I have an unusual ambition: I want to make my college a panda-free zone. Admittedly, pandas are seldom spotted roaming central Scotland. But, in my view, there are far too many of them obstructing the efforts of our colleges, and our hard-working staff and students. Allow me to explain.

Three years ago, I became principal at Forth Valley College. Before that, I spent 20 years holding the roles of lecturer, head of department and deputy principal. When I was appointed to the top job, I knew all too well about the hefty workload and the shedload of forms that had to be filled in. I knew things could be made better for staff.

So, when I introduced a new “making learning work” strategy, I said we had to tackle bureaucracy. I asked staff to let me know where they saw unnecessary red tape so we could do our best to deal with it.

Bear necessities

Three weeks after announcing this gem of a proposition, I had received the grand total of two suggestions. A disappointing response, given that I knew we could really do something about this.

A few weeks later, I was asked in a meeting about my qualifications. I responded that I had a degree in zoology. The next question caught me by surprise: “What do you think of pandas?” My view, I explained, was that pandas shouldn’t be here. They survive on one food (bamboo), they live a solitary existence and they mate for the grand total of three hours a year. They’re cuddly, cute, rare and everyone loves them. However, if natural selection had its way, they’d have been wiped out long ago. All tongue in cheek, of course, but I said I’d be honest, so apologies to panda lovers.

That night, I was chatting with my daughter and suggested that the big teddy bear in her room could find a new home in the attic, given that she was now a teenager. “No, definitely not,” was her reply. But why not? “I’ve always had it, don’t know why, but it’s always been there.” Bingo. That was the moment that led to the word panda being introduced into the vocabulary of Forth Valley College.

Over the next two weeks, I went around carrying out briefings, brandishing a giant picture of a panda. “You might not remember what the principal says,” I told bemused colleagues, “but you’ll remember he asked you to find our pandas.” I explained what I thought of pandas and why I felt they shouldn’t be here. My staff were told to find their own pandas - to root out things we shouldn’t be doing and things we should be changing. I also encouraged them to come forward with new ideas to do things better.

Pandas are cuddly and cute, but if natural selection had its way, they’d be wiped out

Within two weeks, we had more than 50 ideas, ranging from doing away with meetings and form-filling to new ideas for business transformation. I wanted staff to ask: “Why are we doing this?” If there was a good reason to complete a task for, say, quality assurance or compliance purposes, then so be it. However, if they couldn’t explain why, we encouraged change. Meetings were dropped; forms were merged; people went paperless. Most importantly, staff were encouraged to innovate.

One of my favourite examples was a head of department who held fortnightly meetings. At the end of one of these, he asked all the staff a simple question: “What did I say in this meeting?” After many “ums”, “not sures” and “actually, I was thinking of my classes next weeks”, he dropped the practice. Instead, he started an annual departmental conference and gave staff back all the time being spent in unnecessary meetings.

Using the idea of pandas has given staff permission to innovate. We used to get hundreds of requests from schools to let them know if pupils had applied to our college, and what was being asked of them. A tremendously time-consuming task - and clearly a panda. Instead, we created a schools portal to enable local secondaries to track pupil applications. In finance, we moved paper-based student funding to an electronic system.

Freedom to innovate

In the past six months, we’ve dropped paper forms and developed an electronic means of capturing and paying overtime, additional hours and travel expenses. Our student advisers have developed an online database to replace the paper appointment cards. An electronic sign-in at reception has also been introduced, so our janitorial staff know who’s in the building and can access this information from their PC or mobile.

So have we tackled bureaucracy through tackling pandas? I think we have. We still find them hiding in the undergrowth now and then, but we’ve certainly improved productivity. We’ve empowered staff to ask “why?” Initially, the idea of rooting out bureaucracy bombed because staff didn’t believe it. “Aye, right,” they said. But by calling it something else and taking the time to look at what we could do differently, we’ve had some success.

The panda may be an endangered species, but it has helped us in genuinely “making learning work” for the community we serve.

Dr Ken Thomson is principal of Forth Valley College in Falkirk, Scotland. He tweets as @principal_fvc