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Organisational Change
Government Agency
The Organisation
The agency plays a number of important functional and advisory roles within the national criminal justice system. It has existed since 1907 as a set of area based services, and was established in its current form in 2001.
The Project Context
After the agency launched its Living Leadership strategy to assist with the development of its current and future leaders and managers, the government outlined its intention to merge the service with another agency to create a new national body. As a result of the merger, both services were facing a period of considerable change and recognised that the response of senior executives and managers would play a crucial part in the successful transition to the new agency.
The Requirement
The agency identified a need to equip senior managers with the transformational skills and behaviours to lead people through organisational change, enabling them to take people forward into the new body while continuing to deliver effective performance against key business objectives.
There was a parallel need to develop senior managers’ personal leadership competence, enabling them to review their career goals, hopes and expectations after the transition.
Our Solution
ASK was appointed to develop and deliver Leaders in Transition, a four-phase 32 week behavioural change programme using MBTI®, 360 degree Feedback, 1:1 Executive Coaching, transformational skills development, and a rigorous re-entry process to enable and improve practice and support transformational change.
- Phase 1 (Pre-event): participants completed MBTI®and 360 degree feedback questionnaires and met with their line manager to agree development priorities
- Phase 2 (Workshop): groups of 16 participants attended a high impact residential experiential learning workshop, featuring transformational business skills and a two hour 1:1 feedback session with their own Executive Coach
- Phase 3 (Re-entry): participants worked through a structured re-entry process supported by ASK’s unique ‘follow-through’ tool
- Phase 4 (360° feedback re-survey): participants used the Living Leaders Fit for the Future 360 degree feedback process to evaluate the extent of their behavioural change
In parallel with the Leaders in Transition programme, ASK also implemented two parallel elements of the agency’s overall Living Leadership Change Programme:
- Coaching Skills programmes and Train The Trainer Workshops to create a team of skilled trainers capable of helping managers and chiefs to become enthusiastic ‘champions’ of coaching as a route to building leadership competencies
- Design, delivery, analysis and facilitated feedback of a 360 degree questionnaire aligned with the Living Leadership checklist
Evaluation and Results
Level 1 Evaluations on a five point scale showed participants scoring the programmes at an average of 4.4 as ‘a valuable learning experience’.
Our follow-through technology enables us to continually support and track participants’ progress against their development goals beyond the attendance of the workshops. 13 weeks after their workshops, participants were asked to rate the change in their effectiveness as a result of the programme: 84% rated themselves as ‘more effective’ and a further 8% as ‘much more effective’.
They were also asked to gauge the business impact of their achievements or improvements as a result of the programme: 46% responded ‘significant impact’ and 12% ‘very significant impact’.
Delegate Quotes
“Time out to consider ‘me’ seemed extravagant but turned out to be an absolute necessity – the best two-day investment I can remember for a long time – thanks!”
“One of the best training events I have attended as there was a group activity and lots of opportunity to interact while also focusing on individual needs in 1:1 activities. Unlike other events, I was left with a real feeling of commitment to undertake the development identified with the knowledge that this will be followed up.”
“The use of a personal coach is new to me and very useful – the critical friend with no agenda other than to assist me in improving myself as a leader.”