We were given the challenge of working with a group of recently appointed pathway leaders and senior managers from a newly formed college to develop a sustainable CPD model that would help the group to plan and implement innovative strategies delivering a service to the local community and provide a platform for excellence and improvement in teaching and learning across all faculties.

We used our SCOPE programme to focus on the organisational vision and how to communicate it and empower teams to create and then embed objectives and clearly defined targets to achieve their stated goals and deadlines.

We started by using the Scott and Jaffe change curve that demonstrates how people react to change over time moving from denial and resistance towards acceptance and commitment. We used a compelling activity to allow the group to express their feelings in relation to the change that had taken place and where they felt they were on the change curve and how they could use the findings to influence others.

The strategic documentation was comprehensive and clearly defined, each of the managers have worked together to decide how to communicate with their teams to implement the various strands and empower them to achieve the vision. We focused on the challenges and how they could be overcome and on creating measurable impact measures that would clearly identify when objectives would be met.

We have delivered coaching training for the teams so that they will use these techniques from the very beginning of the implementation process and allow for a culture of professional dialogue, reflective practice and positive feedback and appraisal.

Further sessions have concentrated on emotional intelligence so that managers can understand more about themselves, their impact on others, and the contribution they make to the organisation. We have reinforced a range of coaching models, spent time concentrating on the question ‘How can I influence others to deliver challenging targets?’ We have also taken time to consider deeper listening techniques and revisited the reflective cycle to help all those involved to continue to reflect on their progress, successes and goals.