Creating An Outstanding College

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Creating An Outstanding College Sir Bernard
OConnell Email oconnellbernard_at_yahoo.co.uk We
bsite www.sirbernardoconnell.co.uk
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Runshaw College
Sixth Form Centre 3,750
RBC 1.5m
Adult College
1,000 Access 2 Prisons 1,000 ABE 700 Stepping
Stones 4,000 Part-Time 350 HE
900 staff
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99
88
67
1974
1984
1994
2004
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Runshaws Achievements

• Beacon College Joint Best Inspection Reports in
  FE in 1996, 2001 2005
• Growth from 900 to 14,000
• Success rates 10 above national benchmark
• Very high student satisfaction
• 90-95 staff satisfaction each year
• Grade A finances and 10m building spend
• UK (2002) and European Quality Award (2003)?
• EFQM European Prize for Leadership, 2003

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Audit Commission (1983)?

• Obtaining better value from F.E. (1985)?
• 50 million year wasted 75,000 more students at
  no significant extra cost
• Better marketing over teaching small class
  sizes lecturer teaching hours financial
  management space MIS
• N.B. 1993 report on 16-19 150,000 leave/ fail
  330 million

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Government frustrations about the culture of
education

• HMI identified widespread poor teaching
• Unacceptable variations between and within
  colleges
• Lack of leadership
• Quality assurance left to chance
• Professional culture the root of the problem
• Professionalism interpreted as
  unaccountability

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Management

• Not Managing

Fractured

• Lecturers
• Unaccountable

• Non-Compliance

• Doing Their Own Thing

• Poor / Mediocre Performance

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Essentials for Quality Control
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Systems for Quality Control
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Three challenges

• Do you have these quality controls?
• If you do, are they best practice, producing
  valid reliable results?
• 3. Does everyone implement them properly? That
  is, the D in
• RADAR

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Management
Teachers
Students
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Examples of changes that challenged the culture
of individual autonomy

• External
• Inspection grades and published reports
• League Tables
• Targets Benchmarking
• Business Values
• - Funding students, not institutions
• - Market Forces
• - Value for Money
• - Accountability
• Pay and Conditions

• Some Internal QA Processes
• Performance Measurement
• - Lesson observation
• - Data
• - Student surveys
• Performance Management
• Poor performance
• Self-Assessment/Action Plan
• Teamwork
• Mandatory Staff Development

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The new reality

• All the new approaches (e.g. lesson observation)
  DO promote critical judgements of colleagues
  work, disturbing the comfortable and congenial
  culture of individualism.
• The challenge and problem was and is to
  transform the culture with a form of leadership
  that carries people with you.
• WHAT HAPPENED IN COLLEGES?

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What Happened In Colleges?

• Culture change
• Managerialism
• Polarisation of senior managers and staff

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Command and Control Management
Manager

• Isolated

• Decisions

• Standards

• Out of Touch

• Targets

• Budgets

Push
Teachers serve the hierarchy, not students
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Staff Become Negative Or Give Up
Cautious Leadership Keep Your Head Down
Cynicism Withdrawal
Resistance to Change
Command and Control
Blaming Demotivated
Climate Of Fear
Staff Do Minimum
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Doing the wrong thing

• Command Control
• creates a vicious circle in which management
  becomes control rather than the creation of
  resources so busy chasing targets that they have
  no time to do the work that matters for
  (students)
• .Inherent in command control is the assumption
  that human beings cant be trusted on their own
  to do what is needed. Hierarchy and tight
  supervision are required to tell them what to do.
  So, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, fear-driven,
  hierarchical organisations turn people into
  untrustworthy opportunistsand the control-freaks
  say, I told you so.
• (Simon Caulkin)?

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The 7 Ss
STRATEGY
SYSTEMS

• 3 HARD Ss
• 1990-93
• logical
• technical
• observable
• tools
• techniques
• methodologies

STRUCTURE
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Critical Success Factors
Stakeholders
Mission Statements
Empowerment
Briefing
Teams
Communications Systems
Performance Management
IIP
Death by 1000 Management Initiatives
Statistical Process Control
TQM
Customer Surveys
Process Re-engineering
Recognition Strategies
Benchmarking
Environmental Management
Focus Groups
Suggestion Scheme
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The 7 Ss

• 3 HARD Ss
• logical
• technical
• observable
• tools
• techniques
• methodologies
• 4 Soft Ss
• creative
• intuitive
• cultural

STRATEGY
SYSTEMS
STRUCTURE
STAFF
STYLE
SHARED VALUES
SKILLS
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Student Demands
One Stop Transactions
PUL L
FLOW
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Transformational Leadership
Transactional Leadership
Versus
Command Control
Winning Hearts Minds
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Transformational leadership a definition

• is concerned with engaging the hearts and minds
  of others. It works to help all parties achieve
  greater motivation, satisfaction and a greater
  sense of achievement. It requires trust, concern
  and facilitation rather than direct control. The
  skills required are concerned with establishing a
  long-term vision, empowering people to control
  themselves, coaching, developing others and
  challenging the culture to change. In
  transformational leadership, the power of the
  leader comes from creating understanding and
  trust. In contrast, in transactional leadership,
  power is based on the notion of hierarchy and
  position.
• 
  Professor John Mackness

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Translating a value into behaviours
What does the value mean? what beliefs does it
imply?
Managers
Students
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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY
ONE UNITED MANAGEMENT TEAM
SMT
ONE UNITED STAFF TEAM
MIDDLE MANAGERS
TEAM LEADERS
STAFF
STUDENTS
OTHER STAKEHOLDERS
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Management Style
HR Strategy
How do you make people feel valued?
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Designing a culture change programme for your
service

• 1. Gain understanding of the concepts of
  transformational leadership develop a
  systematic implementation plan.
• 2. Health check, especially the barriers for
  middle managers.
• 3. Create one united management team
• 4. Identify the core values, translate into
  explicit behaviours embed into your processes.

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• 5. Develop HR strategies to Make people feel
  valued.
• 6. Involve all staff in developing a shared sense
  of direction.
• 7. Develop a process management model that
  improves relationships between support staff and
  teaching staff.
• 8. And define Grade 1 Excellence in the
  classroom.