Parent

Take your child by the hand               

And hold the future there

Keep him upright if you can

Release him if you dare

This metaphor could be seen to be patronising but it captures a key element of a successful culture where the organisation adopts the role of parent.

Successful parenting is based upon the principle of unconditional positive regard. A parent continues to have a positive regard for their child even if they clean up soiled nappies, put up with tantrums, have sleepless nights, or put up with a hormone afflicted teenager. They don't say to a child if you do that again I'll stop caring for you. They focus instead on the behaviour they don't like but their love is not conditional on that behaviour changing.

A parent will nurture their child - nurture is the act of bringing up, i.e. the process of promoting and sustaining growth and development, whilst cultivating the values which we wish to underpin the family. One of the greatest challenges facing any parent is the provision of opportunities.

A key element in enabling a child to succeed when presented with opportunities, is the notion of safety - for example, we place stabilisers on their bike; we walk behind them when they take their first stumbling steps; we . Lastly, we decide when it is appropriate to release the child to do things for themselves with less and less support.

Unconditional Positive Regard: this principle is at the heart of our culture to which we aspire. people must be made aware that they are valued and highly regarded both explicitly through what we say and implicitly by what we do.

Nurture: We wish to create a nurturing culture where people's development is a key driving force, underpinned by a set of values relating to our overall vision.

Opportunities: we wish create as many opportunities as possible for people to actively participate in the change process.

Safety: we need to create a culture which provides a safe environment to accept the opportunities which are available.

Release: the foundation of all of our people development strategies is that they seek to become self-sustaining by developing people to the extent to where they can operate without support and confident enought ot offer support to others.