Dawn’s story

Dawn has been a senior leader in a variety of local authority settings for over 20 years. She first came across Grit in 2004.

It’s always been about changing the culture.

Whether it was as Director of a newly formed Community Services trying to get wide ranging group of services (Adult Social Care, Housing, Leisure, Culture) to work together towards a common agenda.

Or as the first female Director of Adult Services in the biggest inner London Borough, creating a new team, embedding fresh ideas and different ways of working.

Or turning round a Children Service on Special Measures.

From the very first Grit senior management session I was captivated. It felt incredibly risky to go through a process where the hierarchies were dissolved and I was just another participant along with everybody else. It was a fantastic experience but scary at times.

It was stimulating to see how Grit challenged and confronted. How the trainers dealt with the reactions and the resistance, how they hauled us through to the end of a process by which time so many participants were saying ‘thank you for the opportunity,’ ‘thank you for investing in me’

I saw colleagues change before my eyes: the reluctant and the self-critical suddenly throw themselves into a session, putting themselves forward at every opportunity. Colleagues re-energized, re-enthused and rediscovering their passion for making a difference, taking ownership and taking control.  Colleagues suddenly seeing things afresh, from a different angle, how it was not the giving and taking of orders that got things done, it was the relationships.

In one local authority we cascaded Grit throughout and embedded it with group coaching. We gained a common language, a new way of working embraced by everyone. The excuses for not getting on with things came to an end. People expected to be held to account, felt free to tell each other when behaviour was not in line with what we aspired to achieve with children. Morale rocketed.

Grit transformed the way I thought about leadership. It gave me the confidence to be brave and take risks. It helped teams understand each other as leaders, change the way they behaved and become so much more effective as influencers. Grit had us change the culture. And we delivered: on integration, on new ways of working, on

improvement.