Last week we talked about the Six Thinking Hats, this week we thought we would present a real story about how individuals and teams at Corrections Victoria are effectively using the Six Thinking Hats.
Catering staff in Victorian prisons have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars since they formed a Community of Practice called the Prison Caterers Network. By meeting regularly and using the Six Thinking Hats to organise their thinking, they have found ways to save money and apply more creativity in their jobs.
“They identified that each of the publicly managed prisons were paying a dairy industry adjustment levy,” explains Frank Connolly, Manager of Knowledge Management at Corrections Victoria, “a levy of 11 cents for every litre of milk they were purchasing.”
By working together, building insight, generating ideas and challenging why they should pay it, the group found that the prisons were entitled to an exemption. “They were rebated $150,000 and they are going to save us from paying approximately $300,000 over the next 5 or 6 years,” says Frank.
“That one initiative brought about by their collaboration and thinking will save Corrections Victoria as much as $500,000 over a six year period.”
Creativity, Thinking & Innovation at Corrections Victoria
“The Six Thinking Hats provides me with a spice rack for my thinking and when I need a certain type of thinking, I just reach up and I grab it. Before I was fully conversant with the Hats I didn’t have access to that spice rack or thinking structure. My thinking, like most people I guess, was ad-hoc. The hats have offered me nothing new that I didn’t already do to some degree, however, now I have a real thinking structure, and that is the thinking structure we are giving to our staff.” Frank Connolly, Corrections Victoria, Australia.
Corrections Victoria manages 73 locations across Victoria, including twelve prisons, a Head Office and Community Corrections Offices where offenders are managed in the community. Corrections Victoria, as a business unit within Victoria’s Department of Justice, not only manages a correctional system that serves the needs of the community, it also has to deliver best business practice in doing so. “We are a service provider in essence,” says Mike Vallance, the General Manager of Change Management at Corrections Victoria. “What we need to do is use knowledge management and a sharing approach to create innovation through our people.”
Committed to the Australian Business Excellence Framework, two of Corrections Victoria’s areas of focus are Knowledge Management and Innovation. This involves managing the intellectual capital of the organisation, capturing, sharing and harvesting the ideas, skills, knowledge and experience of their people to increase efficiency, effectiveness and innovation.
Actions that form the Corrections Victoria approach to knowledge management and innovation are aimed at increasing the degree to which the organisation collaborates and shares knowledge. These actions are also aimed at developing a more supportive and collaborative work environment in which the ideas and knowledge of staff help to drive strategy and improve performance.
In 2001, Corrections Victoria approached the de Bono Institute to see how the teaching of thinking and creativity, explicitly, as a skill could help the organisation to achieve its aims of knowledge management and innovation.
Over the next two years, a partnership formed where ideas and expertise were exchanged. “I have been delighted with the Institute’s willingness to cope with our public sector world,” says Mike. “You might come up with an idea today, and it could take a year before you either get management onside or the funding to implement something. Their patience with us has been outstanding.”
Over the four years of the partnership, a number of volunteer staff from various areas of the organisation participated in pilot groups and action research to develop case studies. The staff learnt some of the Lateral Thinking tools; however it was determined that the Six Thinking Hats were the best possible starting point towards the Lateral Thinking tools.
In September 2004, Corrections Victoria undertook accreditation in the Six Thinking Hats. Around 500 staff have been trained so far with a further 600 due to be trained this year. Frank Connolly, says the Six Thinking Hats are one of the ways of helping parts of the organisation to break out of their “siloed approach” of the past. “We need to stop reinventing the wheel in a dozen different places at the same time,” he says.
“Our aim is to get people working cooperatively in groups by creating Communities of Practice. We don’t want them to waste their time and we want them to think in parallel. The Six Hats are ideal for that.” Frank says the training has been well received by managers. Meetings have become more effective. The staff are finding the Hats easy to grasp and easy to use, in their working and private lives.
Thinking on a Pedestal
When the corrections staff at the County Court cells had to find a way to participate in Six Thinking Hats training they had to use some Lateral Thinking.
The staff had no time to spare during their working day and nowhere to train so they came up with a novel idea. “What they did was organised for the training to be conducted at lunch time doing it in their own time. They split it up over five consecutive lunch times.” “The only place to conduct it was in an empty court cell. Obviously, we were cramped for space in there and I found I delivered part of the skill building standing on a toilet.” Frank taught the Six Thinking Hats to 16 people from his makeshift pedestal.
The feedback was both supportive and positive and Frank was suitably flushed with the success of the sessions. “For us innovation and creativity is about a practical approach,” he says, “it might involve cutting costs, providing a better service or actively contributing to the reduction of re-offending.” “The ultimate aim is to provide better value for our stakeholders.”
To learn how to use the Six Thinking effectively please visit the what we do section of our website or email us.
This same group of Prison Caterers have not rested on their laurels. They have also initiated a Australiasian Prison Caterers Community of Practice (CoP) incorporating all Australian States and territories and New Zealand. This will allow an even greater level of knowledge sharing and collaborative effort as they seek to continuously improve their work practices. Interestingly enough, a one hour facilitated Six Thinking Hats session for 52 people was used to elicit a decision as to whether or not they would proceed with this CoP.
Posted by: Frank Connolly | 02 August 2006 at 02:28 PM