. All activities were linked back to these principles.

Recognising that role modelling was key, workshop 1 was introduced by the MD or CEO to demonstrate senior management support. They set out the imperative for change and aligned the programme objectives with the business strategy.

“I can still remember the initial reaction from those that went on the early programmes of Step Up to Leadership. It created a buzz and a common language that had not been seen before in the Council. People wanted to know what the course was about, what it covered and could they go on it. The reaction from the MD was testament to John and the way he delivered the training – his words were ‘The Step-Up programme has created an energy and real change within Watford. People are talking about the course in corridors and in meetings. The programmes continued for many years with all managers and first line supervisors being trained and that in itself is rare- to have such a successful programme run for such a period of time is exceptional. The skills our middle managers developed and the experience they gained by attending the programme equipped them well to face the challenges at the time, and also has helped them to face the subsequent challenges that have come to us more recently. We can still see the benefit of the Step Up programme in many of our senior managers now, people that have grown in their role and moved up to the next stage in their career.”

Terry Baldwin,
Executive Head of HR and OD,
Watford Borough Council

Programme Components:

Workshop One: ‘Understanding Self and Environment’
Drawing on reflective exercises, diagnostic questionnaires and a focused discussion of their learning goals, participants explored their own personal style and its impact on others; healthy organisations using Gallup Q12; The Leadership Challenge® (linked to a 360° Feedback); accountability; and the ‘Team Map’ a road map for organisational effectiveness focused on vision, mission core priorities, values & behaviours leading to clear targeted actions. This gave participants a thorough grounding of the core knowledge and skills to translate the organisation vision into their personal leadership vision with a renewed commitment to lead effectively through challenging times.
360° Feedback
The participants were supported through a 360° feedback process that developed their awareness of their own behaviours, an appreciation of the impact of their behaviours on others and forged a robust development plan to take them forward.
Workshop Two: ‘Leadership Excellence’
Supported participants to focus on ‘what is really going on’ in their interactions with others. Focused on transactional analysis and peer support they faced their behaviours in the moment allowing insights into what and how to change and what to keep. Content included TA, ego states, drama triangle, winners triangle; transformational leadership; strategy and tools for strategic analysis; team engagement and leadership; operating in a political context.
Workshop Three: ‘Influencing for Success’
Stretched participants into fine tuning their behaviours to influence others to support them to deliver successful outcomes for their organisation, partners and residents. Underpinned by a focus on effective performance to ensure objectives were delivered to quality, time and budget this workshop provided the platform to exceed previous performance levels. Content included influencing and persuasion; managing effective performance, objective setting, ‘performance agreements’; effective coaching and feedback.
Workshop Four: ‘Shaping your Future Service’
Supported participants to integrate their learning using a practical one-day simulation that tested their commitment and ability to plan, prioritise and execute a strategy in competition with other groups. Supported by inputs on leading change, problem-solving and decision-making, participants honed their leadership edge to successfully deliver their outcomes aligned with the organisational values.
The programme was accredited with the Institute of Leadership and Management with the option for all participants to take a L5 qualification Leadership and Management.
An essential element of the programme was peer support and the initial cohort was supported with senior leadership mentoring, with subsequent cohorts supported by previous programme graduates. This built a culture of visible leadership and coaching to support others.

Outcomes

We tracked participants’ progress against development goals and assessed the programme’s business impact. For the last programme (2018-19), at the end of the programme (L1 Analysis):

The training: 100% rated the facilitation as conducive to learning and managed effectively
Objectives met: 100%
Course comments:
– John was a great trainer that much is fun
– You have a way of encouraging input which feels related and not forced, not just input for the sake of input and this reflects in the way that the group are able to quiz and speak to you
– Don’t change what isn’t broken. You do a great job thanks!!
– Course well presented with all members positively encouraged to participate
– I would like to thank John for all his hard work into making this course relevant to me and helping me to bring all I have learnt into my place of work
– Thank you for all your help. This course has given me the confidence to be the best I can be

Impact Analysis

In a 2019 level 2 impact analysis from 2 programmes 2017-19, 8 participants (33%) were selected and said:

What do you believe has been the uplift in terms of performance/productivity as a result of the programme? – a. Average 62.5%
What are you now doing differently as a result of attending this programme.?
– a. Commonly reported programme benefits included: the growth of confidence, personal accountability, engagement with others, coaching and feedback, agreed performance standards and monitoring, visible leadership, effective planning and prioritising
– b. Common understanding of how to communicate more effectively with each other, using the MBTI types for colleagues and team
Note: MBTI became a general standard across both council’s, encouraging debate about personality types and how they work together, what the team needs (in terms of missing skills) and greater appreciation of how people work differently
What would you say to future participants who are considering attending this Programme?
– To come with an open mind
– Be involved at each stage, use the time wisely for the good of your career and engage with other colleagues to learn from their experiences
– Very worthwhile if you commit to it properly. If you sign up, you need to prioritise the course and resist the excuses of being busy with the ‘day job’
– The Programme will allow you to grow as a person and achieve great results
– Be open minded and it will change your life and how you see all relationships
– This course is hard work, challenging and exhausting but you will come out of it feeling like you have all the tools and skills needed to further your own leadership career. Having instructors who are highly skilled drives the course on, but it’s also an opportunity to take time out of your day to day working and truly reflect on yourself and others and have that time to see how you can further improve and develop your own leadership skills
– Fully commit and go into it with an open mind – it may be a cliché, but you will only get out of the course what you put in to it.
– ‘DO IT’

Significant restructuring took place within both Councils including outsourcing environmental services for Watford to Veolia, and a reduction in staffing levels.

The programmes have supported leaders to be more confident and effective; able to deliver service redesign in a more resilient manner whilst at the same time delivering services in an effective way.

What Our Clients Say

What our clients say

Leadership Development at Watford Borough Council

The Organisation

The Challenge

Solutions

Programme Components:

Outcomes

Impact Analysis

Get in touch with us

Tel: 01278 733670

Email: info@growingvision.com

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