Jill's thinking changed allowing her to see differently

Jill thinking change a new focus upon the customer ... and costs fell!

Jill found that staff engagement is free

Punch & Judy show

Jill Coleshaw is Head of Benefits & Revenues at Tendring Council. I first meet her in front of a Punch and Judy show at the Institute of Revenues and Ratings conference (IRRV 2010) where her team have been nominated for a prize for improving the way the service is delivered to customers. The Punch and Judy show was to help explain to delegates how her service had changed for service users (with a particular seaside flavour as they are based in Clacton).

Jill explains that the reason the service improved was because how she thought about work as a manager was challenged when she heard John Seddon speak. Her curiosity led her to take these ideas back to her organisation to experiment with. She showed her management team a DVD to try to provoke their curiosity. Then they began to listen to demand to understand how well their current service was working for service users. What they found was failure demand running at 80% of total contact. Failure demand is caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer or service user. It helps organisations move from an inside-out understanding of service (how we view work from inside an organisation) to an outside-in view (how service users view the service).

As Jill studied, her thinking about some aspects of management and leadership changed. For example she learned that ‘managing cost’ had resulted in long forms to be sent out for service users to fill-in. She had believed it was cheaper to send out forms than to have home visits or personal contact. This knowledge allowed her and her team to experiment with providing services that were designed to help service users. The newly redesigned service was able to absorb a 30% increase in workload (due to the recession) at a reduced cost of £270,000.

What Jill demonstrates is the key Vanguard concept of Thinking – Systems – Performance.

Here at Vanguard consulting we know that there is a systemic relationship between how manager’s think, the shape and design of the system that is created resulting in different levels of performance. The consequences of this change in thinking can sometimes be unexpected. As a new system is put in place, better performance leads to improved engagement as Jill explains (see left: staff engagement is a consequence of an improved system).

Jill shows what can be achieved when managers change their thinking about management. Jill didn’t use Vanguard consultants, although she did change her thinking about her service and use key concepts such as ‘failure demand’ and ‘outside-in’ to understand how the service was performing. Jill did all this without help from Vanguard, it shows what can be achieved by leaders studying their own system following Vanguard's guides.

Yet Jill’s change in thinking shows her to be a manager who is curious enough to experiment and learn. That has to be a good thing for her service users and it helps Punch get his sausages! (see left).