Improving institutional change management is key to improving agility, staff satisfaction and responsiveness. This is also crucial for the long-term viability of the higher education sector in the face of current policy and funding uncertainty.

Pulling back the veil on traditional learning and development, empowering staff to problem-solve, and harnessing the power of hidden influencers within your staff can radically change the culture of your institution, moving from one where change is “made” to people, to a culture that champions change through employees. -improvements carried out.

By leading a continuous improvement program, Newcastle University has learned what can be achieved by empowering frontline staff (i.e. not just managers, HR professionals and formal units change) the skills needed to apply change methodology to business improvement. Aimed at a cohort of professionals who are not typically involved in institutional problem solving, this capacity building program aims to demonstrate that a small change (breaking rocks) can have a big impact.

Rock breaking refers to a type of problem solving. The analogy comes from the idea of ​​having a small stone in your shoe that is uncomfortable and hinders your movements. Only when you have it removed will you be able to feel relief and realize how much it has impacted your daily life.

The program, in which participants identify a “pebble” in their daily work life that they want to resolve or improve, lasts a week and a half, divided into a series of one-day workshops over six months. During the program, participants learn fundamental project and change management methodologies, skills such as how to develop audience-centered communications, adopt a mindset of change, curiosity, innovation and resilience. Coaches support participants throughout the process and their managers are involved at key stages so that they can create the right environment for their staff members to thrive.

As the designer and organizer of the program, my thoughts over the past two years of running the program are: Just as we ask our colleagues to become more comfortable with change, those of us who design training programs also need to be comfortable with doing things differently. Below are some considerations for training designers.

Putting learning back into the hands of the learner

Resist designing the entire program; instead, let it be guided by what the participants need as it progresses. By using the concepts of productive failure(a reversal of the learning sequence – start with the problem, then provide the necessary skills and tools) and citizen development (a popular computer science concept that allows anyone to become a programmer), we encouraged participants to view mistakes or setbacks as opportunities for growth and to self-identify what they need to make progress in solving them of problems. We used barriers and obstacles to guide coaching conversations and inform program session design.

Things to consider might include:

That you build a community that supports growth. What can you do to encourage continuous learning? Maybe this creates a peer learning environment for participants to review each other’s work and report back to each other between formal learning sessions. Do you need to go further and create a concurrent skills session for managers, equipping them with the skills needed to be comfortable in a culture of continuous improvement?

Where you create opportunities for participants to make choices and take responsibility. Can you incorporate Glasser’s theory of choice, which is based on the principle that individuals can only control themselves and not others, to help participants better understand how they and the people around them react and adapt to change?

Rather than a traditional training needs analysis, create an experience map that focuses on desired outcomes rather than a rigid structure.

Ask more than say and fail quickly

To facilitate a culture of continuous improvement and agility where change happens quickly, you must implement the program in the same way.

Creating a trusted space where we can collect feedback at the end of each of our program sessions is essential to ensure that training content and design are relevant and meet staff needs. As a program team, we forced ourselves to work under the same Minimum Viable Product model (to release a new topic or skill used to validate participant needs and requests before developing a more comprehensive training program). complete) that our participants were encouraged. to adopt in their learning and stone-breaking journey. The key to this is using the information to inform the best course of action.

After each session, we considered:

• Did today’s content help our program participants? What didn’t they like?
• What do our participants need to resolve or move an obstacle and continue moving their project forward?
• How can the program team help participants continue to make their case for change when they return to their roles (hopefully they will have resolved their initial rock/problem and are now ready to present their idea for improving the business)?

Benefits and impact

It is essential to have a way to demonstrate and track benefits. We used a benefits mapping tool to track and focus efforts and demonstrate impact. The main benefits we monitored were:

• Maturity of organizational change
• Staff feeling empowered when coming up with ideas
• Staff feelings about well-managed change
• Staff feel supported in the change.

Two key things to consider when building a benefits map:

• Use a tool such as a benefits realization management framework or a one-page benefits map to visually connect tangible results to organizational impact to provide a clear vision for planning.
• Integrate the benefits map into briefings with other parties involved and review conversations regularly to keep everyone aligned and expectations met.

Changing capabilities and culture takes time and, in a rapidly changing world, a new approach is needed. With a fresh perspective, you can humanize change and develop a workforce of empowered, change-ready, and agile collaborators who are less afraid of the unplanned and planned changes ahead.

Kristy-Jai Chantrey is a change management specialist at Newcastle University.

If you would like to receive weekly advice and ideas from academics and university staff straight to your inbox, subscribe to the Campus newsletter.