Task Brief
Day 2 – Handout 3
Review the following information and highlight areas of
organisational performance and structure you would
need to work with in order to see a planned increase in
both appraisal compliance rates and quality of appraisal
ratings. Use the Iceberg Model to map out what is
happening and consider how best to influence the
system to achieve your two goals.
Scenario
The Jenny Jones LHB is situated across a geographical
area that has both rural and urban population centres
and a total population of 300,000 people living in its
catchment area. It employs 8000 staff. In terms of
demographics there has been an increase in the number
of people aged 65 and over in the general population
and this has been linked to significant impacts over the
last 12 months on local unscheduled care provision in its
two DGHs – Ysbyty Jenny and Ysbyty Jones. This 12
month trend saw moderate month on month growth in
demand during the summer months with significant spikes in older adult admissions and resultant pressure on
services from November through to January.
Recently the Welsh Government has been consulting with public bodies about how they become ‘centres of
excellence’ for staff appraisals. JJLHB has an averaged appraisal compliance rate of around 25%. Welsh Government
have set targets around this of achieving year on year increases in appraisal rates of 25% with the aim of achieving
100% compliance within 3 years. News of this set of targets has been circulated through information channels such
as team meetings, team brief, social media forums and whole-organisation discussion events. This has led to a lot of
discussion with many managers feeling pressured by their immediate managers to prioritise these targets (even
though other demands and expectations have not been eased and with no additional time or support being set aside
to meet this demand).
The organisation itself has appointed a new CEO and other senior leaders across the organisation and it is not yet
clear how managerial and leadership structures will look. Currently as new appointees bed in, and before they take
time to begin meeting operational managers, there is a level of uncertainty about the current and future direction of
the organisation, both in the next 12 months and across the longer-term. Because of past care related scandals and
a tendency to seek out scapegoats when things go wrong the organisational culture is characterised by cynicism,
fear, criticism and a tendency to not own up to mistakes and instead try and cover things up. Historically the
organisation promoted a brand of top-down, ‘tell it don’t sell it’ style leadership and many people view the
management structures associated with the organisation under the previous CEO as being overly rigid, authoritarian,
non-inclusive and light on authentic consultation.
There are rumours that the new CEO and team have been appointed with a mandate to bring a more inclusive,
collaborative and collective leadership model to the organisation and some recent briefings have encouraged
managers to open up decision-making to their teams and encouraged all staff to take the initiative in voicing new
ideas and solutions for turning things around. This has yet to be tested in any serious way but some of your
colleagues have been exploring collective decision making and have suggested that the quality of ideas coming up in
team meetings has been pleasantly surprising (once more radical, militant or off-topic suggestions have been voted
off the agenda by team members together).
As a manager in this organisation you face the usual challenges in regard of systems and processes – your IT system
is outdated and your records are still paper-based, unwieldy and unnecessarily antiquated. A recent pulse survey
completed in your area suggested morale within the team was reasonable with people feeling like they enjoyed their
jobs on the whole and were motivated to come to work (on the whole). The surveys did highlight some training
needs gaps between what people thought the service needed (in terms of skills and abilities) and what people
thought they currently had and this is something you have put on the agenda for discussion at the next team
meeting. Your own observations of staff in action mostly match what staff members say. Staff universally rated
workplace climate as supportive, friendly and that managers were approachable.
Your team have a number of performance standards they are expected to deliver on which whilst mostly ok do
highlight some key areas for improvement in relation to – demonstrating organisational values in day to day
practice, and delivering services within assigned timeframes.
Task Directions
As a group we would like you to generate some initial thoughts and ideas around the following:
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Which systemic structures most directly impact on your task to increase appraisal rates?
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How might you attend to these in practice – what could you do to begin addressing some of these factors?
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Where do you need more information and how could you go about finding this out?
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Which aspects of organisational performance most directly impact on your task to improve the quality of
appraisals? Map these against the different Iceberg Elements to help you with this.
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How might you attend to these in practice – what could you do to begin addressing some of these factors?
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Where do you need more information and how could you go about finding this out?
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If you were beginning a planned change process to improve compliance and quality using all of the Iceberg
Elements as places where you could usefully intervene in some way:
o
o
o
o
o
o
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Where would you choose to start?
What sequence of actions would you take?
What would be your rationale for doing this?
What do you anticipate the implicit, unspoken purpose(s) of the system to be, and how would you want
to work with these over time?
What possible longer term unintended consequences might there be of your actions?
Of doing nothing different (more of the same as before)?
Reflect together as a whole group on the process you took in deciding upon a plan of action:
o
o
o
How did you decide together what to do?
What was the process to this?
Did you all agree, and if not, how did you work out differences to arrive at a common, shared
agreement?