Northumbria University’s School of Design

Leading Change in Academia
Management Team Away Day for Northumbria University’s School of Design

The business of academia means staying ahead in teaching excellence, strategic commercial partnership and academic leadership. This was the challenge facing Northumbria University’s School of Design when the Neville Wharton Business Psychology Group worked with the management team to facilitate thinking on how to embed a culture of excellence across the academic and non-teaching specialties. The Neville Wharton Business Psychology Group has partnered the University’s HR team for nearly a decade, working closely with each School’s management team in an executive coaching capacity.

In a specially designed away day for 16 people, managers used the protected time to address the big issues of the day. Not everyone had experienced an event led by a trained facilitator but all appreciated the supportive structure that the Neville Wharton Business Psychology Group consultant gave to the day. A blend of practical activities enabled participants to address strategic and operational issues in equal measure, whilst also attending to some of the softer elements associated with their remit of identifying ways to embed the academic vision for their School. The facilitator gave constructive feedback to the group at regular intervals to provide insight into effective and counter-productive team behaviours that emerged from time to time. This way, participants were able to reflect on how to begin using the behaviour they hoped to realise in others within their own staff and student teams.

By the end of the day, lots of productive output had been generated and clear actions attributed so that everyone was clear about, not only the long term vision, but also immediate next steps to be taken. The output from the day was expertly turned around into a comprehensive working document by the School’s PA and distributed within 48 hours for all to refer to. Cross functional teams met after the session to complete their tasks and to formulate a presentation to the School’s Executive Board.

A day away with a facilitator had empowered people to think freely about their work and the business of academia. In that creative space, far more ideas were generated and plans made than would have been otherwise.

Here are some of the things participants said about the workshop.

“We had talking and thinking time to debate and discuss issues about the culture of the School and how it operates at our level.”

“It was a good team building session, and helped us all to see each others perspectives.”

“A really strong facilitator. This was an experienced facilitator who clearly had to keep rethinking how she would proceed but did so with great aplomb and integrity so that the workshop worked for the different stakeholders.”