It’s my turn again this week, so just for a change I thought I’d talk about transformation and continuous improvement ?
Continuous Improvement training day
Firstly, I wanted to thank everyone who came along to the two, half day CI training sessions recently, hosted by one of my Defra colleagues Ian, who is a CI practitioner and has trained thousands of people in central government on simple changes that can make a big difference. We had 53 people (a brilliant number!) take time out to talk about waste, culture and process improvements. I loved the energy in the room – lots of great questions and challenges, and a commitment to come back together as a group in November to talk through our “8 wastes” homework.
Is it even a CI event without a game? Clearly not – so we ended with an exercise that tested what happens when instructions are vague (clue – everyone ends up interpreting the task differently and chaos ensues). A light bulb moment for us all about keeping our instructions simple and unambiguous, and the impact it could have on our customers if we all diverge on service delivery because our processes aren’t easy to understand.
Change Leadership book club
Today was the first meeting of our change leadership book club. We have 16 members from all over MVDC, and we started by talking about how leaders are at all levels of an organisation, the importance of having a shared goal in MVDC, finding things we care about in our work as that makes it easier for us to want to be “up to something”, and that we need to use our leadership “muscles” if we want be successful.
Everyone had read the chapter in advance (hurrah!) – this meant we could ask insightful questions and share real examples with each other. So, I’m now looking forward to us all getting stuck into chapter 2. It’s not too late to join, just get in touch with me if you are interested (or take a look at our library copies of “Leadership Plain and Simple” in the office if you want a sneaky peek at what we’re reading ?).
I wanted to end by saying a big thank you to Coral and Stuart for their kindness and professionalism as they helped me navigate the requirements for my mum and dad’s interment in Dorking cemetery on Friday. An important reminder to me that we have vital services where people may need extra support during the most difficult of times – something we want to protect as we go through Evolve 2026.
Seonaid