It is said that Management’s responsibility is to work on the system so that those who work in the System can perform to their potential. But knowing that and doing that are very different things especially when you have grown up in the System. Therefore to allow change to happen very often requires ‘facilitation’ from outside.
In the Education System that ‘facilitation’ can come from a number of sources i.e. Government edicts. The requirement to publish league tables and the focus on performance have facilitated change. As we are aware imposed change is not always welcome. We do have choices (‘all the choices we need’), we can fight the change, we can leave or we can work with it. One way may be is to seek a different map to ask what is this System an example of ? How is it similar or different to what exists now ?
In NLP we model excellence and then teach it. We model excellence in teaching and then teach it. But what about the System teaching is part of, how can we work within it if it doesn’t support our new and improved methods ? The answer maybe to work on the System to allow those methods to flourish. But how ?
If we ask what is a school an example of ? An answer may be an Organisation. An Organisation of people working towards providing an excellent service to its Stakeholders (Pupils, Parents, Governors, Government, Staff). An example of another type of Organisation that provides an excellent service to its Stakeholders is a Hospital (Pupils = Patients), a Service Business (an Airline where Pupils = Customers ?). So how do Businesses measure their effectiveness at enabling the System to support its People in achieving excellent results ?
As a result of the changes in Education brought about by the Governments desire to make schools (used as a generic to include all education institutions) more ‘Business like’ a small Primary school in Chepstow set about becoming more ‘Business like’ in its teaching methods and its Systems to support those methods. The Dell Primary School won the prestigious UK Quality Award in 1997 along side BT and National Westminster Bank.
Their motivation was to be a centre of excellence where parents wanted to send their children. They also wanted to be seen as a caring school that taught not only the National Curicullum but lessons on Spirituality, Morality and Culture. To do this meant listening to all stakeholders and responding to their wishes.
This was done by Pupil Opinion Surveys, where the pupils were asked what was working what wasn’t and what they would like to see different. Suggestions were acted upon. Parents were surveyed and kept informed. The feedback from external inspectors is positive and results from testing shows Dell pupils achieving above average scores.
The process that Dell followed started around 1994 with implementation of the Investors in People process which helps organisations to focus on the needs of staff in terms of Training and Development. Next Dell were awarded The Charter Mark for their excellence in provision of public service. With this, Dell were encouraged to apply for the UK Quality Award. To support this they implemented the “Business Excellence Model” a ‘model of Excellence’ in approach and results. They found some of the criteria, especially the Business Results criteria, a little difficult to map onto their operation. By asking what is this an example of ? ( Chunking up logical levels) they were able to tailor their approach to meet the criteria. One of the fundamentals of the BEM is the principle of Continuous Improvement. An example of this is in their desire to measure the impact of their Philosophy of Caring (Spiritual, Moral and Cultural teaching). Then to take action to achieve their Goals having the flexibility to do things differently if what they are doing isn’t working.
So, what does all this matter to the rest of us working in our own unique areas ? What can we learn ? How can we influence our ‘Systems’ ? What stories can we tell of Excellence ? What tales of ‘Role Models’ and System Models ?
For more information and or for comments and feedback please contact David Tate ([email protected]).