By Pia Fuglsang Bach, Community Manager at CfL, October 2021.
The sector for Children, Youth and Family in Lolland Kommune has worked with the briefing backbriefing method in its strategic work for the past one and a half years. The experiences are good – although, as Sector Chief Lotte Christensen puts it in a major interview with CfL, it is “hammer-hard” – and she also points out that the method is systematized with templates, requirements for written communication, and regular reporting.
How is the evaluation from management and the leaders working with the method on a daily basis?
CfL has spoken with Rikke Jensen, the director for Lotte Christensen’s area, and Vibeke Fold, Manager of Pedagogical Psychological Counseling, both of whom refer to the sector chief.
Here you can read their explanation of the strengths and weaknesses of briefing and backbriefing.
"The greatest benefit of the briefing and backbriefing method is that it fits well with Lolland Kommune. Our organization is flat and dynamic, where we do not micromanage and bureaucracy is low. Briefing and backbriefing is a good solution for task clarification when we do not need to engage in deep project organization with extensive process plans and more," says Rikke Jensen, who is a member of the management in Lolland Kommune with responsibility for, among other things, Children and Youth.
"However, the method requires that there are clear agreements on follow-up structures – for example, follow-up meetings, short written status reports, or whatever suits the individual workplace."
Rikke Jensen points out that it is important that briefing and backbriefing is not only about increasing autonomy in an organization. It can equally be about strengthening the coordinated understanding of the task or strategy – so that the common “why” becomes more evident.
It easily turns into a narrative about giving the next level more freedom in task execution.
According to the director, that is also the weakness of the model and of Bungay’s military inspiration:
"It easily turns into a narrative about giving the next level more freedom in task execution. In a public organization, there are an incredible number of considerations at play, and therefore freedom often cannot stand alone but must be supplemented by continuous expectation alignment regarding context, joint situation analysis, and an understanding of what is at stake right now."
One of the leaders in Children, Youth and Family is Vibeke Fold, Manager of Pedagogical Psychological Counseling (PPR). Together with her team leader Bo Jørgensen, she is responsible for bringing briefing and backbriefing to life in everyday work, and she does not hide that there is far from theory to practice.
If you simply show up and use war rhetoric, they will look at you as if you have gone mad – which has certainly created some challenges.
"Both Bo and I have had to appear more clearly than I had expected. We have put a lot of effort into explaining why and how we work with this model, because it is difficult to translate into a group of employees consisting of psychologists, learning consultants, and other knowledge workers. If you simply show up and use war rhetoric, they will look at you as if you have gone mad – which has certainly created some challenges," she adds.
The skepticism among employees partly stems from experiencing the method as a new top-down model, which has led them to question why they were not involved in the briefing work from the start.
Vibeke Fold cites the example of the 2030 management vision – a briefing that she and Bo Jørgensen had one month to prepare. Only afterward were the employees invited to workshops, where they, using their expertise, were allowed to translate the briefing into action.
Top-down is one point of criticism. Another concerns professionalism.
"The concern is whether we can continue to work evidence-based with the method. We can and must, of course, but previously the focus was on the individual child's needs, and task execution was almost solely governed by individual expertise and new research in the field. The new aspect is that we now link task execution with an overall political strategy that also includes prioritization," explains the department manager.
She describes the process as time-consuming, but also as a good working tool that brings a new perspective to the professionalism that is to be unfolded – within given frameworks, of course.
When we receive a briefing, we have to relate to what is stated in the planning and development strategy.
"The strength of briefing and backbriefing is that we as management are forced to lead both upward and downward based on the strategy adopted by the municipal council. A municipality is a politically governed organization, but many do not necessarily experience it as part of their reality. It becomes so with this method, because when we receive a briefing, we have to relate to what is stated in the planning and development strategy."
According to Vibeke Fold, the method makes a lot of sense in relation to where PPR stands right now, because it forces everyone in the department to be aware of what they are undertaking. On the other hand, she misses greater clarity from top management that this is now the way Lolland Kommune works.
"We are a large organization that is well underway in creating a good life for children and youth – so that they enter adulthood strengthened – but it must be clear to everyone what kind of battle we are fighting. If we are to continue motivating the employees, they must feel that they have the best tools to win and that they are not fighting alone," say the leaders of Pedagogical Psychological Counseling.
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