Leadership Belgium (3Rd European CAF Event, Lisbon, October 2007)

Leadership – Belgium (3rd European CAF Event, Lisbon, October 2007)

The case of the Prison of Ghent

Identification

- Title of the case: Role of leadership in the implementation of total quality management in a prison

- Name of the organisation: Prison of Ghent (Belgium) (Nieuwewandeling 89 9000 GENT)

- Name of the person in charge: Luc STAS – prison governor

- Email / phone +32 9 265.82.20 +32 495 58.78.30 (mobile)

- Level: national/federal

- Sector: Justice – Prison

- Event sub-theme: The commitment of leaders for change

Summary

In 1998 the prison of Ghent started a process of change from a conventionally administered public sector organisation towards a services organisation based on the principles of New Public Management. The goals were adopting participative management and starting with total quality management based on the CAF-model.

The process started by changing the structure from a pyramidal model into a team-based one in order to emphasise the participation of staff which implied a change in attitude and a great commitment of leaders.

Quality improvement issues

Strategic objectives.

The long term (strategic) objectives of the change project were the following.

1. Move towards a results driven organization and manage the prison of Ghent in accordance with the principles of new public management (NPM).
2. Introduce and apply an HR-management based on the principles of teamwork and competence development, and choice for participative management and greater commitment of staff. Emphasize on motivating, empowering, giving more responsibility to staff members, and better communication which should result in more job satisfaction.
3. Start with a total quality management.

Operational objectives.

1. Change the organizational structure from a pyramidal one into a team-based one.
2. Install a more flexible work roster for prison officers
3. Develop a strategic and operational plan for the prison (for the first time)
4. Introduce and apply a balanced scorecard for the follow up of strategic and operational plan of the prison
5. Start with organization self-assessments based on the CAF-model.
6. Implement explicitly a care dimension into the prison by creating a care-team for the group of internees (inmates with mental health problem)

Role of CAF

In April – May 2007, the prison of Ghent carried out for the first time a CAF-assessment process with a group of 12 staff members under the conduction of an external consultant.

The role was multiple:

1. Providing a profound strengths-and-weaknesses analysis of the prison based on the 9-domains framework of CAF
2. Implementing a continuous PDCA improvement cycle in the entire organization.
3. Providing an input for the strategic plan of the prison by means of improvement actions
4. Use CAF as well as a steering instrument for the organization as a means to bring staff members together to reflect on their organization.
5. CAF self-assessment was an opportunity to apply participative management

Other assessment tools or methods prior implementation

- Internal audit provided by an external consultant in 1998 which delivered also a SWOT analysis based on the consulting of 40 staff members and some prisoners.

- SWOT-analysis prior to the first strategic plan 2006-2008 for which many staff members were consulted and/or participated tot de strategic planning team (2005)

- Cooperation with master students in management for public-sector organizations who analysed the participative management model and the teamwork model of the prison of Ghent and who consulted many staff members

- Evaluations about the teamwork model on a regular basis with the team leaders and chief officers

- SWOT analysis provided within each team of the prison (2004)

- Start with and implement the “development circles” as a steering model adopted by the federal public service of Justice

- The vision-statement of the president of the Federal public service of Justice which includes the goal to become “a centre of excellence”

- Tradition of cooperation with external partners (Flemish community etc.) from who we learned

Main sources of inspiration

- Benchmarking with the prison of Saint-Gillis Brussels which adopted in 1994 an “equip”-model for the penitentiary staff.

- Prototype of team model: the entrance and visits team (1997)

- Prison visits in the Netherlands which use the INK-quality model (2005)

- Post academic studies by management members (PUMP-public management program; master in management for public organizations, courses in the context of competence measures etc.)

- In the context of these studies: visits to many public sector and social profit sector organizations (police, clinic, prisons, research-centre)

- Cooperation with the Dutch prison administration to execute a staff survey based on the BASAM model which is used in prisons in the Netherlands.

Project background

Prison of Ghent

The prison of Ghent is a entity within the Belgian (federal) prison administration which counts 33 prisons and an actual prison population of about 10.000 prisoners. So, the prison of Ghent is a federal public organization. It has an occupation of 400 prisoners (capacity 310). There are man en women. It serves for prisoners on remand (60%), convicted prisoners (20%) and internees (20%)(people who committed a crime, but suffer from a mental illness)

The prison of Ghent was build in 1862 as a typical cellular “star”-model (Ducpétiaux-model or Victorian model) and has been completely renovated since 1972.

The prison staff counts about 250 members divided as follows: management (5), prison officers (185), psychosocial staff

Ghent model

Since a long time, the prison of Ghent has a tradition and culture of going for quality. First of all there was the successful renovation of the whole building with respect for the original style and an emphasis on the faculty to communication and a comfortable workplace for the staff. The progressive regime for inmates was also a strong point of its policy. There is a customer friendly “serviscape”. The setting allows teamwork and has the opportunity to create a secure environment with possibility of teamwork.

Strong points are the multiple activities, beginning with labour and courses and a very extensive accommodation for visits and family contacts.

The prison of Ghent served as a pilot for many new projects and methods. It has a comfortable size and infrastructure.

The mission-statement (2006)

“We guarantee a safe, humane and correct execution of the judicial decisions of deprivation of liberty. With that we take in consideration the interest of the community, the victims as well as the prisoners and their social environment.

In cooperation with accused, convicted prisoners and internees, and our external partners in an respectful, structured and resolute way on a meaningful and restorative and individualised detention and an optimal social reintegration.

Like this we are and we will stay an excellent service-provider.”

The mission statement and the vision for the prison of Ghent were explicitly formulated for the first time in 2006. Until that moment only the version of the mission statement of the prison administration was available (since 2000).

It is important that leaders in prison act in accordance with that mission and vision. Even when a vision is not explicitly formulated, it is possible and necessary to consequently act in accordance with one.

Elements of the vision are creating security not only by bars and walls, but first of all by good and professional interaction with the inmates, and by organizing an interesting and useful activities program.

Another point is to translate the vision in an infrastructure that supports the possibilities of efficient interaction and communication between the actors in the prison: staff and inmates.

The choice for participative (change) management

The prison of Ghent made the choice for participative management which involves a continuous commitment of staff with the organizational activities and decision making.

The reasons to make that choice were:

- to increase the motivation of staff

- to increase efficiency of the organization

- to increase problem-solving capability. This leads to creative and better solutions

- as a facilitator during the change process: effectiveness of change depends on the degree of acceptation by staff. Less resistance against change and better acceptation.

- make use of the competences of co-workers.

- stimulates the commitment, ownership, job satisfaction

- democratic management style

- better labour relations and better communication

The actors

The management team

The management team steered the process in close co-operation with the chief-officers.
It was very important that the members of the management team were operationally involved with the preparation and the start of the change process in order to show enthusiasm and cooperate with staff members

It was a question of seeking together for solutions (i.e. new structure, new work schedule, new rules etc.)

The middle-management (chief-officers ans quarter masters)

It was important to involve the middle-management for reasons that they know very well the details and methods of work

Some of them were asked to prepare a prototype of new team + training + composition + work scheme + roster ( = participative management )

Staff (officers and other staff members)

Officers and other staff-members

- were informed trough meetings and information notes

- were asked for consensus and approval

- were involved with working groups

External consultants

- executed an internal audit (1998)

- delivered a final report and action plan in collaboration with management team

- offered individual and team support and consulting

- provided training seminaries for management and staff (on communication, leadership, integrated management, teamwork etc.)

- guided a CAF-self-assessment process in 2007

External trainers

External trainers were contracted for training sessions on

- communication

- leadership

- integral management and change management

- teambuilding and teamwork

Cooperation with the academic world – master students, high school students.

The work process / the approach

The process towards a total quality management in the prison of Ghent is a long term process and consisted of two phases. In a first period the organization was transformed from a pyramidal one into a team-based one.

In a second period, the prison started with strategic and quality management.

•Phase I (1998 – 2003): Implementing a new organizational structure

In the first phase this process started with an internal audit in 1998 executed by an external consultant.

The report of the consultant included a strengths and weaknesses analysis and a list of recommendations for improvements.

This resulted in a five-years action plan. The key elements of this plan were:

implementing a new organizational structure based on teamwork

new type of work roster

a new consultation structure

New way of drawing up the work rosters:

We abandoned the single work roster for the entire staff but each team was made responsible for its own work roster. The goal was that co-workers should participate in composing the work roster of their team, which provided more flexibility. A secondary goal was to diminish the arrears of vacation days for each worker.

New organizational structure and teamwork

In 1999, as a result of the internal audit, the prison of Ghent changed its structure from a pyramidal model into a team-based one in order to emphasise the participation of staff.

Before, in 1997, there was already an experience with a prototype of new team which was responsible for the front-office part of the prison: entrance, security-check, visiting facilities, reception etc.

That new team was developed in a participative way, i.e. the future team leaders were ordered to prepare the key-elements of the new team organization: work roster, team hiring, different functions needed, training program, team selection and profile, start up schedule, etc.

Many enthusiastic workers were standing for that team, which had a very flexible work roster and many different work posts.

That team was the prototype model for the further implementation of the teams in the entire organisation (only penitentiary staff).

Before the implementation, the whole staff was consulted in two meetings. The majority expressed to agree with the change-project

It resulted in a new structure with 10 fixed teams with their own team leaders

The criterion for the choice of team leaders were leadership capacities. The role of team leaders is very important.

The main principles of the team work were:

- work roster per team is made by the team leaders

- interchange of co-workers between teams is possible in order to avoid forced days of rest.

- job designation is based on the-right-man-on-the-right-place principle

- work post creation is in function of the real workload

Teamwork had consequences for the management of the prison

- a specific consultation structure was needed

- managers should be very committed with the evolution of the team based work

•Phase II (2005 – 2008): Adopting strategic and quality management

Since 2005, the prison of Ghent started with the implementation of new management methods. This was done in an incremental way. Principles of New Public Management are adopted step by step. We started with quality management in an explicit way.

Strategic plan.

The prison elaborated a strategic plan for the first time. This happened with the participation of staff: a high school student supported the formulation of the mission and the vision by consulting staff members of different levels and teams. The final text was validated by a strategic planning team.

After this, a SWOT-analysis was made by use of a quick scan tool (the PROZA tool), distributed to 30 staff members. The results were completed with a brain storm session of the strategic planning team.

Finally, a strategic formulating method (the SODA method or oval mapping method) was applied in order to formulate and prioritise the operational targets 2006-2008.

CAF self-assessment (April 2007)

As a part of the strategic plan, a CAF-self-assessment process was carried out in April 2007. Twelve staff members of different levels and teams of the organization participated on it. There were 2 training days, 5 assessment half days, information sessions at the beginning and at the end for all staff members. This resulted in an improvement plan which was used as an input for a new strategic plan 2007-2008.

Staff survey 2007.

With the support of the Dutch prison administration we organized a staff survey for the first time in 2007. The response was about 85%. The results were used in the CAF-proces and in the new strategic plan.

Balanced scorecard.

We started with a balanced scorecard in September 2006, in order to follow up the evolution of the realisation of our strategic plan. We used therefore the software tool SPM from SAS. The BSC tables and graphs are published on the intranet of the prison.

The BSC-form is based on the model that is used since several years in the prison of Oslo.

Intranet.

An intranet is started in October 2006 as a part of the communication policy.

Development circles.

The prison started with the implementation of “Development circles” as a method of competence management based on the PDCA cycle, which is applied on three levels:

- organization (CAF)

- team (teamwork, TOP)

- individual staff member (POP)

Role of leadership: commitment

Prisons are complex organizations. Prison governors are both managers and leaders. The role of governors in the creation of quality is very important. Their function is complex and they have many responsibilities.

The prison governor as a manager.

In his or her role as a manager, the prison governor has to

- elaborate in a participative way a strategic plan for the organization

- communicate this plan on a permanent basis to staff

- manage people: staff (HRM) and inmates (via staff)

- adopt and introduce a quality management model such as CAF that delivers an input for the operational plan

- steer the key-processes and intervene where necessary in order to reach the operational targets

- manage security (principles, procedures, controls, evaluations, consulting)

- manage the prison budget

- manage the building maintenance

- manage “hotel-function” of the prison

- manage prisoners activities and-programs

The prison governor - leadership

Even more important is the role of a prison governor as a leader.

1. First of all, they should coach the management team of the prison, as well as the other leading levels in the organization: service responsibles, chief officers, quarter masters etc. They have to give the “good example” and to serve as a model in accordance with the values (and moral values) of the prison.
2. Governors should be visible and have to communicate with and to consult the staff on an effective way. They must be present at team meetings, participate at training courses with staff etc.
3. He or she has to model the organizational culture.
4. Prison governors are decision makers and should take decisions relative to the mission and the vision of the prison. They have to communicate and make the link between mission and vision and the processes of the organization.
5. Prison governors should empower people: to strengthen the problem-solving capabilities of people and teams. Teams should be stimulated to become self learning entities.
6. They should stimulate participation.
7. Prison leaders should stimulate improvement (PDCA-cycle), stimulate training and instruction and participate themselves to these trainings.
8. They have to display informal contacts (team meetings, “walking around” etc.)

The measure of success

Results

Positive results of the (long-term) project are the following.

Positive organizational climate and culture ready for change

A great opportunity was the fact of an existing positive climate and culture for change. There was less resistance due to a long tradition of dynamism and change in the prison of Ghent: advanced regime, successful renovation project of the infrastructure etc.

Growth towards a common organizational language.

Growing towards a speaking language about mission, vision, processes, results, procedures. The ability of speaking together the same language was proven by the CAF-self-assessment in 2007.