Ideas
Through ‘Softwired’ I am able to offer a unique approach to bespoke ‘ideas based’ consultancy, training and networking across a wide range of topics and themes. Some of these ideas are outlined below. Contact me to see how we can plan the right session for you and your colleagues.
What are the fundamental principles of true system working and how should we contrast different types of system thinking? When we consider health and care as an organic ‘ecosystem’ rather than a ‘mechanistic’ system, we can think differently about how to enable a healthier system environment. We can also work more effectively across sectors and develop true system strategy by planning collectively to achieve improved outcomes in population health and wellbeing.
What is the evidence for successful system leadership? How do we embed more compassionate leadership styles and what does what this mean both in theory and in practice? Creating psychological safety and candour within teams, organisations and systems is essential in contemporary health and care systems. We need to be alert to the conditions in which learned helplessness can arise and take active steps to avoid it. We also need to be more considered in how we create spaces that build belonging not just within teams and organisations but also across sectors and networks.
Health and care is ultimately a world of complex human relationships, feelings and behaviours that affect every aspect of our work within teams, organisations and also across health and care systems. As leaders we need to be aware of our values and lean into them in our working lives. We need be skilled at surfacing conflict to build more trusted relationships with people and communities - and be proactive in redistributing power to enable lasting change.
The challenges we face in the 21st century are deeply interconnected and cannot be resolved through business as usual. They require transformation, including a fundamental change in the identity, purpose, and function of a system rather than marginal improvement. Yet most organisations, institutions, and partnerships are simply not set up to support change of this kind, particularly at the scale and over the timeframes that genuine transformation demands. Integrated approaches to transformation require the skills to bring diverse actors together in support of systemic change.
The basic principles of outcome-based approaches can help us to understand the need to ‘Start with Why?’ These include an understanding of the importance of using consistent language, the principles of turning the curve and the importance of understanding the story behind the data. We need to take action to use different types of measurement and data in the right way and learn from the use of outcome-based approaches in different places.
There are many different types of evidence that can be used to drive our work to improve population outcomes. New sources of data, knowledge and intelligence and the advent of population health management approaches present us with both potential opportunities and challenges. Incorporating lived experience into the work that we do remains paramount if we are to genuinely understanding the ‘Jobs to be Done’ from the perspective of people and communities.
In our increasingly diverse world, our health and care workforce includes people from many different cultures and life experiences. Nearly one in five staff in the NHS report a non-British nationality. However, international recruits to health and care do not always have a positive experience and can experience individual, organisational and societal discrimination. To flourish at work and fulfil our potential, we all need to feel safe, welcomed, respected and supported. We need to feel that we belong. Cultural safety provides a framework to change professional and organisational ways of thinking to be more inclusive and in doing so, to create more effective teams and systems.
We thrive as teams when our individual strengths are recognised, celebrated and complement one another. To be effective we need to see and appreciate every member of the team as a true individual with their own unique values and strengths. We need to explore our contrasting personal preferences in working style, consider our unique individual values and consider how these can enable us all to collaborate better. We
can create psychological and cultural safety if we listen to one another, improve the way that we interact and take steps to escape the trap of perpetual drama.