Pulling together towards a common future

 

The only way for the public sector to deliver improving services within rapidly reducing budgets is to do things in different ways within a programme of radical transformation resulting in new types and shapes of organisation. This is not for the faint hearted.

 

This course is about developing your top team and aligning the organisation, getting everything and everybody in place to start you moving towards your Council of the Future™ vision. It looks at the internal and external impact of your vision and strategy, and explores the willingness of your people and partners to embrace the changes. It will equip you to review capacity both internally and within the various affected organisations to kick start the necessary changes with a real sense of purpose.

 

 

What will be different for your strategic and managers as you move forward with the changes? How will this affect service planning and internal relationships? What will change for elected members and governance processes? How can you ensure that negative feelings do not dilute or negate the anticipated benefits? How can you help the service heads in all affected organisations to manage their teams as uncertainty impacts morale within their teams?

 

All these questions will be explored, along with alternative approaches to the strategic and tactical management of the change process.

 

This will be a highly interactive event, with a minimum of classroom style sessions. The event will be led by an experienced facilitator who will introduce ideas and approaches during group discussion sessions, building on delegates’ own challenges and experiences. 

 

The in-house option to meet your particular needs

 

While this course is being run as a public event it can also be adapted and/or extended as a tailored workshop for the management team of an individual authority or for a group of local partner organisations. 

 

Book Now

To book online please select the course date from the table to the right or else contact us on 0845 241 2773.

 

Course Content

 

How ready for change is your organisation, your political leadership, your local area / region, your partners, your strategic management team

 

Identifying the drivers for change (including those you cannot afford to ignore), including the COF opportunities of realising big, big savings alongside the need for service improvement and delivery of new services in a time of continuing economic uncertainty.

 

Assessing the abilities of individuals across the strategic management team and service heads in your organisation and partners, reviewing their willingness to embrace and manage change, looking at strategies for managing:

• those who embrace change and could want to move too quickly for the current organisational culture
• those who will criticise and find every possible reason why it will not work and deliver the anticipated benefits
• those who believe in the change but are reluctant to expend energy making it happen
• the rest of the organisation

 

Identifying the potential benefits of working with others in partnerships, shared service delivery and joint operational models.

 

Building and selling a bold business case for a common approach to achieve the Council of the Future™ vision. Approach to good communication and marketing, brand and reputation management throughout the change.

 

Leadership within and across organisations, cascading responsibility and authority and the focus of internal/partner leadership development programmes.

 

Tackling risk aversion and the need for innovative thinking to realise the Council of the Future™. There may be the need for informed ‘acts of faith’ e.g. where there are no mature case studies, no recipe books, no common vision

 

How willing are your service heads to compromise in their own service delivery processes to achieve a greater/broader outcome that moves the organisation forward towards achievement of the vision. Avoidance of duplication across service areas, locations, organisations.

 

Building a common direction while appreciating different capabilities and starting points, especially when looking at shared services and partnerships working together.

 

Managing and realising benefits throughout the programme of change, ensuring that benefits are identified at each stage and delivered visibly, providing a platform to launch the next phases of the plan. Building in the ability to respond to changing circumstances, focusing on an outcome-based approach.

 

Managing and mitigating risks throughout the programme of change, ensuring that risks are reviewed at each stage and managed visibly, providing a more robust platform to launch the next phases of the plan. Building in the ability to respond to changing circumstances, ensuring that business as usual activities are not compromised.

 

Options and opportunities for shared services, including scope (current trend for part/full council mergers) and review of pros and cons of potential partners (good / bad match / incompatibility / barriers), including neighbours, other public sector and other sector/commercial partnerships, including the use of external providers to handle legacy processes of diminishing long-term importance

 

Options for short to medium term procurement of capacity to enable change – the ‘catalyst’ for change, and issues of back-filling to release the ‘right people’ and the ‘best people’. Recognition of different management styles and preferences, balancing the contributions of those good at managing change and those good at managing steady state.

 

Review of the cultural and people aspects, links to workforce planning and skills management, including backfilling, secondments etc., linked to resource aspects of programme / portfolio / risk management.

 

Who Should Attend?

• Members of top management teams / corporate directors
• Senior management from partner organisations
• Corporate strategists
• Service heads
• Chief executives
• Managers and sponsors of high-level transformational  change programmes

 

Tutor

 

Mary Wintershausen’s 40 year career includes health, the private sector, 23 years in local government and 10 years as a consultant specialising in strategic development and transformation. Her local and central government clients have included the Cabinet Office, the IDeA and a wide variety of local authorities. She has represented local government in various national central / local forums.  Mary is a highly experienced and highly regarded facilitator.

 

Pre-Event Activities

 

In order to get the most out of the event, delegates will be asked to complete the Council of the Future™ self-assessment questionnaire.

 

Professional Skills for Government

 

This course will help attendees to develop and consolidate the required Leadership Qualities, especially :

• provide direction for the organisation
• deliver results
• build on the capability of the organisation to address current and future challenges

 

It will also help development of the Core Skills of:

• strategic thinking
• people management