Strategic objectives
In supporting the leadership and management of Staffordshire County Council’s Changing Lives programme three objectives had to be kept in constant focus:
- Establishing an organisation structure which enabled the Director of Adult Social Services to discharge the full range of his statutory accountabilities.
- Creating a more effective management structure at lower cost.
- Building strategic partnerships as the foundation for whole system reform.
Throughout the process of change the role of the consultant has been to:
- Identify the specific components of change required and support their implementation.
- Hold a complete picture of the whole process of change – free from vested interests and the responsibility of managing the service.
- Support the Director in securing corporate and partner commitment to the purpose and process of change.
- Facilitate top team objective setting and decision making.
- Mentor individual managers to maximise their contribution to the leadership and management of change.
Leading and managing change
The Council’s vision was clear,exciting and ambitious.In order to make a reality of the Changing Lives vision Social Care Strategies Ltd. identified that specific support was required in:
- Developing and delivering an internal communications strategy.
- Enabling the HR team to become a true strategic partner to the process of change.
- Establishing principles of organisation effectiveness and principles of organisation design as the basis for structural reform.
- Developing the collective and individual capability of programme managers.
- Negotiating shared objectives with strategic partners.
- Putting customers at the heart of the organisation’s business processes.
- Designing new performance accountability and management arrangements.
Five building blocks of change
At an early stage of the process five building blocks of change were identified as essential to the achievement of the Changing Lives vision:
- The customer’s experience of the service.
- The design of the service in accordance with national and local requirements.
- The development of strategic partnerships within a whole system of services.
- The organisation’s capacity for learning and development.
- The business processes essential to achieving strategic vision and meeting customer needs.
These building blocks enabled the organisation to see and manage change as a single big picture – creating the structures,accountabilities and processes needed to make a consistent reality of vision and objectives.