Marlow Child and Family Services - Case Study

Getting ready for change

How Zentano prepared a management team for business change and growth

The Challenge

MCFS Ltd have provided private care homes for children for over 25 years based on a philosophy that focuses on providing care, education and therapy for children and young people with high-dependency needs. They also have a reputation for innovation as evidenced by programmes designed to deal with eating disorders in young people and bridging the gap between residential care and placements within families offering specialist foster care. MCFS Ltd believe that investing in the development of their people is a vital part of their business strategy.

The reputation of the business relies on Ofsted ratings and the ability to forge strong relationships with local authorities. Ofsted ratings needed to be improved in order to maintain the success of the business and ensure they were the first choice when local authorities were looking to make a placement.

The Solution

MCFS Ltd launched a Management Development and CPD Programme designed to align the management team with the needs of the business. The programme set out to achieve the following broad outcomes;

To enhance the level of self-awareness within the management team.
To broaden the knowledge, skills and capability of the management team.
To enhance the growth of the business by encouraging each Manager to take full personal responsibility within their remit.
To enhance the ability of the managers to develop their teams.

During the initials stages of the programme and using a combination of profiling tools and reflective learning exercises each manager was encouraged and challenged to explore;

How their preferred working style impacted on their work-practices and what positive and negative consequences they could identify?
How effective were they in applying Whole Brain ™ Thinking – i.e. the ability to think and act outside of one’s preferred thinking style.
How to use emotional intelligence to gain insight and enable them to understand why modifying behaviour might be beneficial and how this might best be achieved

With this knowledge the managers were asked to consider how effective they were in the areas of communication, problem-solving, decision-making and teamwork.

With the enhanced levels of self-awareness that the programme created most of the managers chose to use the latter stages of the programme to look at how they apply the insight they had gained into specific issues within their own care homes.

Examples of this were “how to run effective performance review meetings”, “how to build confidence in staff in order to delegate responsibilities and promote their professional growth” and “how to design and deliver more effective internal training”.

I have been prepared to take risks and make changes for the good of the company, despite knowing the impact that it will have on the stability and have done so with the support of all the managers.

Senior Manager - Marlow Child and Family Services

The Result

The CEO recognised a significant long-term benefit from the coaching in terms of how the managers responded to a Strategic Business Review and the recommendations for change that emerged from it. The managers were receptive, reflective and keen to embrace the process of change.

The managers who were included in the programme reported the following benefits which senior management have also recognised;

“I have applied a more open vision to allow my colleagues to have their opinion and express their viewpoint. I have learnt to be more reflective in that I look for positive achievements instead of just looking for negatives.”
“I have been prepared to take risks and make changes for the good of the company, despite knowing the impact that it will have on the stability and have done so with the support of all the managers”.