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West Wiltshire

Management Development at West Wiltshire District Council

“Innovative, stimulating, thought-provoking and good fun - I feel very encouraged by the training; it has given lots of ideas on how to improve and develop myself and my team.”

A training participant at West Wilshire

/challenge

As part of an ongoing process of change West Wiltshire District Council sought an external supplier to develop and deliver a Management Development Programme for its Corporate Management Team and Service Managers. The objectives were to develop a strong leadership culture, improving customer focus and helping to implement the corporate plan. West Wiltshire were keen to improve the performance of the Council by building relationships, learning and supporting one another. They also wanted to develop managers so that they live up to the revised IIP standards implementing management competencies to help improve performance.

The Council realised that key to the success of this project was to ensure the managers involved were able to see these issues come alive. The Council wanted to engineer a positive cultural change, led by a Management Team who would champion new ways of working.

/approach

CragRats first conducted an intensive 1-to-1 coaching programme. This gave participants the opportunity to voice their views and concerns, as well as exploring specific aspects of their role and function within the organisation. Importantly, this also served to determine specific and relevant content for a series of ‘training events’ delivered to the entire management team.

The training events were delivered over a period of weeks and comprised of sessions focussed upon; Inspirational Leadership, Service Excellence, Leading Top Performing Teams and My Part in Bringing the Corporate Plan to Life.

Each session developed specific aspects of the team’s management and leadership capabilities. The events were designed to confront potential barriers to change that had been exposed within the coaching phase of the project. The delivery of these sessions incorporated facilitated, interactive and theatrical engagement techniques and encouraged discussion amongst the team. Ultimately, the core aim of the events was to stimulate the participants towards utilising their combined experiences to create workable solutions and strategies for moving forwards.

The project was concluded with a final round of individual coaching sessions which allowed managers to identify goals and actions aligned to achieving their, now unified, cultural vision for the Council.

/results

• Average Rating of Entire Programme by Managers: 81.5%
• Session 1: Inspirational Leadership: “Good mixture of content. Well pitched, considering the different levels of management attending.”
• Session 2: Service Excellence: “A completely different approach to customer service than there’s been on other courses I’ve attended. Very good!”
• Session 3: Leading Top Performing Teams: “The coaching was very interesting and completely new to me. Found non-direct coaching an extremely useful tool.”
• Session 4: Making the Corporate Plan Come Alive: “Innovative, stimulating, thought-provoking and good fun. Enjoyed the forum theatre approach to learning.”

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