COVID-19 – HEdSpace Consulting

I don’t have time to reimagine Higher Education right…

August 27, 2020September 7, 2020
by Anna Verhamme

Last March, HEdSpace Consulting started to think about COVID19, the impact on the HE sector and what we could do to help. We talked a lot about it needing to be the right time to do the right thing. We also talked about the profound emotional and societal impacts of the pandemic. At that point we anticipated that there would be periods of reaction and reflection followed by reimagining and repositioning. And back in March, we thought that cycle would at least take until the autumn.

It is clear now, after new local lockdowns and the and the A-level results crisis that we are in for a long haul… Colleagues working in Higher Education institutions have never had to react this quickly to this many unprecedented circumstances. And the sector has shown that despite its reputation, it can be flexible, change quickly and work together across institutional divisions. What I suspect has been harder to do for many leadership teams whose main focus has been keeping operations running, is to make the headspace to reflect and to start reimagining.

The two activities are very different and in normal circumstances many leadership teams create time for both. Whether it is through an away day, extended themed quarterly meetings, time spent over a sit-down lunch, the commute into work, the walk between meetings space is made to focus on the medium and long-term. But at the moment there simply might not be the time, practicalities or frankly energy to think beyond next month. And yet we know that to lead well, we need to make time and space.

So, I have been thinking about the practical steps I would take to create the headspace for myself:

I would give myself permission to work less and fill up at least 1 day out of 5 in my diary with blank space. For many leadership teams this will be uncomfortable or even unthinkable. There is so much research now that shows the importance of unstructured time to creativity and resilience that it really should be a no brainer: it improves thinking, the quality of the decision-making, mental health and resilience. It will also reduce the stress on your teams: you are the cox setting the pace for your rowing team. The harder you work, the harder your teams will need to work to keep up.

I would limit the length of my own zoom meetings to durations ending in 5 (15, 25, 35 or 45 minutes) and encourage others to follow my practice. Easy! And finally… I would have time to stretch my legs, open the window, eat lunch and “take a comfort break”

I would make time to read a novel or poem, listen to a piece of music, watch a film, go for a walk, do some yoga, gardening, or my favourite: ironing. I have realised that I have few good ideas sat behind a computer screen. Most come to me when I am doing something completely different and again there is tons of research that explains this might be how our brains function best.

Now you may ask me: so Anna how much of the advice you are now offering as a consultant did you follow when you worked in senior management roles? And you are right to challenge me in that way. I was always aware of not having enough time to think, of rushing between meetings and of feeling exhausted, yet often being unproductive. When I worked at my best, I had diary free days, made time for lunch and a walk. What I found hardest was to maintain my own discipline and boundaries. Now some of that was because of my own tendency to take on too much, but some of it was also a structural problem: most leaders have back-to-back meetings, work 5 days/week and some live for their job. Within that context it is hard to maintain your own discipline. But what would happen if as senior leadership teams we changed our expectations? What if your vice-chancellor, COO or senior leadership team agreed on and stuck to a different way of working? Would it create better quality thinking, more considered decisions, more headspace to imagine and be creative? Is now a time to experiment, give it a go and try it out?

What examples have you seen where people have seriously adopted a new way of working? How do you create headspace for yourself to be more effective?

HEdSpace Consulting can help to create and hold spaces for conversations for you and your teams.

Anna Verhamme
anna.verhamme@hedspaceconsulting.co.uk

How can UK universities save costs and still motivate…

July 9, 2020September 7, 2020
by Nick Dalton

Will universities need a bailout to survive the COVID-19 crisis? – this was the question posed by this week’s briefing paper from The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The report makes very startling and disturbing reading, giving rise to headlines such as “Coronavirus: 13 UK universities ‘could go bust without bailout'”.

In short, the reports authors believe the UK university sector could be facing financial losses of around £3 billion (7.5% of the sector’s overall income); £11 billion or £19 billion (nearly half of total sector income), depending on whether you buy into an optimistic, central or pessimistic scenario, respectively. Most losses will be from operations (including loss of fees through a reduced intake of international students), increases in deficits of pension schemes and losses from long-term investments.

Two things the report is clear about, perhaps not surprisingly, is that the situation is highly uncertain and secondly, that there will be vast differences in the impact on universities depending on their current financial situation and their operating model.

How far could cost savings meet this shortfall?

What the report also states is that identified cost savings – estimated in the report at £600 million across the sector – are unlikely to claw back enough of these losses to avoid universities having to resort to the self-limiting route of redundancy programmes.

However, this estimate is restricted to only those savings from the use of the government’s furlough scheme and from potential cuts in temporary staff, both teaching and non-teaching. Universities are already well on their way to implementing other sources of savings, such as restrictions on travel (maybe not too difficult in a pandemic), a focus on reducing discretionary spend and even voluntary redundancy schemes.

What the report doesn’t identify is that in many places we look in the HE sector, there are operations, structures, procurement and processes in which there are significant cost savings to be made from the elimination of unnecessary costs and waste.

The root causes of these unnecessary costs are varied but include excessive complexity due to departmental silo-thinking and practice, a focus only on ‘local’ process and limited process ownership and accountability. This results in inefficient university-wide end-to-end processes, duplication of activities and structures, errors, rework and high levels of ‘failure demand’. Ultimately, student experience and staff morale suffer.

How do we solve this?

There are transformational change programmes that consistently deliver benefits – they are participative, creative and empowering, producing both hard financial benefits as well as ‘soft’ cultural change – in which staff are fully engaged to identify and deliver the improvements.

These programmes are scalable, no matter the size and type of university, and involve collaboration across the relevant teams and departments, including students and Students’ Unions if required. The teams are cross-functional and brought together to rapidly find solutions and make decisions.

The approach is most effective as a facilitated programme of targeted improvements, or structured rapid improvement events. Included are learning modules to promote changes in behaviour that engender a sustainable attitude of continuous improvement.

True, even this type of approach will never completely fill the gap in the eye-watering financial losses being faced by the sector, but can contribute significantly to saving costs and will do so through the mobilisation and motivation of staff. More strategically, this approach will help prepare the university to be much leaner and effective in the post-pandemic recovery.

Progressive universities can achieve both cost improvement to meet the current challenge whilst simultaneously developing a culture change to one of continuous improvement.

Nick Dalton
nick.dalton@hedspaceconsulting.co.uk

The COVID-19 crisis – Reflections on relationships between Boards…

July 1, 2020August 18, 2020
by Anna Verhamme

Most Universities will be finishing the third and final cycle of committee meetings for this academic year. As with everything COVID-19 will challenge the normal cycle of business. I argue in this article that we should pause and consider the nature of Board and Executive team meetings and how both relate to one another.

As Patrick Dunne says in his book “Boards”, governance is all about Purpose, People, Process… So how can COVID-19 impact each?

Purpose

As scenarios describing the financial implications of the COVID-19 crisis on recruitment and University finances are being developed, it is becoming clear that the financial survival of many institutions is more precarious than it has ever been. Boards and Executives will be needing to make some really difficult short-term decisions, mostly driven by financial considerations. And because of the level of uncertainty, it will be important for Boards and Executive teams to be clear on – and honest about – assumptions made; the possible and probable consequences and the actual -not imagined – preparedness of the institution. The latter will need to include an assessment of the institution’s human resilience, not just its financial resilience.

Whilst this will no doubt be the immediate focus of Boards and Executive teams, it will be hugely important to also challenge assumptions about the role of the institution for the future and the implications for “the academic business model”. Universities have a huge impact, locally, nationally and internationally. Many institutional strategies focus on the University being “the best”, “the top” and “world-leading”. At this time Universities also have a role in sustaining life, whether that is through local employment, contribution to healthcare systems or increasing creativity. I envisage tensions between those two roles in the coming months and suspect that in the best institutions, existentialist discussions will take place as Boards and Executive teams consider what their institution is for and what is at stake.

People

All this will require a good thinking environment, exactly at a time when people are starting to wear very thin. Counter-intuitively, at this time Boards and Executive teams need to resist the rush to action, but instead need to slow down, take time to reflect and iterate decisions.

The best Boards and Executive teams will build a psychologically safe environment. An environment that enables everyone in the institution to bring their best thoughts and share their concerns so that improvements can be made. This will require Executive teams to pay more attention to the operational detail, to ask for bad news, to engage more broadly, to destigmatise failure and sanction clear violation. Boards will need to create a culture of constructive challenge and ask good questions helping the Executive to conceptually clarify and probing assumptions, rationale, reasons and evidence.

The best Boards and Executive teams will give themselves – in the words of Dr Mark Brackett “Permission to Feel”. Because emotional literacy – being able to recognize, name, and understand our feelings – affects decision making, and creativity, working relationships, health and resilience, and performance.

The best Boards will recognise their own vulnerability, ignorance and blind spots. They will lean into the uncertainty and accept a degree of “muddiness”. They will rely on a wealth of social capital – friends, confidants, partners – to help them navigate what may be an existential crisis for many Universities.

Process

“The supply chain of relationships becomes fragile as we try to do too much, too fast, with precarious processes that simulate but aren’t reality.” Margaret Heffernan

How we organise the Board and Executive teams’ core processes will matter more than ever in the next months… A couple of questions I ask myself:

How can we create a meeting and working atmosphere that allows us to slow down, reflect and take time to make decisions? Rather than changing the planned face-to-face meetings into zoom meetings, can we pause and consider whether it may be more appropriate to break the meeting down in a number of smaller meetings each with a specific focus and an opportunity to go away mull on the decision before coming back for a final discussion?

How can we challenge statements in meetings in a way which supports the a psychologically safe environment whilst encouraging participants to think even harder and better? I have found the Language Compass and related article really helpful.

How can Board members sharpen their antennas and check in with what is happening in the institution? Many Universities already hold an annual or bi-annual staff survey. As we have gotten more used to online tools, is now the time to ask more frequently and more specific questions? Questions about wellbeing, psychological safety, organisational culture as well as about creativity, innovation and sense of belonging?

How can Boards members fully understand their institutional contexts? Are Board members aware of the institution’s local dependencies – I am thinking here particularly about what we have come to value as essential services? Are Board members aware of the ramifications of the decisions they will be making – I am thinking specifically about those people whose lives will have been affected disproportionally by COVID?

And finally, how do both Boards and Executive teams go about understanding the subtle, but significant societal changes which have taken place in the last couple of weeks. It is easy to remain in a bubble, to make assumptions about people’s experiences of the lockdown and make grand statements about the new normal. It will be important to give voice to and recognise all experiences and to question who will be involved in determining what the new normal looks like.

Reflecting on and changing how Boards and Executive teams meet and relate to one another can feel like a nice to have. Considering the huge challenges lying in wait for us, it is essential that we pay attention and prioritise this work, as it will support our futures.

Anna Verhamme
anna.verhamme@hedspaceconsulting.co.uk

Making time to reflect on a future for Universities

April 19, 2020August 18, 2020
by Anna Verhamme

Since the lockdown started four weeks ago, I have taken the time to read, listen and reflect on the impact of COVID-19 now and in the longer term. I have found the Jericho conversations particularly thought provoking.

I have heard of hope that this crisis which is affecting the whole of humanity may be a turning point or a time zero. Hope that the inequalities, injustices and unsustainable activities in our society will change. Hope that we will continue to recognise our human vulnerability and how much we need each other. Hope that we will continue working together, connecting with our community and rebalance resources and power.

I have also heard caution: whilst the crisis is affecting all of humanity it is clear that its impact is being experienced very differently: frontline workers, parents with young children, people in small flats, gig workers, disabled and vulnerable people, people living in developing countries… Caution that many people are angry and resent the years of austerity which have left us unprepared to protect lives. Caution that this health crisis may be followed by food crises and a deep economic recession, which will ask further sacrifices. Caution that we may – when pushed – become more nationalist, more selfish.

I have heard scepticism too, that when all this is over, nothing much will change. That what we most want to do is go back to normal, to certainty and a life where we can plan again.

The truth is that our future is uncertain. That the best we can do now is getting prepared for what may or may not be next. That means getting comfortable with multiple scenarios, being flexible and open-minded. But more importantly, it means that we are agents in shaping our future. We need to pause and make time to reflect before we react to the challenges we face collectively next academic year.

As we are settling into another three weeks of lockdown and plans are in place for the remainder of this academic year, it is time to find peace and quiet, time to listen and time to imagine. This is hard in a University setting: we often act fast because we don’t want to be seen as not being able to change, we often have very little headspace between attending meetings and even the summer months feel frantic. But now is more important than ever to create the space for quality thinking, for listening to the many different voices, for experimenting, for connecting and laying foundations.

So, what would I do to create that space?

Setting an example: I would spend time listening to music, reading a novel, playing with the kids, meditating, gardening and would make it ok for people to do the same. Let ease replace urgency to improve your thinking (Nancy Kline)

Trusting people: I would offer people the option not to attend a meeting if they felt unable to contribute; I would share my vulnerability and ask for help; and I would ask people to try new things out (like not doing “things we have always done”) and learn from them (Brene Brown)

Connecting people: I would introduce time to listen: a gathering of a maximum of 12 people, without an agenda and with no action list at the end; and I would seek out conversations with people who I don’t regularly speak with

Starting to think differently: I would challenge myself to think about what resources, talents, skills, infrastructure I have and what I could do with these riches (frugal innovation)

If you want to connect with me and spend some time thinking together, get in touch.

Anna Verhamme
anna.verhamme@hedspaceconsulting.co.uk

Reflections from a former Major Incident convenor in times…

March 31, 2020August 18, 2020
by Anna Verhamme

Over the last 5 years, I worked closely with colleagues in my University to maintain business continuity during times of incidents (minor, and major). We dealt with fires in buildings, snow closures, deaths under tragic circumstances, earthquakes and terrorist incidents. Sometimes I chaired the silver group, sometimes the gold… Some incidents lasted a few days, some we carried with us for 3 months.

I now have time to reflect on those experiences looking in on the COVID-19 implications from the outside. I am self-employed, work a great deal from home and over the past 18 months have gotten attuned to a different pace of working.

I share with you three things I found challenging in terms of managing an incident:

1. It is important to be aware of the need to balance levels of energy and pace in dealing with an incident. The rush of adrenaline at the start means you can act fast and move mountains. But this approach can only carry you through for so long. Recognising when the immediate emergency has passed and when you need to switch gear, slow down and take stock is important during incidents which carry on over a longer period.

Questions I would ask myself:

Can we change the frequency of the meetings?
Do we now need to involve different people as we start managing the medium -term consequences?
Do we need a different way to communicate with people affected?
How do we remain open for feedback so we can adjust our plans?
How do we allow ourselves to slow down and take stock?

At this point I always found it helpful to reflect on our immediate response: what did we do well? what can we do differently next time? do we need to make adjustments for the next phase of work?

2. It is important to acknowledge that as we deal with incidents in a professional role, we remain human and can – and often will be – affected by the incident. Making sure the immediate incident response team is reflective and appropriately supported is crucial. Not only from a kind, human perspective, but also because emotional responses and levels of stress can affect the quality of thinking, judgment and problem-solving. This at times calls for an outside intervention as the emotional impact is not always obvious to the person dealing with the incident.

Questions I would ask of me and the team:

How are we all feeling? Do any of us need support?
Do we have trusted colleagues whom we can start bringing in as part of the team so we can take a break? Having to deal with a number of incidents meant I got to know my fellow incident response colleagues really well and we got comfortable showing our vulnerability to each other.

3. It is important to acknowledge the lasting impact incidents can have. We need to give people time to recover and re-energise after an incident. We need to recognise that in some instances people will have been traumatised and will need support from professionals. We also need to recognise that incidents can lead to stronger bonds of trust, a more psychologically safe workplace and a change in perspective which can be extremely powerful foundations for change.

Questions I would ask of myself are:

Do we need to think about additional capacity in the weeks and months immediately following the incident?
Who has been most affected by these incidents and how do we support them?
How can we harness the energy and positivity for our future working together?

My thoughts go out to everyone who is involved in responding to this incident. Contact me if a conversation with me might be helpful.

Anna Verhamme
anna.verhamme@hedspaceconsulting.co.uk