Avanti Role Lens
Three lenses, one role, a shared focus.
The Lens
Three lenses on one role: where they line up the role comes into sharp, shared focus, and where they differ each shows something real.
- Direction and strategy
- Delivery and performance
- Leading and developing people
- Relationships and partnership
- Governance and accountability
- Change and improvement
- Community and lived experience
- Expertise and professional practice
- Self
- Line leader
- Colleagues
- The spread between the lenses
Drawn with made-up sample data.
The figures in this picture
| Role demand | Self | Line leader | Colleagues | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direction and strategy | 5.8 | 3.0 | 4.5 | Wide angle |
| Delivery and performance | 4.0 | 5.3 | 5.6 | Different angles |
| Leading and developing people | 6.3 | 6.5 | 6.1 | Shared focus |
| Relationships and partnership | 7.8 | 7.8 | 8.2 | Shared focus |
| Governance and accountability | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.3 | Shared focus |
| Change and improvement | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.95 | Shared focus |
| Community and lived experience | 3.8 | 7.0 | 4.7 | Wide angle |
| Expertise and professional practice | 8.0 | 7.5 | 7.7 | Shared focus |
What It Explores
A role clarity tool that brings one role into focus through three lenses (the role-holder, their line leader and close colleagues) to show what the role calls for, where the pictures line up and where they differ.
In public service, roles rarely stay still. Budgets shift, partnerships form, services are redesigned, and expectations of a role grow quietly until the person in it is holding something quite different from the job description. Often the role-holder, their line leader and the colleagues around them each carry a slightly different picture of what the role is for. Those differences are natural, and each picture is usually true from where it is seen. Left unspoken, though, they can lead to frustration, duplicated effort and work that falls between roles.
Avanti Role Lens brings those pictures into view. It looks at one role through three lenses: the role-holder's own view, the line leader's view and the views of colleagues who work closely with the role, such as peers, team members and partners. Each person rates how much the role calls for 32 kinds of contribution, grouped into eight role demands, from direction and delivery to community and lived experience. The role-holder also rates where their time and energy currently go. The result shows which demands sit at the core of the role, where the lenses share a focus and where they see the role from different angles.
Why It Matters
- Roles in public service grow and shift faster than job descriptions can keep up.
- Role-holders, leaders and colleagues often carry different pictures of a role without realising it.
- Unspoken differences lead to duplicated effort, gaps between roles and people pulled in too many directions.
- Conversations about roles easily feel like conversations about performance, so they are often avoided.
What You Receive
- A 32-item questionnaire completed by the role-holder, their line leader and close colleagues.
- A role report showing core, regular and background demands through three lenses.
- A focus scale showing where the lenses line up and where they see the role from different angles.
- A comparison of the role-holder's current time and energy with what the role calls for.
- For teams, a team role map showing where roles overlap and where demands fall between them.
What People Take Away
- 1Name the eight role demands that make up public service roles.
- 2Describe which demands sit at the core of your role and which sit in the background.
- 3Recognise where your leader and colleagues see your role from a different angle.
- 4Compare where your time and energy go with what the role is seen to call for.
- 5Explain how community and lived experience feature in your role.
- 6Agree a shared role on a page with your leader and colleagues.
- 7Identify ways to craft your role so your strengths meet its core demands.
Who It Is For
- Chief executives, directors and senior leadership teams
- Heads of service and team leaders
- Elected members, chairs, trustees and non-executives working with senior officers
- People in new, changed or newly created roles
- Partnership, programme and community roles that span organisations
- Teams rethinking how they share their work
When to Use It
New appointments
In the first months of a new role, to agree expectations early and build a shared picture with the line leader and colleagues.
Roles that have grown or shifted
When a role has changed through new responsibilities, partnerships or service redesign, and the picture needs refreshing.
Rethinking how a team shares its work
When a team or organisation is redesigning how work is shared, to see where demands overlap and where they fall between roles.
Political, board and executive clarity
When elected members, trustees or non-executives and senior officers want clarity about who holds which responsibilities.
Sustainable roles and wellbeing
When a role-holder feels pulled in many directions, to agree priorities together and shape a role that is sustainable.
Our Approach in This Instrument
Role Lens looks at what a role calls for, never at how well a person performs it, so it describes rather than judges. Different pictures of a role are treated as contributions, community and lived experience sit among the role demands themselves, and the aim is a role that helps the person, and those around them, reach their full potential.
Proper Use
This is a development instrument. It is not a clinical assessment and it is not designed or validated for selection, recruitment, promotion or performance management decisions. Scores describe perceptions at a point in time and are a starting point for conversation, not a verdict.
Avanti Role Lens
£95 per role
Managed by Avanti: we'll be in touch within two working days to set up your questionnaire and invitations.
Talk to us → about Avanti Role Lens
Avanti Profiles are development instruments. They are never used for selection, recruitment, promotion, pay or performance management.