"Joining Up"
a Consulting Service for the Public Sector
Executive Teams tend to evolve in cycles, our service is designed to reflect that. The service consists of several complementary elements. These can be offered in varying combinations, tailored to suit the particular circumstances of the organisation in question. Joining Up is a service designed to deliver consistently high performance from management teams, especially in the decision-taking area. It is configured to support the Executive teams in Government Departments, Agencies and NDPBs.
Strategic Review
The strategic review offers an opportunity to take stock of the goals and objectives that the Department or Agency is pursuing in light of a review of the various future scenarios to which the team may have to react and to tease out the implications for the senior executives involved. The discussion would then move on to discuss such actions that the team must then put in place to address the issues and opportunities foreseen. This would take the form of a workshop, which we would facilitate. We would provide a written report on the outcome, with comments on the team's approach to the task where appropriate.
Executive Resources Review
The Executive Resources Review is designed to highlight strengths and weaknesses in the Departments executive team and its decision taking processes. This may include psychometric techniques and almost always a structured interview with each team member. This will result in a detailed written report on efficacy of the individuals and the team as a whole.
Executive Resources Strategy
We assist in the development of an executive resources strategy that supports the Department's own strategic aims. The first step would be to create a hypothetical model of the ideal management team to tackle the strategy. We would use this as the basis on which to develop the ER strategy to move the existing team toward the ideal.
This will probably include ongoing support to the senior executive and his team and further development activities, including coaching and strategic debate. It may also include the development of a "rolling short list", described below.
Development Plan
We work with the Executive Team to create a strategy to address the issues and opportunities faced by the team and the individual members. The creation of a development plan can be an important factor in ensuring that staff with aspirations to senior posts can see that the organisation as a whole wants them to develop appropriately and thus retain their confidence and support. This means that the Plan would include developmental activity for both individuals and the team working together, particularly on decision taking processes.
Rolling Shortlist
This excellent module was designed to complement the senior executive's knowledge of the pool of talent available to him and to give him an objective view of the abilities of his existing team. This would include defining the executive resources requirements for the department's key positions and initiating a search for potential candidates. Those selected would be qualified and presented in a report to the department which would include CV's and background reports.
Executive Search
We work with several of the leading Executive Search companies and can facilitate their involvement in a finely focused search project, informed by all the information derived from the Executive Resources Review and the Rolling Shortlist. We anticipate that this option will be invoked as part of the normal SCS recruitment process.
Executive Team Conferences
The Conference addresses the efficiency and chemistry of the executive team. Even a team that consists of an ideal mix of skills and talents needs to work at the relationships within the team. They need to be sure that they share the same objectives and the same view of the challenges that they face. The time taken to focus on these crucial aspects will be an excellent investment.
Benefits
Taken in combination the above elements enable Public Sector organisations to take a well-informed, longer-term strategic view of their executive resources. It also provides the means and the opportunity to improve skills and create more effective executive teams with complementary capabilities and highly developed decision making processes.