# Transcript

Vivian McConvey
This is what a strategic plan of 100 pages looks like.
Narrator
Vivian McConvey is the chief executive of VOYPIC, of voluntary group with 36 staff based in Northern Ireland, which represents the voices of children in care.
Vivian McConvey
We started off with a consultation with young people. Then what we did was we consulted with yourselves long, long time ago. It’s taken two years.
Narrator
Vivian’s currently leading a strategic review of VOYPIC. Today, she’s discussing some big changes with one of four regional teams.
Vivian McConvey
Because I’m living and breathing this at the minute. But how do I get from my bit of living and breathing it down to your bit of really understanding it.
Narrator
Vivian now has a fairly assertive leadership style. But 10 years ago when she took up the post, her first as CEO, she felt uncomfortable.
Vivian McConvey
It’s quite a step up to go from senior professional adviser in an organisation to chief executive, and I always looked at myself as a baby chief executive. I was really doubting all the decisions I was making, even the confidence of lifting the phone and saying, ‘Hello, this is Vivian McConvey, I’m the chief executive of VOYPIC.’
It takes a lot of confidence to sort of make those cold calls, develop those relationships. And I went to the board, and I said, this is a whole new post for me. And I need to make a shift in my own mindset.
Narrator
Working with VOYPIC’s board of governors, Vivian was helped by a series of mentors to assist her in developing a leadership style.
Vivian McConvey
What’s really clear to me is that the learning is ongoing. And also, I maybe made less mistakes because if I’d gone in gung ho feeling like I had to be this type of person, I might have not taken enough time to really understand what impact I was going to have on people, what the relationship was going to be. And so what originally felt like a negative because of a lack of confidence, it actually was a really good process.
[Phone ringing]
Speaker One
Good morning, Voice of Young People in Care. How can I help you?
Narrator
VOYPIC represents young people in care through projects that offer advice and opportunities. But Vivian’s review has highlighted a need for fundamental change. A key finding was that children were being consulted too formally.
Vivian McConvey
These children live in a system. And we got into very sophisticated consultation mode, as opposed to they’re with us every day, and we should just be talking everyday. Do you talk to your kids everyday? About everything that’s going on? Everything?
Speaker Two
Yeah.
Vivian McConvey
You don’t say, I’m gonna sit down tonight and consult with you.
Speaker Two
They would run out the door.
Vivian McConvey
They would. So what are you doing with your kids?
Speaker Two
We need to talk to them. We need to have that conversation with them. We need to listen to them.
Vivian McConvey
Yeah, we need to find a clever way to constantly have a conversation. So the first thing I want to do is, I don’t want to hear the word consultation anymore. I really honestly don’t want to hear it.
Speaker Three
The thing about it is, for me, consultation is you’re nearly consulting the same young people over and over. If you’re having the conversation, you tend to have it with other young people who you’re working with because I’m thinking about the group that comes into the office, they’re your first port of call. But the conversations can be much, much wider.
Caoimhe
Donna had said, as well, about that we’re tapping into the same group of young people all the time, the ones that’ll say, I’ll fill in that questionnaire for you, I’ll come to that meeting, I’ll do the consultation. But then you’ve got our young people who maybe that word or a questionnaire or interview questions, and they kind of panic. And they don’t want it.
Vivian McConvey
What I’m looking for is a conversation about children’s lives. It’s integrating into every staff member. Behind you will be a policy unit that will give you the questions. You’ve got the skill and the professional competence to know how to do that and have that conversation with young people. You bring it back in.
Narrator
Over the years, as Vivian’s confidence has grown, she found a need to develop further leadership skills, especially being able to hold back a little.
Vivian McConvey
Yes, I do control my style because there are things about me that I know can be quite scary around other people. And some of the things that can be scary for staff is if you are a quick thinker and if you’re very chief executivey, you’re very outcomes focused.
So what I have to control in working with my managers and staff is that I know the outcome that I want to get to. I have to pace it at their pace. I have to understand how far they’re coming along and where we’re going to. And, therefore, I have to curb and control either my fear the project’s not going to be completed, or my excitement and get really involved in it, or the challenge that I have in wanting it really done by my time scale and not listening to the messages that I’m getting from everyone else.
Narrator
Another finding of Vivian’s review is that services are not matching the needs of some service users. The solution is to reorganise VOYPIC’s specialist programmes, currently stretched across Northern Ireland so that, instead, they’ll be covered by every regional office.
Vivian McConvey
This is a big change for you. So where you were reporting Eileen to Mel, that’s not going to happen. Where your focus is so participation, that’s not going to happen. Where you guys are so focused on the mentoring, that’s not going to happen.
Caoimhe is leading up mentoring. She’s going to be trained in participation. And she’s going to be trained in advocacy. And she will be the manager of all those services and doing all those things. And that’s a big change for all of us to make because we’re going to have to have flexibility, guys. We’re going to have to put our shoulder to the wheel and help each other and do these things. Any fears? Loss, anxiety?
Speaker Three
I’m gonna miss Mel. [LAUGHTER] I’m gonna miss my manager. But, sure, I’ve got Caoimhe now. But I’ll miss the participation team and all that involvement.
Speaker Four
I think that’s a fear for everybody. And me, as a manager too, I’ve been on the mentoring service for five years.
Vivian McConvey
We need to pay attention to endings. There is an ending here coming up. And something has begun. And how do you manage the transition in between? And if we don’t pay attention to endings, you don’t say goodbye to that sort of stuff and then open your mind up to, well,there’s a new way that I have to be.
Narrator
Vivian’s experience of management and leadership has also steadily improved her ability to employ the right skills for each occasion.
Vivian McConvey
If I was really honest, I’d probably say that I was very uptight and conscientious coming into management. In that sense, I was probably like Delia Smith.
You know the recipe. There’s a procedure. Fill measurements. There’s a way to do it. And you get the same result every time.
But you don’t sort of go off-piste. And you don’t sort of try anything. Now as a manager, I’m probably more a bit like Jamie Oliver.
You know the fundamentals. But you know that you can change in many ways. And you deal with things very individually. And you’re much more relaxed about it. It’s a glug of this, a dash of that. You can actually enjoy what you’re doing. And your relationships are different.
Narrator
The following day, Vivian has a new challenge. She’s about to meet some of her senior managers to help her lead the forthcoming strategic changes.
Vivian McConvey
What I’m looking to do here is actually to build the skills and the leadership role of all of the people sitting down around that table. What I’m trying to do is to say that I’m not the only leader here, that what I need is that everybody around the table is a leader in their field.
Narrator
A key aim of the meeting is to start creating a timetable for the changes she wants to bring in over the next three months.
Vivian McConvey
Think about it from your perspective, first of all. Where do you see yourself in this? What’s a type of reasonable time scales?
Imagine it like a big field. Right? With nice firm boundaries around it. I’m not going to tell you what to do in that field. You have to actually grow that yourself.
What I’m trying to do is get the collective intelligence around the table, to get it all together. This is going to be a living document. It’s a bit like a strategic plan. It’s a living document. It’s going to be there. And it nearly needs to be our handbook to help us.
Narrator
For the first part of the meeting, Vivian sets the managers the task of making notes about their specific responsibilities. She’s also looking for ownership and a sense of urgency.
Vivian McConvey
I want to start to put by when. So then you’re going away from here today in your diaries and saying, I thought of some piece of work I have to do. And I also go back to the other thing is, you can’t have people in transition too long because they begin to lose the focus.
Narrator
But even the best laid plans don’t always run smoothly.
Vivian McConvey
So in each bit of this, what we have to do is make the linkages in the process.
Jillian Houston
I’m not here.
Vivian McConvey
I know you’re getting married.
Speaker Five
When’s your last day?
Vivian McConvey
24th.
Jillian Houston
No, that’s the day of the wedding. 20th, 21st.
Vivian McConvey
Right. This is where it’s going to be serious. What I need you guys to do is you see when we’ve got these activities, you have to begin to think, what’s my diary between now and next June?
Jillian Houston
Can’t happen, because this is the problem, and then people’s back in and all this – no.
Vivian McConvey
OK. Well the other thing –
Speaker Six
Do you want to rush things? You don’t want to rush something, if we’re really going to do this new modelling, new practice and way of working then we need to pilot it.
Jillian Houston
But then if I do those three days, those – oh no, that’s St. Paddy’s.
Vivian McConvey
This is where I need you to have your diaries. You have to seriously look at this timetable and seriously begin to think because somehow, in our head, we have to have the big picture map and in the box that you’re in, because where I’m going with this, in these activities, how I’m going to do the next bit of this is I’m going to have a calendar like a Gantt chart.
And what we need in a Gantt chart then is, when these activities are done, so we then look at that. But I can’t get to the Gantt chart or the calendar until you begin to fill these things out. And then we realise that, you know what, March has got 28 days. And we’ve fitted 40 working days of work into it. It’s not going to work.
Interviewer
Is there any danger that when you go through a big change like this, that the service user suffers?
Vivian McConvey
Oh, absolutely. And that’s why I have tried to emphasise the absolute importance of laying out a timetable and knowing when the switchover date is because the longer you prolong the change process and not moving into the new process, people will switch from committing themselves to work out what’s best for the service user to getting worried about what’s happening to them.
Narrator
But if Jillian’s wedding is not enough, VOYPIC’s head of finance is about to drop her own bombshell.
Vivian McConvey
Populate that. Anything else that we’ve missed in that change management process of either training, attending to anything at this point?
Karen Stirling
Sorry, Vivian, I forgot say to you, I’ve been called for jury service from Thursday the 5th of January to four to five weeks. They said I wasn’t allowed to leave the country.
Speaker Seven
Four to five weeks?
Karen Stirling
Mm-hmm.
Speaker Seven
That’s longer than it usually is now too.
Vivian McConvey
Which jury service? Which court?
Karen Stirling
Laganside
Vivian McConvey
So you’re at least in Belfast?
Karen Stirling
Yes, I can work mine every morning, and come back again, work late.
Vivian McConvey
OK. It is the best of times. And it is the worst of times. Well what’s going to have to happen, Stirling, is you’re going to have to start to think about when the salaries and wages are being done because you are the sole person who does that.
Karen Stirling
It is a real inconvenience, especially at the end of the financial year. I don’t know. What I’ll do is bring in all the forms and have a wee look at them, and if we can get a letter, it might work out.
Vivian McConvey
It’s really indulgent for a CEO if they want to kick things around a room and be really angry over something. And in Northern Ireland here we would have a saying called no back doors. So people would say that I’m very upfront, and there are no back doors. And I clearly say to them how I’m feeling about something.
It’s about understanding, controlling your emotions to a point that you’re not over emotional. Have the emotion, but it’s not that you become aggressive or angry because the other thing is people below you look to you for guidance.