All of us Together
Last year my colleague and I were approached by three members of the senior leadership team of education and children’s services in a local authority. The team had experienced a number of changes including leadership positions. The existing leadership team had been together for six months and were working well but they acknowledged that there were challenges in getting their senior staff to collaborate and work together.
They knew that their teams needed to work together to have any chance of tackling the big issues: children being sent out of the area to be looked after, rising concerns about the mental health of young people, and stress levels in teachers and social workers. We have got the ingredients to do something great, but we are getting drawn into the minutiae. We need to create a safe space to have conversations.
It was evident that the senior leaders and their teams were willing to put the time in, face to face, believing that given the right conditions, coming together could make a difference, although they were openly fearful that it could also make things worse. The stakes were high. Their honesty and their commitment were tangible so although it felt daunting, it was clear that they would work with us.
We began with 1:1 confidential conversations with each member of the senior social work and education team giving them a chance to air their concerns, express their hopes for the future and be honest about their misgivings. While some team members were sceptical about whether this would work, others were happy to give it a chance. They all wanted it to be practical and focused on making a difference to children and young people.
We were cautious about bringing them together, we wanted to enable them to identify and inhabit their difference first before focusing on what they had in common, so we met them as two separate teams. We asked them to create an image first of their own identity and what they thought they stood for as a team. The two sessions felt very different. The social workers were focused on building connection with young people and their families. The education officers had clarity about their skills, their task and the outcomes they wanted for children. The two groups were frustrated with one another and irritated by each other’s seeming inability to provide support when needed. The education officers wanted the social workers to intervene earlier with children before their behaviour became too difficult to support in school. The social workers wanted teachers to be more tolerant and open to trying new approaches. They did acknowledge that they all cared about children and young people and wanted better for them.
And that is where we started when we got them together for two days, with stories about children and families most of whom were struggling to get what they needed from services, and how they felt about that. These stories stayed in the room with us throughout. Everyone knew that the challenge was how to divert time and money so that the social workers could provide support to young people, their families and schools, earlier. The social workers and the education officers talked of children who had never received the support they needed and were now being educated a long way from their families and their communities. They reflected that ‘sometimes it felt like we were waiting for it to happen - we were forced into being reactive.’ But they also had examples of risks that they had taken together, when instead of sending a young person who had been violent in school to a more secure unit outside the area, they had supported him to spend a holiday with his family, and his behaviour was beginning to improve.
They had been united in challenging the standard of care provided by another agency and had the difficult conversation together. What they noticed was there had been times when they had ‘created the conditions so that they could all be on the same page’, but most of the time they were ‘giving one another updates rather than having joint discussions’. Crucially they could see that ‘it is difficult to hear children’s voices.’
The stories created an urgency to change the way they worked together so that they could do better. This naturally led to a conversation about their common values and their goals. We paused first to notice their difference: difference in working styles and difference in training, skills and approach to the work itself. By the end of the first day, they felt connected and purposeful. They had brought their curiosity and sense of fun into the room with them as well as their energy and their commitment. They had managed to avoid blaming themselves or each other, at the same time as recognising that the system they were part of could do better.
On the second day, we got down to planning. And it got sticky. We got stuck on the big changes, managing to spell them out on paper as the room got quieter and quieter. Eventually one of the group called out the issue saying that the headteachers would roll their eyes at our work. They needed help now, not a strategy for the future. Over lunch the three senior leaders met and had an honest conversation about what was needed now to make a difference. Their honesty changed our direction.
On the final afternoon, we set the strategy aside and worked on the small but significant changes that they could try straight away: inviting the social workers to headteachers’ meetings regularly, connecting and collaborating in one area around one high school, carrying on working through the issues on the existing joint project and updating the data so that they could track the impact on children and young people.
We met again six months later and we noticed a huge difference. The team came into the room chatting and joking. They had been meeting regularly in person. Whilst some members of the team has since moved on, they felt their loss but it had also created opportunities. They had been working on all the actions they identified and made substantial progress. ‘We recognised that the fundamental responsibility for the child lies with all of us together.’
Looking back, I can recognise several ingredients for success. The three women who made up the senior leadership team were committed to collaborating from the outset both for themselves and for their teams. They put significant time into meeting us separately and together with the wider group. Bringing in external facilitators was a sign of their commitment to change.
The process was spacious, taking place over four months. Everyone had time to speak about their perspective individually first, then in a small professional group and then in the wider group.
Psychological safety was created in the group together. We started with the stories of children and young people which created a strength of common purpose. We made it safe to talk about difference by using a working styles framework which emphasised the importance of having difference in a team. The senior leaders were visibly listening. We had a working agreement which committed us to being open-minded: at no point was blame attributed to any individual or team. And as each person took a risk to bring more of themselves in through expressing their frustration or sadness, offering support or gently teasing one another, more followed.
We planned for the longer term and for the immediate future. By the end of their second day together, it really felt like there was no going back. Six months later they celebrated all they had achieved together, recognised that there was still a long way and generated a new set of objectives with ease. It was a joy to be with them and at the same time, I had never felt so strongly that I wasn’t needed anymore.
