The challenge

How do you take a further education college that is an average performer and mobilise the impetus, capacity and the desire to transform itself into a centre of excellence? This is the challenge that Lynne Sedgmore, Chief Executive of the Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL) gave to Bath Consultancy Group.

When Ofsted assesses an establishment it looks at how well the college is currently performing but importantly they also assess the trajectory of the college - whether it has the capacity for improvement. If there is little scope for continuous improvement and progression, or if they were middling performers who could be classed as coasting colleges, a term coined by the Department for Education and Skills. 

Bath Consultancy Group was selected to initially work with three colleges who were identified by CEL and where the senior management team of each college were keen to participate. 

The programme

The programme focussed on developing the leadership within the college and importantly helping to shift their own capacity to improve.  As Sue Rimmer, Principal of SW Thames College of Further Education, says: "The question is: how can we as leaders move from a position where we're talking about problems and what other people should do, to talking about solutions and what our individual actions are in those solutions - what should we do?"

Bath Consultancy Group has been working with three middle performing colleges. The key objectives were:

• accelerate the progression from satisfactory to good and then onto excellent, in particular shifting the college's own capacity for improvement
• raise achievement levels that feed economic prosperity
• achieve better Ofsted ratings
• create a greater educative capacity amongst the staff leading to an enhanced experience for learners
• develop better local partnerships on skills and economic improvement

Danny Chesterman, Principal Consultant at Bath Consultancy Group, says: "There is plenty of evidence that strengthening the performance management regime when people feel at a low ebb can actually drive people into greater defensiveness and cynicism. It's therefore entirely possible that well intended e investment in the sector will not result in an improvement in the skills base that is so vitally needed."

He continues, "We need to create the conditions in which that investment can blossom and bear fruit.  We believe that leaders get the cultures they behave.  Therefore, the challenge is to discover and instil those behaviour shifts within the leadership team that are going to trigger the behaviour shifts in the wider organisation - and in turn, shift the relationship with stakeholders."

The Bath Consultancy Group Approach

High performing organisations are those who manage to align their strategy, their leadership and their culture. Bath's definition of alignment is hearts (the inner passions and motivations), minds (the way they think), and hands (what they do).

The Pilot Programme was designed to weave three key aspects together:

1. Leadership

Bath Consultancy Group initially led intensive sessions focussed on understanding the current leadership team - how they assess themselves, how they are seen and experienced by others in the organisation.  Part of Bath Consultancy Group's approach is to work through real play not role play. Therefore, team coaching sessions were used as part of normal meetings where real issues and dilemmas were worked on.

2. Organisational patterns

This phase of the programme looks at the patterns of behaviour that limit current ways of thinking and acting in the college and helping to instil new liberating patterns.  Bath Consultancy Group uses organisation workshops, based on the work of Barry Oshry, to simulate the patterns that often appear in organisations and then works with cross college groups to deliberately interrupt these.  Bath has developed provocations on leadership, change, learning and culture that help to shift these limiting mindsets and therefore freeing up these colleges for change.

3. Action inquiry

The working assumption is that in every college there are pockets of excellence and passion that exist.  This process identifies these and then works on connecting them so that their impact is greater across the whole organisation. A typical example would be enabling managers from both teaching and support to sit down together and explore how the quality of the learners experience can be improved, or how the management information can be strengthened.

Recently, staff from the participating colleges have met together to challenge and support each other and get perspectives from outside.

Transforming relationships with stakeholders

Later on in the journey to excellence, a further education college may need to shift the attention it pays to wider relationships with key stakeholders.  In this phase, which is outside the pilot funding, the programme maps, understands and connects needs across the wider community.  It also creates actions to build sustainable coalitions for change that will continue to accelerate the performance of the college from coasting...to good...and onto excellent.

Evaluation / Achievements

This is an initial pilot project that aims to develop an approach to improving college performance that can be mainstreamed with a larger number of colleges.

The programme includes an innovative form of evaluation conducted by Total Improvement Process Ltd. Evaluation is based on four areas:

1. Perception Surveying

The perception of the colleges about the process they are involved in a how they are using it. This will be influenced by what OFSTED looks for in improving colleges and the objectives set by Bath Consultancy Group.

2. Key Stories

Collect key stories about the most significant examples of change in each of the three colleges.

3. Dialogues

Participate in reflective dialogues built into the pilot with brief presentations of findings, conclusions and implications for action.

4. Reporting

Adopt processes for reporting ways that support the mainstreaming of outcomes and lessons.