Leaders across the College met in Campbell Town on 4 September, for a workshop on culture, leadership and strategy.
The meeting was part of ongoing efforts to develop a high-performing, innovative, agile, accountable and unified culture and recognition by the College Leadership Team (CLT) that our leaders, through their actions and behaviour, impact the culture of the organisation.
Around 29 participants undertook diagnostics in self-reflection and 360° feedback, followed up by debriefing and one on one coaching, culminating in the Campbell Town workshop.
Key themes at the workshop included:
- We want a culture that allows people to thrive;
- We want to be cross disciplinary;
- We are committed to leadership, in a collegial environment, with shared responsibility;
- We aspire to being globally connected and globally excellent, with seamless connectivity between learning and teaching and research;
- We want our strategy to be informed by our people, owned and understood across the College;
- We want communication and collaboration that is up, down and across the organisation;
- We want to make things better e.g. produce superb health professionals, carry out excellent research, meet our mission of transforming health outcomes.
Participants also considered the relationship between culture and strategy and the feedback provided on the 2019 College Plan by staff who attended cascading conversations about the plan.
Recent arrival to the School of Medicine, Professor Coral Warr, said the workshop was the perfect opportunity to better understand the leadership group and current culture.
“It gave me a clear sense of how the college leadership team would like me to proceed in my new role and where I can contribute best,” she said.
“It reinforced some of the reasons I wanted to join the college, in particular the sense that the leadership group is constructive and is committed to developing people, both staff and students.”
Magdalena Lane from the Menzies Institute agreed the workshop highlighted the positive direction the College was heading.
“The workshop highlighted and made evident every individual’s commitment to leadership and the future of the College,” she said.
“Whilst there are challenges ahead, the sense of shared responsibility for finding solutions was striking.”
Leaders agreed to respond to some key issues in a realistic timeframe, including barriers in ethics processes, barriers around compliance and complexity in learning and teaching processes, providing greater clarity and visibility around partnerships, and better connecting all our portfolio strategies (research, global, learning and teaching).
Ideas for improving our organisation culture included: focusing on solutions, not problems; fewer emails and more focused, purposeful interactions (be they meetings or other engagements).
The group was keen to continue the momentum and commitment to positive culture and involve the College more widely.
Further diagnostics across on the College on whole-organisation culture are also being recommended for consideration by CLT as a step towards this.
