Introduction
December is traditionally a time when many of us reflect on our achievements, what we have learned and what we can look forward to in the coming year.
2014 has been our most active and varied year so far, in the just over five years of RiverRhee’s existence. We thought we would share a little about our achievements and our learning, and several things that might be of interest to you in 2015 under the headings:
- Developing management and interpersonal skills
- Managing and dealing with change
- Continuous improvement
- Knowledge management
- Strategy facilitation
- Upcoming courses
Developing management and interpersonal skills is an important area for growing SMEs as well as larger organisations
Interest in Elisabeth Goodman’s and Janet Burton’s off-site courses and customised in-house training and coaching for new managers and supervisors has really taken off in 2014. Our client base for management related skills is continuing to expand with bookings for January through to March 2015.
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- Delegates at our Introduction to Management course, September 2014
We have learnt that some SMEs can spare the time for people to attend our off-site 3-day Introduction to Management course and really appreciate the opportunity to network with and learn from colleagues from other companies.
Equally important though, is our ability to customise our Supervisor Training course so that the content and duration match what other clients would prefer to have delivered in-house. Elisabeth and Janet ran one such course for Red Balloon, Cambridge and subsequently shared the experience in the blog "There will never be enough time"
Sometimes our support takes the form of short coaching sessions with individual managers – we did some of this in 2014, and are due to do more in 2015.
How to enhance team effectiveness is one of the topics included in supervisor and management training, and Elisabeth recently published “The Effective Team’s High Performance Workbook”, now available through Amazon as well as through the RiverRhee publishing page.
We’ve also found that SMEs appreciate the help we can give them in reviewing and rolling out improved performance review and appraisal processes . And we have used Elisabeth's and Lorraine Warne's skills in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and NLP (NeuroLinguisticProgramming) to help individuals understand their strengths and enhance their interpersonal skills.
Managing and dealing with change is a big topic of interest
We have run workshops and delivered seminars on the subject of change for Library and Information organisations (CILIP, UKeIG, Health Libraries Group), and at Project Management (APM) events in 2014 (see for example "Common factors for managing successful change").
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- Changing the way we change - APM event at GSK June 2014
This subject continues to be something that people would like more help with, so that they can make change happen in a more positive and effective way.
We have introduced a new off-site course on Managing Change for Life Science organisations in 2015 and look forward to finding out how popular this will be.
Elisabeth Goodman became the ‘pillar lead’ for Capabilities and Methods in the APM Enabling Change SIG, and this is already giving her access to new knowledge to bring into our work with clients. We also recently heard that Elisabeth’s jointly authored article with Lucy Loh’s “Organizational Change: A Critical Challenge for Team Effectiveness” is to be included in a collection of such articles in an academic work entitled “Change Leadership” edited by Colette Dumas and Richard H. Beinecke which will be published by SAGE Publications in May 2015.
There continues to be an appetite for continuous improvement
We have continued to run in-house courses on Lean and Six Sigma, and are now offering this also as an off-site course in 2015. In fact, this is one of three courses (the other two being Introduction to Management, and Managing Change) that we are now accredited to deliver through Cogent as another source of potential subsidised funding for SMEs. (Elisabeth also continues to be a registered coach and trainer with the GrowthAccelerator programme and organised a fairly well attended free event with them at Babraham Science Park in the summer.)
We delivered a half-day version of the Lean and Six Sigma course as one of two seminars with Janet Burton for the Herts Chamber of Commerce, and there are prospects of delivering more of these in 2015.
We facilitated some in-house continuous improvement with an academic organisation during 2014, and a few of the delegates who visited our stand at One Nucleus’ recent Genesis event also expressed interest to Sue Parkins and John Riddell in potential support from us in this area in 2015.
(By the way, Sue joined our team of associates during 2014, along with Paul Hadland, Rose Bolton and Margie Gardiner. We shared a little more about the team under the theme of "What motivates us in our work".)
Look out for Elisabeth’s next book on the topic of continuous improvement in 2015: “The Effective Team’s Operational Excellence Workbook”.
Our work in knowledge management has picked up some new momentum
The big news was the publication of Elisabeth and John’s book with Gower “Knowledge Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry” at the end of August. An immediate outcome was that we were invited to give an “inspiring” talk to help a Pharmaceutical company develop its knowledge management strategy.
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- Knowledge Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry, by Elisabeth Goodman and John Riddell
Elisabeth also delivered a session on Knowledge Management to IMPI earlier in the year on behalf of TFPL, and worked with the Open University Library Services to carry out an audit and facilitate a stakeholder workshop for their metadata project.
Our strategy facilitation skills have been in demand
We returned to the EU organisation that Elisabeth and Lorraine Warne had worked with in 2013 to help them shape their forward strategy.
We called in another independent consultant, Janette Thomas, at the start of the year to help us with a strategic workshop with a health research organisation.
And Elisabeth has been working with a government organisation to facilitate a workshop and a focus group to help shape one of their strategies.
Upcoming courses
Details of our upcoming courses and events are kept up-to-date on our website. Here is what the list is looking like at the moment:
- Managing Change (with One Nucleus andCogent) - 23rd February, Melbourn (UK)
- Introduction to Management (with One Nucleus and Cogent ) - 17th-19th March, Melbourn (UK)
- Effective Project Planning and Management (with TFPL) - 23rd April, London
- Introduction to Lean and Six Sigma (with One Nucleus and Cogent), 27th April, Melbourn (UK)
- Introduction to Management (with One Nucleus and Cogent ) - 22nd-24th September, Melbourn (UK)
- Managing Change (with One Nucleus and Cogent) - 12th October, Melbourn (UK)
- Effective Project Planning and Management (with TFPL) - 22nd October, London
- Introduction to Lean and Six Sigma (with One Nucleus and Cogent), 2nd November, Melbourn (UK)
If you would like to find out more
Do get in touch if you would like to find out more about RiverRhee Consulting, our range of off-site and in-house workshops, and how we can help you to create exceptional managers and teams in 2015. See the RiverRhee Consulting website or e-mail the author at elisabeth@riverrhee.com.
Meanwhile, we wish you a healthy and happy end of year and start to 2015...