Vicki Masters – Organisational Development Adviser – Namibia
Vicki Masters has taken her skills in organisational development from the NHS in Scotland to the Ministry of Education in Namibia. She is volunteering safe in the knowledge that her job is secure thanks to a partnership between VSO and NHSScotland, which enables staff to return to their employer after volunteering. Vicki’s role was to implement a performance management system across the region, but in doing this she saw the opportunity to improve standards further by developing a leadership programme for school principals. Vicki tells us more.
Job in the UK
When I was at university in the 70s, there was a sign advertising VSO on the library wall, I used to see it every time I walked past and I would think ‘I want to do that’. At the time I was ready to volunteer the NHSScotland and VSO partnership, which allows staff to take a sabbatical, had just come in.
Having a job to go back to had a real impact on my decision to volunteer as I’m in a senior management job at home and that’s quite a big thing to give up. In the UK I manage the organisation’s training and development function at NHS Forth Valley.
Most of my work is about strategically supporting senior managers to deliver on their objectives, helping people to think through how they might do things differently and supporting them to work differently as teams.
Job in Namibia
Here in the North of Namibia I am working at the Ministry of Education. The original scope of my job was to implement a performance management system. I came in thinking that I would develop the system, but what I hadn’t understood is that a superbly crafted performance management system already existed. It was far more rounded than anything I’ve ever seen so I looked at it and thought ‘I wonder why they need me?’
I soon realised my role needed to be about supporting implementation, so I got myself opted onto the national implementation team and I am helping them to improve the national implementation plan and I’m moving it steadily forward here in the North.
I’ve established a local implementation team because whatever I set up needs to be sustainable when I go, so the chief HR practitioner chairs and I support her in it. My job here is to take the knowledge that’s appropriate and share it, not hold it to myself.
We have held a number of workshops for principals, advisory teachers and inspectors during which we introduced the system. At the moment we are working with them on getting used to giving positive feedback, looking at valuing and appreciating one another. We need a culture that is learner centred but what we have is a culture that is commanded from the top down.
Adapting to the situation
In doing that, what became apparent is that the school principals are struggling; they’re moved into a principal role with really minimal management training.
The big mark for success is the results coming out of schools, and changes are often linked to changes in the principal. It seemed to me that we should be plugging in a leadership development programme for school principals.
I’ve used other education volunteers to support that, to pull together some of the leadership programme. I have no qualms about saying ‘I have never been a teacher, I’ve never been a head teacher.’ I have knowledge in my area and I will use their expertise as head teachers to draw on that around the context, so the way I pulled it together was to identify who the core people were that have a stake in ensuring that the principals are operating as effective leaders.
So performance management has become just one of the things I’m doing as opposed to the central thing but I think if you’re at senior manager level you’re more confident, more able to adapt in this way; you know how to go and make your mark and you don’t wait for somebody to tell you to do something.
Building confidence in own skills
Professionally, I’ve built my confidence. That I could come in here and see that the culture was not aligned with the key performance targets that I’ve been immersed in the health service and local government but could come into education and see what we have to do and influence it, has built my confidence in terms of realising I do quite know my stuff.
My greatest achievement would be if the leadership development programme for school principals impacted on the exam results, so the poor performance schools came up and the high performing ones did even better so there was some form of correlation between the two and we actually saw a difference in the principals’ ability to both lead and manage.
I would like to leave this placement so that they didn’t have to bring another organisation development person in.