Organisational Development Matters

What was the issue/problem?

I worked with the senior team of a medium-sized local authority consisting of five departments and their chief executive.  Each directorate was headed up by a director assisted by a number of Heads of Service.  Each Head of Service managed his/her own department.  Departments were located across four different sites within 6 miles of each other.   

I was asked by the chief executive to facilitate some development for these staff (chief executive, directors, heads of service) to assist them to work more effectively as a team of senior managers. 

How did you determine it was something that required OD support?

My first port of call was to find out what the chief executive’s expectations were.  I followed this up with meetings with each of the directors and their heads of service.  The findings from these discussions were summarised and shared with them.  The discussions with individuals enabled me to see how I could provide OD support.  I made suggestions for a way forward and an approach was agreed.  It took about one month to meet with and get their buy-in.

What approach did you take and why?

Each person completed the Myers-Briggs® Step II™ questionnaire and I facilitated a feedback session with each of them individually.  Although this was a long task, individuals were open to it and found it very helpful individually.   

Everyone agreed to a development half-day with their colleagues to look at the overall results. 

I mapped all of the results, with their consent, and looked at department profiles, the senior executive team profile and the entire team as a whole.  I looked at how profiles complemented or contrasted and made sure that the feedback to the entire team was going to create a fun means of sharing who they were, how they worked at their best, the barriers they faced within their teams or across the entire team, how they communicated, how they managed stress in their team etc.  It was interesting, for example, that the CEO had quite a different profile to the rest of the senior executive team.  The space that was created at the development event created a means to share challenges and also opportunities.  

Departments were given the opportunity to work together during the session, but at other times people were matched up with similar profiles from other departments.  I was keen to allow teams to work together but also to network.  

How did you determine the type of intervention(s) tool to use? 

There was a great appetite for coaching and self-development at that time and we had already started a leadership development programme which included a 360 degree appraisal tool.  So using some psychometrics to facilitate personal conversations about career and development was welcomed by everyone and married well with the feedback from the 360 tool.  There was a great willingness to participate – making the job of the OD consultant very easy indeed!  

What role did evaluation play in your design and in the measurement of impact? 

A number of measures were used:  

1. On the day, everyone was asked to contribute to the evaluation form.  This evaluated very positively.  

2. On an informal level, however, one measure of the success of the intervention was the amount of laughter that was generated on the day and the positive conversations and verbal feedback that took place afterwards.    

3. Two of the teams requested more detailed work within their own departments.  A third team requested a team event but this could not happen because of a number of time constraints.  

Overall, I was very satisfied with how the whole intervention fitted in with the leadership development programme and also as a standalone piece of work.