Court Service Case Study

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Client:
The Court Service
Project:
Leadership Development - design/delivery

 ‘This is the best development programme I’ve ever been on. Lots of work, sweat and tears, but worth every minute!’

Group Manager

Result: The beneficial impact of the programme has been recorded on three levels:

Following on from the success of this programme, which was described by the Court Service as 'best practice', we were asked to design and support the delivery of a follow-up programme, focusing on management skills development for 900 middle managers. This programme was then rolled out by the Court Service's own training and development team. TSO Consulting was awarded a framework agreement to provide continuing organisational development support to the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

Situation: The new Chief Executive of the Court Service wanted to take a comprehensive look at the effectiveness of the agency, and commissioned a benchmarking project using the EFQM model for Business Excellence. The results were stark, indicating that a key lack in the organization was good and effective leadership. A change programme was initiated, which included leadership development as a major strand of activity.

Task: TSO Consulting won the contract to deliver the Court Service 'Leadership Development Programme'. The programme was targeted at all levels of senior management from Span seven to the Chief Executive. This involved some 450 managers in total.

Action: We ran a series of focus groups with senior managers, and discussed the business plan and the newly developed leadership profile with our sponsors, the Head of Personnel and the Western Circuit Manager, in order to ensure that the programme matched organisational and individual expectations. The design was based on two principles:

  1. The learning was required to relate directly to the organisation's aims and objectives, and to the organisation's existing cultural-change programme;
  2. The leadership model we used had to demonstrate the worth of different styles of leadership and encourage a diversity of working styles within teams.

Once we had the first version of the design ready, we held a walk-through session for the sponsors and then three pilots with group managers in order to fine tune the programme. The programme involved the Myers Briggs Type Indicator TM, and individual feedback of a bespoke 360° tool, designed and delivered by TSOC, and based on the Leadership Profile. Our team also facilitated a two-day workshop for each group of 12-15 delegates. Twelve months later, TSOC delivered a second round of 360° feedback for senior management.

Feedback:

‘This is the best development programme I’ve ever been on. Lots of work, sweat and tears, but worth every minute!’
Group Manager

‘This programme made a real difference, re-motivating leaders and staff to work effectively under pressure.’
Circuit Manager

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