Case Studies

IRIS Consulting carried out an innovative leadership development project for the Metropolitan Police in the period April 2007 - March 2009.

The Challenge

The task was to challenge and change traditional “command and control” mind-sets and to encourage more collaborative team working approaches to produce citizen-centric models of local policing. A key issue was to design and implement a suite of leadership interventions that were seen by very busy staff as being highly relevant to their day jobs and which warranted the time spent at the workshops and in action learning sets.

Our Approach
Key features of the approach we designed and implemented were:

• Commissioning and analysing surveys of all staff at each operational level in four London Borough Operational Command Units (BOCUs) and in one Scotland Yard central function (emergency call handling) which informed our approach and provided a measurable benchmark to take actions and assess progress
• Designing a 12-month leadership, coaching and action-learning programme for the Senior Management Team in each BOCU. This was tailored to meet the specific development needs of the senior individuals within the team taking account of the dynamic arena of policing in the Borough. It included a team diagnostic (the ATPI), 360 feedback (based on the Met’s values and behaviours) and the MBTI psychometric tool. Each of these diagnostics was supported by one-to-one as well as team-effectiveness coaching
• A 3-day leadership programme was designed which used the findings from one-to-one interviews and the staff survey to ensure that the senior team understood the reality of operational needs, both individual and organisational
• “Away-days” for senior managers that focussed on operational and performance issues for their BOCU within the wider organisational context
• Designing a 3-day programme for middle managers that was relevant to the operational needs of the front-line delivery teams as indicated from analysis of the staff survey. Key elements included coaching skills for managers, understanding conflict and challenging difficult behaviours
• A representative steering group of all staff was established to act as champions of the project and “action plan”. The aim was for this group to identify actions that would allow quick wins as well as looking at the longer-term “hard-to-tackle” issues. It also challenged the SMT to respond to issues of concern.

The interventions were all designed by engaging with the staff involved. We designed and delivered a comprehensive suite of team-leader development interventions that were not typical classroom training events but situations that immersed leaders in real-life scenarios relevant to their jobs and the current operational challenges and critical incidents they faced as leaders in the field.

One of the biggest challenges in running leadership programmes for staff at this level is to ensure that the content is relevant to their day jobs and that the issues they are invited to explore are more practical than theoretical. For this reason we used real case studies based on the operational experience of police officers and staff. For example, the inspectors’ programme we ran was informed by a group of inspectors prior to the programme that identified not only their perceptions on the support needed but also a range of their own case studies.

Our work included all of the following elements:

• 360 Feedback and other self-analysis tools
• Team building events
• Building teams and inspiring them
• Leadership and decision-making skills
• Simulated operation exercises in operational, command and tactical scenarios
• Communicating clearly in operational mode
• Use of psychometric tools/self-analysis tools
• Personal and team resilience
• Skills for ‘influencing and persuading’
• Action Learning sets and action analysis in operational mode
• Dealing with conflict in difficult situations
• Fostering effective communication
• Timely reviews and evaluation with detailed analysis and reports.

Achievements

By the conclusion of the project we were able to demonstrate significant improvements in public satisfaction levels with policing in the pilot areas. This was attributable to the combination of the following outputs achieved from the pilots:

• Sustainable and measurable change in individual and organisational behaviour
• Higher levels of engagement, inspiration and support from all managers involved
• Changed attitudes so that an operational mindset framed future behaviour
• Support for individuals’ growth on a personal level, as well as teams and the organisation
• Introduction of flexible mind-sets able to adapt to changing environments
• Shifting the BOCUs to a more highly focussed operational mode.

Client Reference Contact Details:

Darren Perks, Metropolitan Police Service

Members of the IRIS Consulting team who carried out the project were: Marilyn Tyzack (project director), Lisa Grainger, Andrew Odgers, Vivienne Hines, Cheryl Marks and Nick Powell.

If required IRIS Consulting can provide impressive testimonials from senior client representatives: see example provided here.

Testimonial from Steve Dann, Metropolitan Police Borough Commander Hackney: November 2008

Sir
As promised please find attached a copy of an evaluation carried out on LA LOCAL – the external consultancy IRIS which worked on my Borough at Hackney.
 I cannot speak highly enough for the support and commitment they gave to the borough, developing and coaching the SMT and myself as well as engaging frontline officers and staff in the development and improvement of the delivery to the communities of a very challenging borough. I have attached a newsletter which explains some of the work we were doing with them.
 
Two real points from – One is that the borough in Mar 2007 in a Public Attitude Survey had a 22% rating of community confidence, the worst in the MPS. This was a continual problem and one I wanted to focus on. In the Sept survey we have now risen to an incredible 75%. LA Local and IRIS played a major part in this.
Second point is my personal development and I have no doubt that without the support and coaching from Lisa Grainger of IRIS I would not have been successful at this year’s PNAC.
 
Supt Alun Goode as I mentioned did a lot of the work and was the main contact for LA Local. He is happy to discuss with your people.
 
If you need anything else please let me know
 
Steve Dann
Borough Commander Hackney

The Challenge

One of the particular attributes of Lloyd’s Register is that it has attracted world-class calibre staff from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds. Getting them to work together in a cohesive manner has called for high quality support and leadership. These challenges have been successfully addressed at Lloyd’s Register through the “positive working environment” suite of tools that we developed and delivered for them (see articles outlining the approach in more detail on our website www.irisconsulting.co.uk/articles "The imperative for positive working environments".)

Size and nature of organisation

Lloyd’s Register provides an essential link in the overall safety chain of the marine industry. Its business objectives are the safe management of ships, maintaining operational effectiveness and minimising risk to life, property and the environment. It provides services designed to help clients to achieve their business goals, while optimising safety, quality and the environment. It has some 8,000 employees in offices in 238 locations with its HQ in London with an income of £820 million in 2009. Its main business sectors are marine, oil and gas, transportation and chemicals providing quality assurance and certification of safety systems. Lloyd’s Register’s professional staff are world leaders in their particular specialisms of marine engineering, chemicals and transportation.

Our Approach

Key features of our role to date with Lloyd’s Register have included:

• Helping them to get a good fit between technical “delivery” and operational skills and in team-working values
• Helping senior managers to set the tone and strategy across the organisation about how the organisation’s aims can be best delivered
• Working through what partnership working means in practice
• Identifying the development needs of key staff and helping them grow into their roles in a highly visible and political working environment.

What Went Well

Improved performance of previously failing teams; embedding of operational focus; use of case study scenarios based on actual (anonymised) cases.

Lessons Learnt

Our work with Lloyd’s demonstrated that in order to embed attitudes that will change behaviours in the desired direction it is necessary to establish shared values about the norms for the workplace: often professional and hierarchical structures create barriers that get in the way of effective communications and efficient operational working. The marine profession is traditionally “command and control” which has some advantages but also disadvantages. Retaining what is valuable from different professional attitudes and blending them to create new work-place cultures proved the key to making teams work together more cohesively and with a sharper focus on operational outcomes. Getting people from different disciplines to recognise and value the contribution of people from different professional backgrounds (such as administration, finance and communications) was a key learning point for the staff concerned.

Evaluation and Client feedback

All our training and staff development events for Lloyd’s were designed and piloted in advance to ensure relevance to the operational day-jobs of those being targeted. At all events the participants were asked to complete evaluation forms which were subsequently analysed and reports produced for the internal clients. Our leadership development work produced some outstanding results with previously failing teams having been turned round and transformed into some of the most effective cohesive units in the whole organisation.

Client Reference Details:

Lloyd’s Register: Jane Rogers, HR Department, 71 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 4BS

IRIS Consulting Case Study 3: The Olympic Delivery Authority ODA

IRIS Consulting was involved from the inception of the shadow Olympic Delivery Authority in providing HR support, advice and organisational development and capacity building. This included the development of HR policies and recruitment of its staff. In 2007 we were appointed to draw up and develop the ODA’s “HR/People Strategy”. In 2008 we designed and provided bespoke training on effective communications for staff at all levels within ODA.

In the period 2007-10 we have been providing coaching services for the senior management team and for the next layer of senior managers. Members of our team have provided induction training and briefing for Board members.

The Challenge

The ODA operates in a rapidly evolving political and operational environment with the need to work with and across many stakeholders. One of the particular attributes of the ODA is that it has attracted world-class calibre staff from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds. Getting them to work together in a cohesive manner calls for high quality support and leadership.

The Approach

Key features of our role to date with the ODA have included:

• Helping the organisation and individuals to get a good fit between technical “delivery” and operational skills
• Promoting team-working values through workshops and work-based scenarios
• Helping senior managers to set the tone and strategy across the organisation about how the organisation’s aims can be best delivered
• Working through what partnership working means in practice
• Identifying the development needs of key staff and helping them grow into their roles in a highly visible and political working environment through one-to-one coaching.

Lessons Learnt

Often professional and hierarchical structures create barriers that get in the way of effective communications and efficient operational working. Retaining what is valuable from different professional attitudes and blending them to create a work-place culture that focuses on delivery proved the key to helping teams work together more cohesively and with a sharper focus on operational outcomes. Getting people from a wide variety of disciplines to recognise and value the contribution of people from different professional backgrounds (such as administration, finance and communications) was a key learning point for many of the staff concerned.

Evaluation and Client feedback

All our training and staff development events for ODA were designed and piloted in advance to ensure relevance to the operational day-jobs of those being targeted. At all events the participants were asked to complete evaluation forms which were subsequently analysed and reports produced for the internal clients. For the ODA the results of participant feedback on the effective communications workshops were very positive with typically 80-90% excellent and good ratings and 97% saying they were delivered clearly and understandably.

Client references: Wendy Cartwright: Head of HR, Olympic Delivery Authority, Mailpoint: 6A, 23rd Floor, One Churchill Place, London E14 5LN