1

‘Identity is not something genetic, safe and secure. It is shaped by history and culture: it is about group feeling; allegiance to the state, but in an open society that can be wide and inclusive. It is always in the making and never made.’ – Michael Wood, English historian and broad caster

Above, picture took near Croydon Council building in April 2015

“Learning and Development team activity in Croydon Council, London”

Module: Conductive Collaborative Creativity Programme

Student: Renzo D’Andrea

2

Introduction Creativity and innovation will be discussed in referring to the Croydon Council work environment, specifically in the Learning and Development team and its own activity. The interviews with the two team’s consultants, their line manager and the Head of Learning and Organisational Development at Croydon Council are the backbone of this piece of work. The backdrop for the following contents is the entity which is going through a broad cultural change. Furthermore, the analysis will look at how the activity is carried out by the Learning & Development team. The alignment with the organisational goals and needs is part of this analysis. More importantly, this writing ponder about the team and its creative process that is employed in the Croydon council work environment. An Eight questions’ pattern will outline the interviewee’s feedback. Croydon Context The Community Strategy for Croydon was last updated in 2010 and since that time there have been significant changes at a national and local levels. Croydon has faced major challenges as a local area that involves handling significant reductions in government funding as well as national policy reforms to welfare and housing, health, education and planning. This triggered a direct impact on local people and communities. Historically the violent disorders that happened in a number of London boroughs in August 2011 - ‘London Riots’ – saw Croydon involved with a burst of anger. This event affected the community in the way they lived and worked in the aftermath. According to the Chair of the Croydon’s Local Strategic Partnership Croydon, the overarching Croydon vision 2013 - 2018 aims to empower Croydon Council’s workforce in order to serve its community, securing sustainable investments and employment in the borough. Facing a continued growth and change in local neighbourhoods and communities in and around Croydon it puts in place a range of challenges and opportunities. The borough, sitting on the edge of London, might potentially get involved in “the gentrification”. This phenomenon lies in upper or middle income families or individuals moving from the Greater London to cheaper areas to purchase and revamp houses and stores. Suddenly the housing price raises. The “knock-off” effect would displace low income families and small businesses. An example of the Community Strategy is to create an opportunity for agencies to work together. Also, to explore the positive contributions and involvement from everyone in the community to help achieve the local vision. Mainly it is intended to help partners from all sectors by providing a framework that ensures everyone who lives and works in Croydon will benefit from the changes in their local area. Croydon’s population is the largest in London at approximately 363,400 with one of the fastest growing black and minority ethnic (BME) communities in London. Croydon’s communities speak more than 100 different languages and 45% of the population are from a BME background. While the borough’s residents are ageing, it also has the largest population of young people in London. Learning and Development Team As a public entity Croydon Council has gone through a big change in terms of facilities, restructuring departments: former ‘DASHH’ is People, ‘Development and Environment’ is Places and ‘Children , Families and Learning’ is Resources.

3

The Learning & Development team delivers and designs service for Croydon’s workers. They help three main departments – Places, Resources, People, to deliver service to their customers, such as Croydon community. The overall planning comprises Induction and Appraisal programmes. As mentioned above, consequently to the cultural change, these activities currently compel to put in place new actions. Their commitment is to help the organisation’s development harnessing its resources in a meaningful way, to create a mutual connection between the organisation’s culture, values and services, and the individuals. Briefly, the Induction consists in being in line with the corporate values, to ensure that the new employees get the best out of their early stage and have devised a six-month guide which can be tailored to meet their specific needs and support their introduction to the organisation. Appraisal is a continuing conversation over the course of the year in regular meetings where improvements and achievements are recognised and assessed. Then, to work out what is necessary to meet the expectations and clear any hurdles. The Appraisal lies in an overall approach to performance whereas it is important to focus on both how collaborative the working together is and focussing on delivering the objectives. However, all the projects and endeavours are encompassed under the Learning and Development planning project. The organisation, as mentioned earlier on, has been facing a dynamic process of changes. An organisational change is an ongoing evolution from a present (current state) to a future (potential future state) where the unexpected and unforeseen as well as the planned are combined randomly (Dawson and Andriopoulos, 2014). Consider the factors that underpin changes – they can be external and internal. These drivers promote change as much as creativity and innovation do. For example, new services, products or new approaches to business enable the change, a shift through internal activities: idea generation and the development of new products or processes within the organisations. Technology, primary task (core or main business), people and administrative structures (Leavitt, 1964) are prone to cause changes internally. Technology fulfils a mutual role as an external driver. People or human resources constitute the lifeblood of the organisation. Throughout the time the individuals or group members develop and settle culture and subculture that shape the meaning and the purpose of the entity. An administrative structure shows how the procedures and settings provide tools for the coordination and control of work outcomes. Regarding external changes, they can be comprised in the following three main factors. They are related to the current organisation’s outlook which was analysed and investigated carrying out interviews. Societal expectations: the organisation is expected to deliver services with ethics and responsibility, according to demographic changes and shifts in customer requirements. The increasing demand of housing in Croydon is due to “gentrification”. According to an official document released by Croydon Council, in the next two decades over 20,000 new homes will be put in place. Therefore, there is more pressure and the need to be more agile to handle more requests at the same time. Technology: digitalisation plays an important role in this era, undeniably operations and sharing information and knowledge take on a revamping process and connotation in the work environment. Croydon Council, through the Learning and Development activity, will undertake programmes to empower the workers differently. Digitalisation is one of the most relevant external and internal factors that influence operations and planning activities in Croydon Council.

4

Inconstancy in the business cycle: financial crisis in 2008 vastly affected the public sector with several cuts. They are still present in the Croydon council vision since the Croydon Challenge is to save 100£ by 2018. This set of drivers can overlap with each other as a result of unanticipated outcomes. This unpredictable and complex scenario occurs in organisations more and more often. Therefore, any organisational activity steers chain reactions through multiple lenses towards the future. The change is difficult to be assessed. More importantly, managing change begs for simple tools and methodologies for successful techniques. Interview and Analysis of the Learning and Development Team The one-to-one interviews occurred within the Learning and Development Team, which is made of four people - three consultants and the line manager. The centrepiece of the inquiry is the Learning and Development planning. They are responsible for the main three areas to consult in learning and development: Places, People, and Resources. For ethical reasons fictitious names are used to describe tasks, role and their own views. Ron is in charge of Management and Development Programme for the Places Department. Jo is engaged in the Corporate Programme for Resources Department and Damian is the Learning and Development consultant for processes and data for People. At times they share different skills and attributes within given projects, for instance, see Ron - who is more inclined to show design and coaching expertise – collaborating with Jo. In the half-hour interviews notes were taken starting from the initial map of the following eight questions. More details were relevant as the conversation went on. 1. To what extent the creative organisation/project has been dependent upon the ‘special’ skills, attributes and behaviours of one individual? According to the Head of Learning and Organisational Development Learning, the internal dynamics of the team’s consultants rely on their intervention and the Line Manager more than it should be. This reliance on them concerns a constant need of wider understanding for the team vision, goals and ways to interact together. For example, the Line Manager cited they would expect from a team member more manageable documents in order to shape and change easier. Yet, in the Learning and Development planning, the Head of Service and the Line manager stated that an influence is needed to clarify the value, purpose and meaning in their team. 2. To what extent the creative organisation/ project has been dependent upon teamwork and ‘co-creation’? Looking at all the team consultants’ views concisely, the majority of the projects have been assigned individually. The milestones and deliverables actions have been dependent upon teamwork. There is a strong need of teamwork as a consequence of the cultural change. Although this awareness exists, the Line Manager and the Head of Service commented that consultants show resistance to cooperate with new guidelines where the vision is to collaborate more with ‘less structured processes’. According to all the interviewees, the ‘co-creation’ is constantly used in every activity they are currently bringing forward. All the stakeholders are involved in the implementation of the process for the Learning and Development planning.

5

3. Were entrepreneurial management behaviours (alertness to opportunity; networking; decision-making; resource leveraging; risk-taking) employed in the process? How? The Head of Service mentioned that there is a coaching session programme in place which allows all workers to network outwardly. Also there are networking events within departments as well as an agenda of conferences where team members are expected to attend and share information. One team consultant told an example of decision making and alertness to opportunity. In the Project Management programme the Prince2 tool was rejected by one partner. According to them it was not suitable for their activity. Therefore, he had to consider other approaches to improve their programme, explore opportunity elsewhere, outside the organisation’s portfolio contact, to fulfil his clients need. 4. What are the organisational barriers to i) creativity and ii) innovation? The Line Manager saw the potential improvement by reducing the ‘checking process’. In his views there is a need to create more collaboration between teams. The fear to share info and suggestions sometimes holds openness back (collaboration, look and link with below). According to the Head of Service, in the team there is a strong self-esteem as result of their past and established knowledge. Introvert mindsets do not help a fluent exchange of info. A Self-reflective attitude is missing between the teams. The strong attachment to the process as only means to deliver outcomes stifles the innovative path the team and the organisation embrace. Still, she emphasized that “within the team barriers to creativity and innovation can be ruled out only with openness, collaboration and teamwork which feed the relationship between them and their way to work together.” 5. What other contextual factors (beyond the power of the organisation itself to control) influenced the outcome? The Head of Service brought up the digitalisation. In her view it takes on the increasing demand of better data and evidence, to equip the whole organisation with a shared platform. This would implement the main functions as well as to ease the matrix management. This contextual factor will be a turning point for the organisation therefore they need to pursue it. Ron, who is in charge of Management and Development Programme for Places Department, stressed another external factor. ‘The Croydon challenge’- to save £100M by 2018 - undergoes the organisation to achieve a different way to work based on reducing risk, efficiency and effectiveness. Financial constraints have affected the whole planning. The Line Manager shared the intentions for a future project: “ the future is to create on-line access to information, free, spark accessibility. This would allow more agility, reduce face to face learning development. We need to turn the current team into a Research & Development team”. 6. How successful is the organisation/project, judged against the initial organisational objectives? Against the organisational goal the interviewees show similarities in their answers. Their feedback reflect a resistance to change. According to the Line Team Manager’s statements, “ It is not explicit as it should be, there is a resistance to change related to reasons why we are changing. Perhaps a sense of suspicion, lack of clarity, what are the boundaries, raise doubts.”

6

The Head of Service urges an intervention: “The shift with the Croydon challenge need a better understanding when workers hear about innovation. Instead of feeling it as buzz word, the whole organisation need more understanding, strategy, inclusiveness, access to information, better communication.” Also it emerged the Learning and Development team is slowly moving towards an innovative approach: creating diverse opportunities to value more the process of learning and developing tasks, skill and activity than the process itself. However, the strategy has been acknowledged but not been delivered yet to the team members. 7. What would be done differently if the experience had to be repeated? Interviews could have been done with a digital record so the data would be more reliable and precise. The arguments and topics involved with the questions needed to be adjusted more carefully to gain more insights. For example, more case study in the public sector would have been pointed out during the discussions so that their approach were challenged differently. 8. What major lessons can be learned from this case in terms of managing creativity and innovation? This writing shows how the organisation and the Learning and Development team strive for better performance individually and as a team. Creativity and innovation are interweaved with chances to learn and grow, by setting an organisation’s scenario where employees undertake a journey to create the future’s company. Thriving workforce could feed a sustainable performance, therefore managing creativity and innovation will be embedded in it. Ross School of Business’s centre for Positive Organisational Scholarship researched how organisations can help employees thrive. They identified four necessary measures. Providing decision-making discretion: the analysis of Alaska Airlines, the senior management launched a programme in 2010, where the service’s improvement came from employee input meanwhile keeping the departures on time. The empowerment unleashed a sense of ownership as well as created more learnings opportunities. Sharing Information: the understanding of the organisation’s mission and strategy raises a benefit for the workers. In a restaurant chain – subject of their study – they found out how powerful an open-book policy can be. Since people could look at numbers with no much care to connect with their daily tasks, the company set a game “keep score” to foresee the next week’s numbers. Slowly the open-book management game engaged them not only about financial figures, but also about customer satisfaction ratings and employees’ ideas for innovation. Minimizing incivility: incivility holds people back from thriving and lower the level of effort. Employees narrow their range’s actions to avoid risks. Caiman Consulting, a management consulting, offers a good practice to prioritise in the hiring process the interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. Offering Performance Feedback: workers could perceive the feedback as an oppressive shadow. Instead, Quicken Loans, a mortgage finance company, assesses performance with regular updates through feedback using two types of dahsboards – a ticker and kanban reports (kanban, from Japanese, means “signal”). The first one displays metrics with data feeds about employee daily goals. This entails an energizing competition against their numbers. The Kanban dashboard allows managers to figure out a team or employee needs for support or coaching. They are almost like a video game’s ranking of high scorers. The company advocates for civility and informing their workers how they meet their activity spur growth.

7

The above tools can be tweaked accordingly to the work environment. For instance, one or two of those can be exploited in the light of a framed need. An important point about managing creativity and innovation requires a deep, articulated and flexible attention on the leaders. Thriving might be a catalyst for boosting performance in a sustainable way. Conclusion The Learning and Development interviews along with the observations in the Croydon Council’s work environment show that creativity and innovation could suggest the way to overcome current issues. Nevertheless, there are interesting insights into how these drivers for change face resistance to unleash the process through which new and useful ideas are generated. Hughes (2010) considers the forms of resistance as something dysfunctional that needs to be tackled. He emphasizes the lack of sophistication in discussions of resistance to change. This research can outline an indication of the same findings from the interviews and the way to operate between the departments. The process of creativity, innovation and change involves people in the generation and translation of novel ideas into new products/services and the movement over time from current ways of doing things to new ways of working. Externally, the growing business expectations can affect managerial decision-making and the political aspirations of business managers leading them to foster visions and strategies for change (internal influence) that mimic those of competitor organisations (external influence). Living collaboration as a value is intellectually and emotionally dissimilar than just practicing it as a skill. This topic deserves greater attention and respect from every organisation that takes collaboration seriously. The Croydon Council is currently subjected to the strong influence of its transformational leadership. This piece of work which focuses on one specific area and unveils how employees want to deal with the change as much as they need more tools how to spark creativity and innovation. Being a collaborative organisation requires a solid consistent commitment at all levels. Senior and Fleming argue that employees should not feel chained by convention but rather be able to sponsor novelty and encouragement of flexible thinking. Organisations of the future do not need just knowledge but knowledge’s generation and exchange between organisational members.

8

References Official Croydon Report, Croydon Community strategy 2013 – 18 ( Accessed on 14th of April ) https://hbr.org/2015/03/collaboration-from-the-wright-brothers-to-robots - (Accessed on the 14th of April 2015 ) Dawson and Andriopoulos (2013) – Managing change, creativity & innovation Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath ( 2015) “ Creating Sustainable Performance “ -Harward Business review Magazine – Spring 2015 , pp. 41 - 47 David Mayle, Managing Innovation and change – Third Edition Jane Henry, 2006 Creative Management and Development – Third Edition