Stephen pompret’s take on the purpose, vision, values and strengths programme

Due to Covid, there was a bit of a gap in programme, but we went digital recently with the wider team workshops, which were a "brilliant success". I asked Stephen to answer some questions to bring to life why the programme made such an impression. He kindly agreed….
 
Your wider team recently carried out Capitalise’s Purpose, Vision, Values and Strengths team workshops – what do you think the main benefits were for you as the overall leader of the team?

It was very helpful to create a tangible set of values and a clear purpose, vision and strategic priorities so that it can inform all of our decisions.

It provides us as a collective team with a nice simple question to ask - how does that relate to our purpose? This provides some rationale behind our decision making and what we choose to prioritise.

The Strengths workshop was useful as it identified my own and the team’s core attributes, so that we can focus on our strengths, but also identify the gaps across the team. This will help me provide training opportunities where appropriate.
 
What were the main benefits for your leadership team?
We had initially had a leadership team workshop facilitated by Joss earlier in the year to create our team purpose, vision and strategic priorities. We also got to understand and discuss the results of the team culture assessment. That was extremely useful in itself, bringing the leadership team together and allowing us to have useful discussions about what we stand for as a team. We then landed the new purpose and vision at the recent wider team workshops, which worked very well.

The purpose, vision and strategic priorities will be very useful for the leadership team, allowing them to challenge their direct reports on how certain activity or funding relates to that agreed purpose. I think they open up opportunities to have honest conversations around these things; and they also provide a great platform for coming up with ideas around how to keep improving the way we work.

What were the main benefits for the wider team/what’s the feedback been from them?
The feedback from the wider team has been very positive, especially around the purpose, vision and the culture survey. They provided a platform for the team to reflect and consider how things have changed and what they liked or what could be improved upon as a team. The opportunity for discussion played a big part in this feedback as it is often difficult to find space for staff to have open discussions and share ideas.

Four months into the pandemic, why do you feel carrying out this type of workshop is particularly beneficial?
Over the last four months we have had to dramatically change the work we deliver, but also the way in which we work as a team. The workshops provided a fantastic platform for us to reflect on how our work had changed and the impact this has had on the team.

Identifying and landing the purpose, vision and the strategic priorities also feels particularly timely as our work has been so flexible, it provides an opportunity for us to take stock and consider this purpose to ensure it is still valid. It also allows us not to lose sight of why we do what we do given the current uncertainty.

Now you have a memorable, compelling team narrative (your why, where, what and how), how is that going to help you as a team?
The main benefit I see for the team is focusing the mind. We have a large budget and it will allow us to ensure that the work we do is really driven by our core purpose to ensure that we don’t get distracted by other things.

What are the next steps? How are you going to make sure that this work gets taken forward and embedded in everything the team does?
We will be embedding elements of the workshops into our personal review processes as well as ensuring that the purpose, vision etc is embedded into the induction process to ensure all staff are aware of it.

How useful is it having done the culture survey and having a benchmark to evaluate the team yearly?

Incredibly useful, as a new leader coming into the role it provided me with a very useful benchmark to work from. It helped to identify issues within the team and some quick wins to try and address those. The yearly review of the survey will ensure that there is a continued focus on developing an even more positive culture and provide more opportunities to reflect and address any concerns arising.

Would you recommend other leaders of teams carrying out this programme and why?
Absolutely, it is incredibly difficult to facilitate genuine open and honest communication when it is being run by a member of the team.

Having Joss design and facilitate these workshops provided a fantastic opportunity for really positive discussions as well as honest ones which allowed us to challenge current cultural aspects of the team where needed. The new team narrative which includes the purpose, vision, strategic priorities and values, provides us with a refined tool for focusing our work. The cultural assessment has been an invaluable tool to evaluate the culture in the team and learn from what the team have said.

I’ve been working with Stephen Pomfret, new-in-role leader of the Make Happen, Collaboration Outreach team. This team have a phenomenal purpose 'Unlocking possibilities and opportunities for young people across Essex'. 

The programme called 'Not Stopping At Good Enough To Make It Happen’ helped the leadership team to identify their purpose, vision and strategic priorities, and then with the culture assessment results, understand the current v desired team culture, so the leadership could put into play some quick win initiatives, and identify on which values and areas to focus in the medium-to-long term.