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Creating culture change in Higher Education

How do you develop a programme to encourage and embed the core values and behaviours required to drive progressive culture change?

Creating culture change in Higher Education

The brief

Designed and developed in partnership with this leading virtual learning university, this programme clarified the expectations of all senior people managers via a new set of Management Practices designed to transform the experience of managers and their teams. Endorsed by their Vice Chancellor, this was more than just a training programme; it aimed to achieve a culture shift across the organisation encouraging greater collaboration and interaction across all faculties and departments.

The challenges

The University wanted greater ownership and consistency in the way that people-leaders across the University lead and manage to ensure a positive employee experience, drive the culture and deliver on strategy.

The solutions

This programme was designed in two distinct phases, with Phase 1 aimed at the top 100 leaders. This phase started in September 2018 and is now complete. Based on the positive feedback and noticeable change in behaviours, we were commissioned to deliver Phase 2, comprising 80 cohorts, which has now fully commenced for a further 1,100 leaders until December 2020.

The programme was created to stretch and challenge leaders in both academic faculties and professional services. Developed on strong and credible research, the programme was nevertheless created to be practical and to make an immediate impact on leadership within the organisation through increased collaboration and improved leadership. Strengths-based 360 feedback was included to ensure participants could see how they could personalise the learning to their context and situation, supported by 1:1 virtual coaching. To ensure learning took place outside and beyond the face-to-face workshops, innovative digital and immersive elements were also included.

The results

As a live programme, robust evaluation is continuous and ongoing, using our core evaluation framework and ‘Moments that Matter’. Analysis of the Top 100 leadership group has already demonstrated a shift in behaviour and increased awareness of the improved shadow of leadership within the organisation.

Further recent feedback includes:

  • Director: “The Management Practices programme is all about providing tools for new ways of thinking rather than giving you all the answers. My key takeaway was the focus on strengths and understanding your own strengths and strengths of others. For that it really energised me in my role. I have already started to use the framework with my team to help them tackle some of the issues they have.”

  • Senior STEM Lecturer: “My impression of Shared Management Practices, after an initial, curious scepticism, was a positive one. It is quite a different sort of programme to existing leadership programmes I have been on. The Strengthscope questionnaire at the start was impressive and a useful, reflective tool for me. My key takeaway is probably based around the Strengthscope as it encourages you to be reflective around how you lead and manage people. The programme was less about telling me how to manage and more about looking at me and how I operate and behave with my team.”

This programme is now being developed into an innovative and blended virtual solution.

Services

Ewan Stickley

Ewan Stickley

Lara Jubb

Lara Jubb

Niki Pountney

Niki Pountney

Phil Mardlin

Phil Mardlin

Russell Harvey

Russell Harvey

Neil Edwards / Head of Talent and Leadership

‘We chose to work with The Art of Work for a number of reasons:

  • They really listened to us and were attentive to our brief rather than imposing their views
  • They took a genuinely bespoke and innovative approach to fulfilling our brief
  • They were respectful of the sector challenges but brought challenge and innovation from other sectors
  • They had a strengths based approach at the heart of their proposition

It was critical that we found the right partner as the Shared Management Practices was our first and most fundamental management development offering, seeking to bring about a wholesale leadership culture change across our organisation. As such, we ran a robust and competitive procurement process and deliberated hard before choosing The Art of Work. Ultimately though, we felt that they presented the approach that best met our ambitious requirement. From day 1, The Art of Work have taken a genuinely flexible partnering approach, which prioritised really understanding the OU in all its diversity. They did so through a series of formal meetings/interviews but also by taking every opportunity to speak to stakeholders and understand the wider rhythms and challenges of the organisation. This allowed them to build credibility and challenge in a respectful but skilfully assertive position.

The programme overall has yielded both plaudits and genuine impact, measured through robust qualitative and quantitative evaluation. This evaluation indicates that there are a number of standout features that have made a real difference including: - The highly effective and sector relevant usage of forum theatre and real world HE sector ‘experiential’ scenarios - Use of a strengths based approach (using Strengthscope), which has landed extremely positively and has developed strong currency in the organisation. In particular, attendees have valued the personalised insights gained through the Strengthscope report and coaching sessions, which have enabled people to see their management (and wider work and life) roles with fresh, energised eyes.

Overall, I wouldn’t hesitate in working with The Art of Work again'

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