Success in the workplace

Performing to make a difference to children and their families

Jo Fox Child Centred Practice

How much do you understand about…..

Organisation

Front line staff

Service user

• Definition of success• Definition of failure

• Definition of success• Definition of failure

• Definition of success• Definition of failure

What does success look like to you?How much have you thought about being successful in your workplace?Do you have an internal script for success?Do you expect to be successful?Do you expect to be recognised for being successful?Whom by?

What does success look like to service users?What expectations do they have of us?What expectations do they have of themselves?Do we understand and talk about each others purpose enough?

Understanding failure

• What is your failure policy?

• How do you define failure?

• What does failure mean to you?

• How do you use failure ?

• What is your organisations failure policy?

• How is failure defined?• What does it mean?• How do they use

failure?

Where do our goals overlap?

organisation

ownService user

•How strongly do you identify with your organisations goals and values?•Are you proud to be a part of your organisation?•Are the functions you carry out what the organisation and service user need you to do?•Do you believe that your task is worthwhile and significant?•What benefits will you gain personally from achieving your task professionally?•Does it matter to you if your organisation fails?•Does it matter to your organisation if you are successful at carrying out your tasks?•Does it matter to the service user if you are successful in your work or not?HOW DO YOU KNOW?

Think about your most valuable failureWhat did it tell you about yourself?About the people you worked for?About the people you worked with?

Links between performance and outcomes

The 60’s

• After WWII local authorities responded to the fact that some areas required services that cut across the traditional departments

• Councillors were concerned with budgets and performance was the domain of the professional – standards and accountability maintained through professional integrity and scrutiny of any kind seemed like an affront.

The 80’s

• Audit commission started in 1983• In 1986, it published a well regarded tool kit for

Performance Review which introduced the idea of the three E's (economy, efficiency and effectiveness).

• Councils were encouraged to compare value for money and performance against a range of indicators - though these were mainly cost based at this stage.

The 80’s

• It was also a period which saw an increased focus on what Professor John Stewart (Birmingham University's INLOGOV) described as the "wicked issues" - demands and problems which cut across traditional departmental and service "silos" and which demanded a more corporate approach.

The 80’s• Some councils (a notable example being the London Borough of

Bexley) introduced systematic processes for corporate planning and review.

• Typically, these included a high level corporate plan (setting out the main council aims and priorities) supplemented with service plans reviewed annually.

• Many councils set up performance review committees (prompted by local auditors and the work of the Audit Commission) - although it was many years before these became an effective agent of change within organisations.

The late 80’s• The next decade saw an increasing challenge to the traditional belief that

council services were delivered to people by professional experts whose judgements should not be questioned.

• In the late 1980s, York City Council pioneered the idea of published "citizen charters" - setting out, in plain language, the standards of service that users should expect and what to do if services failed to meet expectations.

• This idea was taken up by John Major's Government which, in 1993, launched a national citizen's charter movement incorporating a Chartermark award scheme and, for the first time, a set of statutory performance indicators (organised and validated by the Audit Commission).

• This same period also saw a massive expansion across local government in the use of market research to explore attitudes of the local population to council services and the way they were delivered. This had previously been resisted by many councillors who saw it as a threat to their traditional view of themselves as the voice of the local community.

The noughties• The early part of the twenty first century can be seen as a logical continuation of

these trends; the citizens' charter and compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) morphing into the best value regime and then onto the comprehensive performance assessment (CPA).

• Gradually, there was growing awareness that Stewart's "wicked issues" were not going away - indeed they went far beyond the collective powers of the entire council and required cooperative working with outside agencies such as the health service, police, voluntary and business sectors. CPA became (albeit briefly) the comprehensive area assessment (CAA).

• The Total Place initiative has started to explore in depth the extent to which public bodies (both national and local) have the same clients and objectives and, individually, have considerable resources yet lack the organisational and political capacity to operate in an effective "joined up" way to deliver services which are cost effective and which meet service user and community needs.

The new

• The coalition government has dismantled the old performance frameworks, the audit commission is to be abolished.

• In it’s place an expectation that:• Local authorities are responsible for their own

performance and for leading the delivery of improved outcomes for their area

• Local authorities are accountable to their local communities

Context - preparing for leaner times

• In March 2010, the Audit Commission summarised the challenge facing councils, over the next decade or so, as:"The financial impact of the recession has been manageable for most councils up to January 2010.The government has honoured the three-year grant settlement up to 2010/11; on average, grant is two-thirds of council income.

• Staff pay increased by 1 per cent in 2009/10, less than expected. • Many councils received a windfall VAT refund. • Many councils, especially districts, have enough reserves to cover short-term funding pressures.• However, some councils – often districts – have been hit hard by falling local income.

Development-related income has reduced; planning applications are down by 22 per cent. • Investment income fell by £544 million (43 per cent) in 2008/09, and the fall continued in

2009/10. • Capital receipts are down from over £3.5 billion in 2007, to just £800 million in the first three

quarters of 2009. • Some districts that rely heavily on local income are struggling.

Each individual to think carefully about how they are spending their time and resources.Performance is no longer something done by ‘funny little people in small dark cupboards that has nothing to do with the real world”. It is what you do everyday to ensure your efforts do not go to waste.

The benefits and risks

• Good councils will flourish as they focus on local priorities with less national prescription; but coasting or defensive organisations may flounder

• We will have to publish a lot of data, but will be set far fewer associated national targets – again this is an opportunity for good councils but also a threat if councils do not rigorously drill down on key performance metrics

20

AppendicesQ

uickW

insAccelerated

Comm

issioningCapacity &

Capability

Change M

anagement

Comm

issioning Journey

ExecutiveSum

mary

BURNING PLATFORMApathy &

complacency

VISIONLack of direction or

coherence so change fizzles out

LEADERSHIPPoor alignment

& inertia

CAPACITY & CAPABILITYAnxiety & frustration

COMMUNICATE & ENGAGE

People feel thechange won’t

affect them

OWNERSHIP AT ALL LEVELS

Poor design that won’t last

QUICK WINSCynicism that

change is possible & disbelief

PERSONAL IMPACT

Lack of individual commitment

EMBED CHANGE SO IT’S BUSINESS

AS USUALRevert to the

old ways

Key: ESSENTIAL FOR CHANGE

Symptom of missing piece

Change M

anagement

21

AppendicesQ

uickW

insAccelerated

Comm

issioningCapacity &

Capability

Change M

anagement

Comm

issioning Journey

ExecutiveSum

mary

Encouraging InnovationRisk takingEmotional supportBalanced assessmentLearning from failureTrying new things

ResourcesFundingTimeAuthority to act

InformationWide scope searchUncensored, unfiltered, unsummarisedFree-flowing

Honouring everyone’s inputDiversityTrusting, open environmentTeam based work

Relationships

TargetsWhat, but not howSpecific call for innovationTie to strategic plan‘Stretch’Clear case for need

Aligned with organisational goalsRecognitionIntrinsic motivationIndividualised

Rewards

FlexibilityProcessTrainingEncouragement for skills development

Tools

Capacity &

Capability

Key performance indicators

• Can these be usefully re-framed as “is what I do each day making a good difference

to the lives of children and their families?”

• What would your key performance indicators look like?

• What evidence base do you have for your performance indicators?

Unpicking indicators

The indicator • Completing an initial

assessment within 10 days

The evidence• Messages from research• Poor decision making• Children in drift• No services only assessment• Child protection action

taken without understanding issues and needs of child

How do we measure things?

Outputs

Outcomes

Indicators

Targets

Outcome or output?• Outcomes are end results. They

can describe different aspects of wellbeing for whole populations – for example, all children, as with the Every Child Matters (ECM) outcomes – or they can refer to the wellbeing for users of a particular service or intervention over time. Examples are a safe community, a clean environment, or a reduction in the number of looked-after children. These are outcomes, not outputs.

• Outputs describe service specifications, delivery mechanisms and procedures. For example, a successful parenting support programme might deliver a specific number of training sessions and increase the number of trained facilitators and participating parents. These are outputs, not outcomes.

Measuring outcomes instead of activity

• What should the measure be?

• Who should we ask?• What should we ask ?• When should we ask?• How can we share the

results?

1. Safe Community

2. Crime Rate

3. Average Police Dept response time

4. A community without graffiti

5. % of surveyed buildings without graffiti

6. People have living wage jobs and income

7. % of people with living wage jobs and income

8. % of participants in job training who get living

wage jobs

IS IT A OUTCOME, INDICATOR OR PERFORMANCE MEASURE?

The difficulty with assigning valueEconomic rationalist approach to understanding outcomes believes that everything can have a value attached.

What do we need to measure the right things?

• Left Brain

• Bureaucracy• Systems• Politics• Planning• Rule compliance• Analysis• Formality• Order

• Right Brain

• Autonomy• Ownership• Risk taking• Rewriting rules• Informal• Synthesis• Intuition• Trust

MEASURING OUTCOMES NOT ACTIVITY

“Not everything worth counting can be counted; and not everything that can be

counted counts”

What are you counting

• How often do you measure what you do each day?• How often do you measure the work of your

colleagues and peers?• How much faith do you have in the tools you are

using?• What would you do differently?• How much responsibility are you taking for

ensuring that you understand what ‘doing a good job’ means.

The hidden dynamicsBehaviour goals- visable Behaviour blocking goals –

not visableHidden motivation to maintain blocking behaviours

Be more receptive to new ideas Giving curt responses to new ideas –closing off, cutting off, or over-ruling tone

To have things done my way

Be more flexible in my response especially to new structures and ideas

Not asking open ended question or seeking opinions of others enough

To experience myself as having a direct impact

Be more open to delegating and supporting new lines of authority

Communicating with others too much, too frequently, that they have to get back to me

To feel the pride of ownership to see my stamp

Being too quick to give an opinion when it has not been asked for

To preserve my sense of myself as a super problem solver

Other models for valuing outcomes• Appreciative inquiry is a strategy for intentional change that

identifies the best of 'what is' to pursue dreams and possibilities of 'what could be'; a cooperative search for the strengths, passions and life-giving forces that are found within every system and that hold potential for inspired, positive change.

• It is a process of collaborative inquiry, based on interviews and affirmative questioning, that collects and celebrates 'good news stories' of a community; these stories serve to enhance cultural identity, spirit and vision.

• Appreciative inquiry is an approach which focuses on a desired future or outcome and is different from a problem-solving approach.

Appreciative inquiry• Its four guiding principles are:1. every system works to some degree; seek out the positive,

life-giving forces and appreciate the best of “what is'.2. knowledge generated by the inquiry should be applicable;

look at what is possible and relevant.3. systems are capable of becoming more than they are, and

they can learn how to guide their own evolution – so consider provocative challenges and bold dreams of 'what might be'.

4. the process and outcome of the inquiry are interrelated and inseparable, so make the process a collaborative one.

How would you make this work in Children’s Services?

What gets in the way What helps

Cost benefit analysis in social care

Benefits• Knowing how to allocate

precious resources• Able to move services

flexibly with the child and families needs

• Commission effectively to meet the community needs

challenges• Count the wrong thing• Confuse cost with value

How could you make this work in Children’s Services?

What gets in the way? What makes it work?

Outcome based results

drawbacks• It is sometimes hard to

evidence outcomes• The results of the work we

do can take years for the child to show developmentally

• We can miss the underlying causes if we always treat the symptom – short term gain only

strengths• It makes us work to

something tangible • It should result in changes

that are valuable to the child and their family

How would you make this work in children’s services

What gets in the way What helps

The most significant change

• What ‘soft data’?• How do we collect it?• What gets in our way?

Most Significant ChangeThe most significant change (MSC) technique is a form of participatory monitoring and evaluation. It is participatory because many project stakeholders are involved both in deciding the sorts of change to be recorded and in analysing the data. It is a form of monitoring because it occurs throughout the program cycle and provides information to help people manage the program. It contributes to evaluation because it provides data on impact and outcomes that can be used to help assess the performance of the program as a whole.

When to use:• Program evaluation.• Organizational review and evaluation.• Building community ownership through participatory evaluation.•

How to use:• The process involves the collection of significant change (SC) stories from the field level, and the systematic

selection of the most important of these by panels of designated stakeholders or staff. The designated staff and stakeholders are initially involved by ‘searching’ for project impact. Once changes have been captured, various people sit down together, read the stories aloud and have regular and often in-depth discussions about the value of the reported changes. When the technique is successfully implemented, whole teams of people begin to focus their attention on programme impact.

• From: http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/MSCGuide.pdf by Rick Davies and Jess Dart

These ten steps are usually included:

1. Raising interest at the start.2. Defining the domains of change.3. Defining the reporting period4. Collecting SC stories.5. Selecting the most significant of the stories.6. Feeding back the results of the selection process.7. Verifying the stories.8. Quantification.9. Secondary analysis and meta-monitoring.10. Revising the system.