The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has always been a high-performing organisation, but it needed to revisit the way it was working to identify improvements it could make. The MSD created, and embedded, a set of principles that described what it looks like when it’s at its best.

The success lays in allowing those leaders expected to demonstrate the qualities to develop principles that they both understood, and were passionate about. In doing this one could ensure that these behaviours would be seen by staff, and lead from the top.

We deliberately avoided the usual collateral associated with the introduction of new principles. Instead, we demonstrated it in the way that we were working. This not only saved money, and time, it meant that staff saw first-hand the effects of the principles, and understood how they could use them in their own workplaces.

We were deliberately non-prescriptive – allowing individuals to make the principles mean something specific to them. And it worked. We're still in the process, but we can already see what the end result will look like…being the best we can be.