Strategic Leadership and Development Group Meeting Synopsis
Wednesday 14th September 2011 10am - 1pm
Present: Lucy Marder Herefordshire (Chair) Lee Foley Wolverhampton Tracy Leonard Warwick DC Sarah Getley Staffordshire Shelley Howell Birmingham Sue Evans Warwickshire and Academy
Jeremy Snape IEWM & WMC Samantha Darby IEWM & WMC
Apologies: Karen Canavan Sandwell Richard Luckman Sandwell
Introductions
1.0 Minutes from the last meeting
The group agreed the minutes were an accurate representation of the previous meeting.
Standing Items
2.0 Achievements Update/Work Programme Progress
Coaching Pool - Gloucestershire County Council are in the final stages of joining the pool and become the 20th organisation in the partnership - September saw the 500th client matched to a coach through the pool
Catalyst - Very positive evaluation report on the use of action learning in the Catalyst programme, demonstrating direct application of the programme into the workplace
WM360 - The Regional Children’s Services Development Programme, ‘My Leadership Future’, have signed up to use the WM360 system to deliver 360’s for all of their delegates - Warwickshire County Council have agreed to run a pilot of the Elected Members questionnaire with 10 of their councillors in October 3.0 Areas of Concern
1 3.1 Continuation of Catalyst
The current contracts with providers for the Catalyst programme finish next year and therefore plans need to be in place to establish the feasibility and demand for continuing the programme. The People and Leadership Team (PLT) will be working with SLDG and the operational groups over the coming months to agree a plan of action.
It has also, nearly been two years since the recruitment material and 360 Questionnaires were developed. Should it be agreed that Catalyst is continued a review of these materials will need to take place.
3.2 Conference Sponsors
At present, we only have 1 conference sponsor for the Coaching Conference in November. SLDG members suggested a number of organisations that PLT have not yet targeted to help increase numbers.
4.0 Regional and National Update
- PPMA Meeting 22nd September: Main agenda item will be discussion with the Local Government Group (LGG) about how they can best support the region. Emphasis will be about improving relationships and looking at how LGG can work on this with West Midlands Councils. - Customer Survey: A survey has been issued to directors and HR leads in West Midlands Authorities to establish what they know and what they want from the WM Councils Employers Service (this includes our leadership development and coaching offer).
Main Business
5.0 QA for Coaches
Since the previous SLDG meeting significant work has taken place to develop an approach for Quality Assuring our coaches. A summary of activity is below:
• Ground Rules Statement; The People and Leadership Team (PLT) produced a ground rules statement to explicitly set out the responsibility of coaches to both attend and actively participate in supervision, along with a clear undertaking to constructively receive challenge in supervision as a learning and development opportunity. This aims to help coaches acknowledge the benefits of supervision for their coaching practice and how they can make the most of it. • A best practice guide to Coaching Behaviours has been developed – this is for use as an aide memoire but is not a prescriptive tool, but aims to help coaches reflect on their own behaviours. • Facilitators approach to QA Agreed – The use of challenge in a supportive and safe environment, maintaining a coach's self- esteem is necessary to achieve quality assurance; – Key areas of challenge were identified to be around: • When and how a Coach should exit from a coaching relationship i.e. • Challenging a Coach’s capability to recognise a relationship which is not fit for coaching. • Ignoring the “elephant in the room” or complicity of coach to allow the elephant in the room to stay. • Knowing when to end a relationship
2 • Challenge how to start a relationship i.e. 3-way contracting, preparing client etc – Challenge closed questioning • For a new Coach – offer more informal support via supervisors and sub-regional sessions
The new supervision network sessions, delivered by our trained facilitators, are taking place during September and October. Feedback from the two sessions that have taken place so far have been incredibly positive, indicating the value of this approach.
It was agreed/actions: Feedback from coaches about the new Supervision Network sessions will be summarised in a report for the next SLDG meeting SLDG agreed to go ahead with the same CPD/Supervision approach for the first half of 2012 (as was delivered this year). Following a review of feedback from the Network sessions, future arrangements for supervision will be agreed.
6.0 Managing Coaching Capacity
6.1 Coach Numbers
There are currently 92 coaches available in the pool, one less than the expected number. Of those: 15 coaches do not belong to a partner organisation 5 coaches will be leaving their organisation in next 6 months An additional 21 coaches could potentially join pool by May 2012 (those currently completing the qualification and others starting training this month).
It was agreed/actions: SLDG acknowledged this is positive news for the pool; however concern was raised about continued motivation of those who do not belong to a partner organisation and therefore this should be closely monitored.
6.2 Coach Qualifications
SLDG reviewed the report on Coaching Qualifications to establish the right criteria for an individual to join the pool. In the main they agreed with the criteria set out in the report. The question was raised about individuals who do not meet the criteria to join the pool and what options there are for developing them to be suitable. It was agreed that this could be supported internally through the organisations coaching leads and would involve: Offering them an internal client in order to gain their minimum 12 hours of coaching Get them to complete a reflective piece of writing about their coaching sessions, in line with the ILM Coaching Diary Criteria Coaching Lead to spend time with the coach to help them reflect on and develop their coaching practice
It was agreed/actions: The organizational coaching leads need to sponsor a qualified coach application to suggest them for the pool, however the panel interview should be carried out independently with a member of PLT and another coaching lead from a partner organisation SLDG Confirmed the Operational Groups recommendation not to have a two tiered approach to the matching site PLT to amend the scoring criteria in line with SLDG recommendations and update application/recruitment guidance to correspond with revised approach
3 PLT to produce guidance for Coaching Leads, including information about getting a coach to the required level where required
6.3 Allowing non-partner coaches in the pool
With a robust process in place for allowing qualified coaches into the pool SLDG discussed the opportunity for trained coaches to join the pool who do not belong to a partner organisation. There were some concerns about motivation for being involved on a voluntary basis and the potential for them to join on the premise of selling their other services to clients.
It was agreed/actions: SLDG felt comfortable about coaches who leave their partner organisation to remain in the pool (as previously agreed) because they understand the ethos of the partnership arrangement. It was agreed that for the time being we will not invite qualified coaches external to the partner organisations to join the pool, however this should be reviewed in future.
6.4 Paid Coaching through the Pool
PLT have been working with a number of our independent coaches (those who have left their organisations through redundancy or retirement) to put together a scheme to offer paid coaching through the pool. The Coaching Pool Board has previously agreed this could be an opportunity to support partners in the pool access more coaching than their quota allows, as well as provide coaching to organisations that are unable to join the partnership.
At present the idea is in the early stages and will be piloted with Gloucestershire County Council who is wanting to access much more coaching than their quota allows.
SLDG raised concerns about the coaches being paid for coaching without having first completed their minimum number of voluntary hours. It was highlighted that the paid coaching arrangement would need to be managed separately to the voluntary scheme, due to financial contracting arrangements. In addition, as you cannot guarantee when paid opportunities will arise, it would be unreasonable to expect someone to have completed their annual commitment of voluntary hours at any point in time. PLT emphasised that coaches involved are aware that preference for paid coaching will be given to those who have recorded the most voluntary hours.
It was agreed/actions: PLT to provide an update on the pilot at the next meeting and ensure suitable evaluation is in place to assess it’s success SLDG will review the risks of continuing or expanding this opportunity
7.0 Engagement Update
SLDG members reported back conversations with organisations not currently involved in our programmes:
Staffordshire Districts – Discussion took place at a regional meeting with operational mangers from the Staffordshire Districts around coaching. General feedback was that providing staff with access to coaching was not a priority, however developing managers coaching skills was something they are focussing on. With regards to the leadership development programmes, many reported that resources were the main issue for not being involved.
4 Shropshire – Interested in OD managers meeting regionally to network. Currently going through restructuring and delivering an engagement programme, therefore not is a position to get involved at the moment.
Other members had initiated conversations but had not received much response.
It was agreed/actions: SLDG members to continue to make links with those not currently engaged and feedback for next meeting Sarah and Sam to discuss opportunities for utilising the Skills Gym to support Staffordshire Districts
8.0 Future Leadership Development
To ensure we can effectively support leadership development in the future SLDG discussed what is on the horizon and what they are looking for. The following key items were identified: 1. Mentoring 2. Commercial awareness and understanding business 3. Change management – negotiating and influencing 4. Matrix Management
It was agreed/actions: SLDG members to provide more details about what they would want from a regional mentoring approach PLT to produce a paper on mentoring for the next meeting
9.0 Skills Gym Review
Sam talked through the paper produced to review the feasibility of running future Skills Gyms. As highlighted in the paper, every session delivered has received very positive feedback about the practical application of the training and therefore they remain a valuable way of developing coaching skills. The Skills Gym’s work best with high numbers of delegates, (minimum of 25) and the PLT have found it more difficult to reach these numbers in the last 12 months; this is believed to be due to restructuring and budget cuts.
It was agreed/actions: Skills Gym’s are still worth offering Scheduling a number of sessions through out the year would be beneficial; to help organisations know there are multiple dates to offer and somewhere to refer people at any point in the year who are looking for coaching skills development PLT to work with the Warwickshire Academy to arrange the first session in Feb 2012, additional sessions to be booked elsewhere (potentially Staffordshire)
10.0 Evaluation Update
The following information is for information (there was not time to discuss this at the meeting).
Jeremy has now undertaken five 1-2-1 interviews with colleagues. These reflect engagement in Catalyst (4x) and Coaching recipient (1x). The feedback has been very interesting with all involved in significant service change and restructuring during their period of engagement in these programmes. In terms of direct attributable ROI this is more difficult to evidence, as expected. In two instances this was
5 more due to a delay in implementing the restructuring of their work area, with the consequence of leaving colleagues frustrated and in limbo to actually effect change and improvement.
The positive feedback was due to the parallel experience of engaging in Catalyst or coaching helped support the individual during a time of work based pressure. There are two examples of significant impact with participants being able to attribute the benefits of Catalyst to their implementation of change and improvement in the work place, including a fundamental evaluation and subsequent service review enabling the service in question to change its focus and create a highly effective resource to sustain local employment. Although the individual used her experience over a number of years to influence and inform this improvement, Catalyst enabled her do so with greater confidence and resilience.
Jeremy is now compiling, with colleagues, financial values that can be used with some confidence to populate the case studies with ROI.
Concluding Comments
11.0 Items for the next meeting
o Supervision Review o Gloucestershire CC Paid Coach Pilot o Engagement Update o Mentoring o Continuing Catalyst
Next SLDG Meeting 24th January 2011, 10am-1pm, The Partnership Centre, Birmingham.
Summaries of all of the programmes we will be discussing can be found by pressing Ctrl and clicking the project titles below:
Accelerate Steps to Leadership Catalyst West Midlands Coaching Poo l WM360
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