Involving everyone in your organisation is the best way to successfully embed change and innovation. But how should you do this? Develop your change programme and then tell everyone? Or involve everyone at an early stage so that you learn and move on together?
Catalyse Consulting implements a collaborative approach to achieve a well researched, ambitious change programme to which the whole organisation is committed.
Focus groups and workshops are a very effective tool for identifying and testing ideas for innovation and change. Everyone has a chance to contribute, and to buy into potential outcomes.
"Our session revealed common concerns and a willingness to tackle them", said one service head.
What are the drivers for change?
Drivers for change need identifying. A survey of 19 local authorities identified the following drivers for change:
Drivers differ between organisations and between services. Once identified, the drivers provide a real focus for improvement and change. Barriers are also systematically identified, and then individually tackled.
"It was a relief to see that narrow focus pressure groups did not in fact exert undue influence", said one respondent.
Organisation Development, Managing Performance and Assessments
Philip Sayers, Director of the company, specialises in organisational development. He works with a wide range of national and local organisations, delivers a module on developing organisations for a Masters degree programme, and has spent five years assessing services with the Audit Commission. Assessments included all types of services in all types and tiers of local authority and NHS trusts. He was a team leader for the comprehensive performance assessments of councils – CPA.
There are times when you need extra resources and expertise to meet peaks of activity.
Catalyse Consulting can provide a tailor-made solution to:
- Develop and project-manage your preparation for external assessment.
- Evaluate and improve your performance management methods.
- Bring experience and independence to your corporate assessment, identifying corporate strengths and weaknesses, and addressing them effectively.
Many councils show clear strength in investment and learning, but remain weak in managing performance to drive improvement, and achieving quality of service.
The 360° Assessment
Catalyse Consulting uses a well tested formula for assessing organisations and identifying their strengths and weaknesses, their barriers, and their drivers for change. The outcome is a robust basis for developing your change programme.
"The evidence to change was totally convincing", said a leader.
By building a view of your organisation from all perspectives – staff, partners, customers, politicians, managers, peers, inspectors - you understand the whole picture. You have a sound basis for planning innovation and improvement. More importantly, you promote widespread commitment to the change programme, at all levels.
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Local Leadership at the Neighbourhood Level
Catalyse Consulting offers expertise in establishing, assessing and managing successful local area forums, built up over many years.
Success means participation by all your stakeholders – residents, tiers of local government, voluntary and public sector and the business community.
Participation is influenced by:
- actually tackling issues of local concern;
- achieving and demonstrating results;
- the involvement of decision-makers;
- devolving resources;
- location (not the town hall);
"We can, and do, change our own neighbourhood", a local resident commented.
Catalyse Consulting can take you through these stages to develop a sustainable neighbourhood model that suits your locality.
Improving Cultural Services, and 'Cleaner / Greener / Safer' Services
Are your services getting due recognition? Can you demonstrate that they are achieving local and national priorities?
Cultural services impact on achievements in community safety and health; for example, via sport and recreation services. These services link directly to national priorities. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport concentrate on how cultural services can deliver social, environmental and economic priorities.
Catalyse Consulting draws on over twenty years experience of managing cultural and green environmental services, as well as up-to-date expertise in assessments.
The Consultancy works with professional institutes and organisations to provide highly focussed seminars on current hot topics, external assessments and local area agreements. This provides an in-depth analysis of how to achieve better performance.
Comparing staff priorities with other stakeholders in a cultural service
Catalyse Consulting recommends a Collaborative Change Management approach when assessing your cultural services – and preferably a 360° Assessment.
For one client, we compared the views of their staff, their customers and their other stakeholders, on their priorities for helping to deliver an improved service. We found a strong similarity between some views:
| Critical Success Factor for Improvement |
Stakeholder priority number |
Staff priority number |
| Improved quality of services. Mentioned as a priority by all six of the stakeholder groups and by four of the staff groups. |
1st |
1st= |
| Leadership and Commitment. A priority for one stakeholder group and four staff groups. |
7th |
3rd= |
| Communication. Mentioned as a priority by three stakeholder groups and two staff groups. |
2nd |
6th= |
| Including everyone. A priority for three stakeholder groups, two staff groups. |
3rd |
6th= |
| Appearances count. Mentioned as a priority by two stakeholder groups and six staff groups. |
4th |
1st= |
| Involvement. Mentioned as a priority by one stakeholder group and one staff group. |
5th |
8th |
| Staff friendliness / helpfulness. A priority for one stakeholder group and four staff groups. |
6th |
3rd= |
| Improved I.T. A priority for three of the staff groups. |
N/A |
5th |
Not only did this information show priorities in a clear and comparable manner; it also enabled the client to harness a willingness and capacity to change, which led to real improvement.
However, a similar survey for another client gave very different results. Staff found that they were best at delivering what was of least importance. They were worst at delivering what was most important to users.
"We have to change", agreed one manager, "there is no alternative!" A willingness to change led to re-assessing priorities and improvements to service quality.
Improving Staff Morale and Your Organisation's Culture
Improving staff morale will make a change programme easier. Staff will already feel more enthusiastic if you have used Collaborative Change Management and a 360° Assessment.
Morale, and indeed the whole organisational culture, is further enhanced through the use of positive thinking. You learn more from success, and copying or rewarding it, than from failure and trying to avoid or penalise it.
Decide what works well, what can work better, and then achieve more. The organisation and appraisal management tool 'appreciative enquiry' uses positive thinking.
Staff involved in one change programme were asked to state positive factors necessary for improvement. The results were as follows:
| Key improvement factors identified by staff |
Number of mentions |
| 1. Improvement Plan (SMART) / Long Term Planning |
16 |
| 2. Performance management / Indicators / Targets |
15 |
| 3. Competitive alternatives / Service Delivery options |
13 |
| 4. Commitment to Change (Members and Staff) |
11 |
| 5. Previous track record of improvements |
8 |
"It was surprisingly hard to focus on what we had done well, but enormously rewarding", said one of the participants.
Catalyse Consulting can show you how to use this powerful technique to improve your organisation’s culture, significantly improving results.
Catalyse Consulting
Philip Sayers (BSc Hons., MA, FILAM Dip.), Director, is an experienced manager and strategic thinker. He has a successful track record of delivering change and improvement from within organisations, and as a consultant and inspector.
He works with national and local organisations delivering change and improvement. He is a visiting lecturer at the Univeristy of Hertfordshire and module leader in organisation development at undergraduate and Masters degree level. He links cutting edge theory with effective practical application on the ground.
Philip has thirty years' experience in operational and strategic management with all types and tiers of local government and NHS trusts. Within the Audit Commission he was a team leader for the Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPA) of councils.
He has also managed cultural services and been a commercial marketing manager. Nationally he has taken the lead on topical issues of concern in partnership with national organisations. He established the first three annual healthy living seminars bringing together local council and health professionals.
His published works includes books on contract management, sport and recreation management and articles on topical issues in the local government press.
He will bring drive, enthusiasm and strong commitment to his work with your organisation. His interpersonal skills ensure easy and effective working that achieves rapid and sustainable results.
Phone: 07854 782 687
Email: philip@catalyseconsulting.co.uk
We look forward to hearing from you, and hope Catalyse Consulting can be your catalyst for change.
Company information
Director: Philip Sayers.
Registered Office: 18 Broadwater Avenue, Letchworth Garden City, Herts SG6 3HE
Registered No. 05464773. Registered at Companies House, Cardiff
Vat No. GB 865 4388 83
