Outstanding results from changing management thinking. Featuring Aviva, Lloyds Bank, Crawford and Company, Barclaycard Germany and Vanguard.

Thursday 10th March 2016, QE II Conference Centre, London

One day all leaders will think this way

Agenda

8.30am Registration

9.30am John Seddon, Vanguard: Introduction to the day

John Seddon, Vanguard’s leader, will give a brief overview of the Vanguard Method. It is a change without a plan; instead change starts with studying, using a systems perspective to gain true knowledge of performance, seeing the opportunities to improve, and employing systems principles for the design and management of work; removing the dysfunctional consequences of ‘command and control’. The Method is the secret behind the outstanding results you will hear about during the day.

9.40am Richard Hiscocks, Director, Casualty Claims, Aviva UK: This is something leaders can’t delegate

Aviva was amongst the first to employ the Vanguard Method throughout a large financial services organisation, with astonishing results. When his journey began Richard was head of UK Household Claims. Now, in a more senior role, he will focus on the challenges to making the change and ensuring it is sustainable.

10.20am Katharina Haase, Chief Operating Officer, Barclaycard Germany: The Vanguard Method is different

Katharina first employed the Vanguard Method while heading up Mortgage operations in Lloyds Bank. Now with Barclaycard, Katharina will describe how the Vanguard Method differs from other approaches to change, explaining why it gets the results it does and how, once one has crossed the Rubicon, you can’t go back to other methods of change or conventional ways of working.

11.00am Morning break

11.30am Kristian Astrup Nielsen, Vanguard Denmark: How to improve sales by 30% and more

People believe that sales is all about employing the right people, setting targets and managing activity. Kristian will show how studying sales in any sector reveals a different story and how designing sales on the basis of ‘pull’ rather than ‘push’, sales go up to levels leaders would never have countenanced in their plans.

12.00noon Justin Watts, Head of Systems Thinking, Lloyds Bank: Designing digital services that work!

Providing digital services is preoccupying banks across the world; the promise is uncertain while the budgets are substantial. Even thought-leader McKinsey admits there is little evidence of success so far. Justin will illustrate the vital contribution that understanding customer demand makes to designing digital services and, just as important, avoiding digitising services that shouldn’t be digitised – creating failure demand and frustrating customers.

12.45pm Lunch break

2.00pm Patrick Hoare, Vanguard: Re-thinking and re-designing service operations

Patrick will introduce a video featuring leaders from Lloyds Bank’s wealth-management operations on the Isle of Man and will go on to describe the steps for studying and redesigning services for clients who are arguably the most difficult and the most important to serve effectively. Then he will take step back to describe his reflections on the changes in financial services over his lifetime, pointing to the general flaws in ‘industrialisation’ and the common opportunities to make a real difference to customers and the bottom line.

2.40pm Clive Nicholls, Chief Executive Officer, UK & Ireland, Crawford & Company: Sustaining sector leadership

Crawford & Company, the world’s largest independent provider of claims solutions, has taken the lead in their sector, having employed the Vanguard Method to completely re-think and redesign third-party services in insurance claims. The results can only mean their approach will become the industry standard. Clive will describe the journey, the opportunities and the challenges.

3.20pm Afternoon break

4.10pm Speakers’ panel

A final opportunity to question the speakers.

4.45pm Close

“We’ve delivered some absolutely brilliant results. The great thing about Vanguard is that it actually focuses on customer value”
Peter Reid, Island Director, Lloyds Bank International, Isle of Man

“We’ve saved over £100m; we’re at the highest Net Promoter score we’ve ever had and wherever we do this work, our morale tends to improve between 20 and 30 points”
Rob Brown, Director, AVIVA UK, 2009 – 2014

“Vanguard are the pioneers of whole system transformation. It’s painful but it works”.
David McQuade, Chief Executive of Flagship Housing

“Seddon is an important figure in all this.  He is the presiding genius over a whole range of related ideas that, taken together, would completely transform the effectiveness of our services”.
David Boyle, New Economics Foundation

“It’s my belief that the Vanguard approach is a universal truth, not merely a method for improvement. What John Seddon has created is….of enormous importance. With the Vanguard Method we have the makings of a new profession. The profession of how to manage correctly”
Jim Mather, Scottish Minister for Enterprise, 2007 – 2011

To book a place at this event, please contact Janice (pr@vanguardconsult.co.uk), phone +44 (0)1280 822255, or complete our booking form.

Please contact us on +44 (0)1280 822255 if you’d like to make a group booking.

The Vanguard Method

The Vanguard Method is a unique approach to Systems Thinking. Change starts with studying your organisation as a system. It reveals the truth about the ‘what and why’ of current performance, it enables leaders to see how targets, economies of scale and current ‘controls’ (which don’t actually control) are just some of the conventional management practices that are flawed . In studying your organisation as a system you also establish what is required to design any service against customer demands. While conventional management thought would have it that that could only lead to higher costs, it actually results in massive improvements in service, efficiency, revenue and morale.

The Vanguard Method was developed by John Seddon, an occupational psychologist. The change is a change in management thinking, best achieved through seeing counterintuitive truths first-hand. The Vanguard Method ensures that extraordinary change is made on the basis of knowledge and informed choice.

John Seddon has received numerous academic awards for his contribution to management science and was the first winner of the Harvard Business Review / McKinsey Management Innovation Prize for ‘Reinventing Leadership’ in 2010.

Vanguard Consulting

Vanguard consultants work in an unconventional way. Vanguard rejects report-writing, ‘sending in the suits’ and change by tools training and projects; common consulting practices which fail to achieve sustainable change. Vanguard consultants work alongside leaders as they study and then re-design their services, transferring know-how by changing thinking. Vanguard is currently active and growing in nine countries.