Leadership Team Development/Change Initiative

A new senior leadership team, in a government department, were brought together to lead their section through a period of change.

They were clear on what they had to achieve:

• Implementation of new systems and processes for greater efficiency
• Greater customer satisfaction and speed of service

We identified ways in which these objectives could be achieved, what might hinder them and how these obstacles could be overcome.

Using a psychometric tool, we worked with the team to identify their individual and collective strengths and preferences in how they like to work. It transpired that the individuals tended to have a similar approach at work: planned and structured, analytical, task and detail-focussed. This meant that they would be good at driving the change project forward in terms of implementing new systems and making sure all details were attended to. However, areas which they might be weaker on included keeping an eye on the big picture and ensuring that tasks in hand were working towards this. Another area they omitted to consider, due to their preferences, was communicating effectively with staff and ensuring that they were on board and committed to achieving the objectives.

This analysis showed that the team's skills were not balanced and therefore some areas of performance were below the best that could be achieved.

Therefore we developed a plan of how the team would ensure that they considered all aspects essential to a successful change programme rather than just those which they naturally found easier.

A second team day focussed on developing the skills required to engage and motivate staff and ensure change is embedded within the people, not just the systems and processes.

Coaching of the team's leader took place alongside the team development.