Project
Rob Huggins (CEO), John Tilley (Development Manager) and Kelly Turnbull (Deputy CEO) were a passionate, close-knit team who had worked together already for many years, from the early days of Liberdade. However, the leadership team had been put under strain over the course of the longer than expected capital development programme, which had required a large amount of hands-on attention.
In early 2024, Rob had experienced burn out, and taken several weeks’ leave from work. While he’d been away, John and Kelly had stepped in to cover his role, which had reduced their capacity in other areas of their own roles. On Rob’s return, the leadership team agreed that it was time to bring in some more support.
“When I came back from work, the word I kept using was ‘consolidate’. We’d just been through this massive change and needed to spend time getting stuff in order and working on our values and culture […] it felt like, to get some help, and support, and expertise from somebody outside of the organisation could be of benefit.” Rob (CEO)
GCT expanded their leadership team, hiring Emma Banks, an HR professional to bring some much-needed HR capacity into the team.
“Emma had come in from the corporate world. It’s quite shocking I think for someone coming in from the corporate world to a third sector organisation. She said she’d never worked somewhere so reactive. Someone would come in the door and say we’ve run out of toilet paper, and we’ll stand up to go sort it out.” Rob (CEO)
At around the same time (in April2024), John attended an event hosted by YIF, where grant recipients could meet and attend taster sessions with organisations offering professional services and resources support.
As part of the wider support available to all Phase 2 Youth Investment Fund grant recipients, Eastside People were one of the providers offering one-to-one specialist support, leading on organisational growth and change management – relevant to many organisations experience rapid growth and/or significant change accompanying their capital investment project.
At the event, John met Jo Simpson from Eastside People and following an initial conversation the GCT leadership team requested some consultant support from Eastside People. This began with an Organisational MOT to identify the precise needs and then tailored consultancy support.
“We’d planned on doing a lot of organisational development over the build, while the building was closed. We thought we’d have loads of time and staff capacity to develop our organisational systems. There was a lot of work to be done. But it didn’t turn out like that […] When we realised that we were still eligible for this support, we saw it as the opportunity to do all that work we hadn’t done.” John (Development Manager)
In May 2024, Eastside People paired GCT with consultant Katie Roberts. Together, the leadership team worked with Katie to design a project, called EmpowerU, focussing on GCT’s organisational culture.
It was clear that there needed to be a shift in ways of working, so that the wider staff group could take on more responsibility in their roles, giving more space and time for the effective strategic leadership from the executive leadership team.
Having grown considerably in recent years, there was also a need to reconnect GCT’s front of house team, based on the theatre premises, with the SEND (outreach) team, bringing everyone together in a more holistic, organisational culture. So to achieve the EmpowerU project aims, GCT engaged Katie to provide support developing and delivering a change management plan, in consultation with the wider staff team.
“I always walk into stuff like this fairly cynically […] I was really clear with Katie when we first met her – we needed capacity more than just advice […] and it was all about setting a foundation for the next phase.” Rob (CEO)
Katie provided a clear structure for the process, outlining the work expected of everyone involved, including her – but as Rob described it, “in a fairly relaxed way.”
“It didn’t take long, after doing a couple of sessions with Katie, to work out that she was incredibly clever and had an awful lot to offer and was a good fit with us.” Rob (CEO)
Based on initial leadership team meeting observations, Katie included support for the leadership team in the project plan, both through development one-to-one coaching and providing external input and structure to leadership team meetings, to increase its cohesiveness and effectiveness.
“Katie was really insightful. She would reflect things back and you would go, ‘oh wow, you’re really paying attention!’” John (Development Manager)
“She took the time to get to know us professionally – how we work, and wasn’t afraid of reflecting that back to us.” Rob (CEO)
With the wider staff team, Katie met individually with almost every member of staff. These sessions uncovered a need for clearer communications from the leadership team, to keep the wider staff informed. Katie also delivered listening and culture building sessions, where the team came together to define and develop a working culture that would enable staff to perform their best in their roles, underpinned by a set of agreed values. This brought focus to how each role contributed to the charity’s overall mission in a comprehensive organisational plan that encompassed all roles in relation to each other. It also crystallised an agreed set of values and behaviours.
Alongside this, Katie worked with the Rob, John and Kelly to more clearly articulate each of their role profiles. These had expanded over the years, and needed a review, so that everyone could clearly understand the flow of responsibility and accountability between the leadership team and wider staff roles.
“Three of the four members of the senior leadership team didn’t have loads of experience in line management and so she shadowed us in review meetings with some of the people that we managed and that was really helpful […] she was really honest and that was quite refreshing.” Rob (CEO)
“What was lovely,” says Katie, “was that towards the end of phase 1, the leadership team would say ‘we’ll take that and run with that now’,” adopting new ways of working as Katie stepped away.
“The work we did really taught us to work together.” Rob (CEO)
By the end of phase 1, Rob was clear on the benefit Katie had brought to the organisation, and was keen for the support to continue into a phase 2, which it did, starting in December 2024.
“Our willingness to work with her grew as our trust in her grew.” Rob (CEO)
In phase 2, Katie supported GCT to develop a This project also provided an opportunity to embed the new ways of working and behaviours established in phase 1. At the start of phase 2, Katie facilitated an all-staff workshop, that brought the wider staff team in, to collaborate with the executive team, producing a simple, effective theory of change themselves, drawing on Katie’s support.
Over the course of the next four months, with Katie’ support, the leadership team engaged the wider staff team, company members, youth board, trustees and the local community in the planning and development of the new theory of change.
Next Steps
Looking ahead, John reflects that through developing their theory of change, GCT has identified where they really want to focus their energies in the future, and the steps it will take to get there.
In the meantime, the organisation is clearly already benefiting from Katie’s support.
“She helped embed a lot of behaviour that continues to today, things like improving the communication within the staff team. Having team talks and monthly newsletters.” Rob (CEO)
For Rob, working with Katie has demonstrated how effective consultant support can be – with the right consultant, at the right time.
“We’d definitely work with Katie again. Trust is really, really important [… and] like any relationship, timing is everything. Is this the right time for you to receive this support?” Rob (CEO)
Rob also points out that “a relationship with a consultant is two-way”:
“The thing about GCT is shifting that helper-helped thing, away from that, and to build this idea that people with learning disabilities have a social worth. They are contributors to society. So we endeavour in all that we do to reflect that. And we have a good laugh together. Katie will have seen that and hopefully got a lot out of that. She definitely met lots of our company members and had a laugh with them. That’s good. It’s a part of our role, for anyone that comes and works with us.” Rob (CEO)
“The team at GCT are a passionate committed bunch, with a real heart and vision for their work, it takes courage to admit that sometimes that’s not enough and to allow someone new to walk alongside you and share your organisation for a bit. Hats off to all of you for taking that leap of faith!” Katie Roberts (Consultant).
