Managing performance
One day workshop on using supervision to
manage and support blocked staff
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The agenda
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1. The supervision climate
How does the agency context impact? On you, on the workers, on the clients? How do you
manage change? How are you managing your team through change?
2. How are we actually supervising? What does a worker experience when they come to you
for supervision? What are your areas of strength? What do you need to build on?
Blanchard 4 management styles – where do you spend most of your time?
Reflectiveness scale for adults
3. What happens if a worker gets stuck? Do we recognise the blocked cycle? Narration
exercise
4. How can we get workers unstuck? Common issues checklist, unblocking strategies, bridging
interviews
5. The emotional cost – look at transference and Professional accommodation syndrome
Jo Fox April 2011
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Understanding the blocked cycle
within the context of your
organisation
and yourself
The most important tool
Positive expectation approach
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Staff want to do a good job. No-one wants to be ineffective.
People work best when they have clear targets in view.
People can and will try to change if it makes sense to them.
Performance can be improved if weaknesses are identified and worked on
together.
It is the behaviour and not the personality that needs to change.
Paying attention to worker self esteem and self efficacy are crucial in
helping them deal with criticism.
Health dissonance creates the conditions for change.
Agreed action on improving performance enhances commitment and
trust.
Complex interactions
Individual
J fox April 2011
Organisation
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Source and nature of authority
Role Authority
• People resources finance
• Given by senior management
Professional Authority
• Demonstrated competence, knowledge, skills
• Gains credibility
Personal Authority
• Attitude to authority and response to authority of others
• Gains leadership
J Fox April 2011
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Types of power base
• Reward power = the ability of the
supervisor to take & give away
• Coercive power = the ability to
punish & reprimand
• Legitimate power = the right of
one’s position & office
• Expert power = the use of
superior knowledge & skills
• Referent power = where others
seek the leaders approval
• Information power = to give,
withhold, or filter information
• Connection power = perceived to
be close contact with influential
people
• Ascribed power = accurate or
distorted attributions of power
ascribed to the supervisor
J Fox April 2011
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Supervisory authority
• Power must be exercised in a legitimate, clear
and consistent manner so that the authority is
both trusted and experienced as enabling of
the task the worker is trying to achieve.
• It involves emotional containment, setting of
boundaries, establishing limits and
confronting blockage and boundary breaches
J Fox April 2011
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6 elements of legitimacy
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Representation
Consistency
Impartiality
Accuracy
Correctability
Ethicality
J Fox April 2011
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Fantasised ‘bad supervisor’
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Fantasised ‘good supervisor’
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Authoritative supervision
• Promotes critical thinking
• Is delivered by supervisors with a strong professional
knowledge and practice base
• Is based on the supervisor’s awareness of their own
impact on the supervisory process, and willingness to
reflect on this
• Facilitates a culture of opportunity in which the
social worker can develop specialist knowledge,
and/or be involved in innovative work/roles
The Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum
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Blanchard Management Matrix
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Exercise one
Blanchard’s Management Matrix
• Identify your supervisory style using the 4 box
matrix.
J Fox 2011
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Exercise Two
Reflectiveness scale for adults
• Attachment literature and practice suggests that one of the
strongest predictors of a securely functioning individual is
their ability to reflect.
• This tool has been developed to help you think about the
degree to which you know yourself. It can also be used to get
feedback from supervisees on how you are perceived in the
workplace.
J Fox 2011
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Blocked cycles
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Stuck in
EXPERIENCE
Stuck in
BLOCKED
ACTIVE
EXPERIMENTING
CYCLE
Stuck in
REFLECTION
Stuck in
ANALYSING
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Exercise three– The blocked cycle
• Each group to consider one blocked area.
• How would the worker feel if they were stuck
in this stage?
• How would they present in supervision, with
the service user, in team meetings, with other
agencies?
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Exercise three
Area of block
Impact on
observation/
engagement
Impact on
reflection
Impact on
analysis
Stuck in
experience
Stuck in
reflection
Stuck in
analysing
Stuck in active
experimenting
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Impact on
planning and
action
Performance area
Range of potential consequences
Role clarity
Confusion/looseness
selective/rigid
avoidant/disengaged
Partnership
Collusive/enmeshed
Paternal/dependant
disengaged/lip service
Response to authority
Dependant
Avoidant/ambivalent
conflictual/controlling
Planning
Lack of clear goals/
Chaotic
inconsistent/
inappropriate
inflexible
Observation
Subjective/selective
superficial/avoidant
absent or irrelevant to task
interventions
Inappropriate or
Lack of focus
unpredictable
controlling/directive
Anti discriminatory
practice
Unaware
rigid, judgemental
intellectual only
Task completion
Chaotic, reactive
Unfocused
selective, being carried
by others
avoidant, low output
disorganised
Team/other
relationships
Insensitive
Poor boundaries
inappropriate
avoidant, distant
unaware of others
intolerant, demanding,
manipulative
Empathy and self
awareness
Self pre-occupied
Project feelings
Onto others
low self-awareness
avoidance of feelings
superficial
inaccurate readings of others
feelings
Response to change
Passive
Helpless
No responsibility
avoidant
denial of need for
change
resists change
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not open to reason
Generating responses
• You need to be seen as
part of the solution not
the problem
• Motivating your
workers to address
there issues requires
the same set of skills
you use when working
with service users
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Narration exercise to explore
blocked performance
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What is on your side?
Organisationally
Personally
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Performance management
framework
Written supervisory contracts
Observation auditing of performance
by supervisor
Supervisors knowledge of the worker
Supervisor time and energy
Managerial support
Emotional support for supervisors
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Confident in role
Comfortable with organisation goals
Perceived as competent
Comfortable with power and
authority
Good reflective practice base
Other areas of life not impacting on
work role
Up to date knowledge and skills
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Common barriers
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Lack of regular auditing or appraisal
Absence of standards or competences against which performance can be measured
Inadequate advice from the personnel function in the agency
Lack of managerial support for the supervisor or recognition of the emotional demands of
managing such situations
Fears around acting oppressively leading to certain groups of staff being under-managed
Over-accomodation to the personal difficulties a worker is having
Low level complaints being dismissed: ’she is always whingeing’
Workers being moved from one team to another or out to training
Recruitment and probationary processes fail to identify those who are clearly unsuitable for
working in a high pressure social care environment
No policy on management of under-performance
Disagreement as to what counts as evidence especially around team and colleague
behaviours.
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Effective problem solving occurs
when:
• We share perceptions and build agreement about
the nature of the problem
• Explore the fears and fantasies attached, either to
the nature of the problem or its possible solutions
• Identify the beliefs, values and assumptions which
each bring to the problem
• Generate achievable options for change
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Giving feedback
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Planned
Clear and owned
Regular, consistent and soon
Balanced
Specific and behaviour focused
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Bridging interviews
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Three stages
1. Establishing the gap
2. Exploring and understanding this gap
3. Eliminating the gap
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Remember
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The interviewee may react negatively at first
Listening is as important as talking
Bridging interviews are not the same as counselling
Expect to learn about the interviewee and the
agency
5. The bridging interview requires follow up
6. Preparation is the key
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The emotional cost
• “Inquiry reports tend to underestimate the
impact of clients on professionals”
• “anxiety about managing uncertainty has
supported the creation for a performance
management culture…..ultimately distanced
from learning and reflective practice”
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The professional accommodation
syndrome explained
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Secrecy
Helplessness
Entrapment and accommodation
Delayed or unconvincing disclosure
Retraction
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Ten steps for sustaining
supervisors
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Reflective Supervisory Cycle
Negative Supervision Cycle
Thank You
Jo Fox
Child-Centred Practice Ltd
jfox@childcentredpractice.co.uk
www.childcentredpractice.co.uk
Again our thanks to Tony Morrison for the use of materials
from his book Staff Supervision in social Care,
Pavilion Publishing, 2001