28.05.14
Developing new system leaders
Source: National Health Executive May/June 2014
Chris Lake, head of professional development at the NHS Leadership Academy, discusses the new Intersect programme, which will help develop the next generation of system leaders.
The NHS Leadership Academy, with partners from across health, social care, education, local government, children’s and emergency services, has launched a new programme focusing on developing systems leadership.
‘Intersect’ is the second programme from the Leadership for Change partnership, and will be led by the NHS Leadership Academy, providing in-depth learning and transformational development to 40 leaders working across the public and third sectors to deliver high-quality services with limited resources in highly complex environments.
During the year-long course, which will begin on 21 July and is split into six modules, participants will develop the skills they need to work across sectors, returning to their workplace equipped with the understanding, self-awareness and confidence to work and deliver the whole systems co-operation and change that the public sector currently demands.
Working across organisational boundaries
Speaking to NHE, Chris Lake, the NHS Leadership Academy’s head of professional development, said: “Intersect is a programme specifically for senior people – perhaps at, or reporting to, executive level in the NHS or at a similar senior level elsewhere in the public sector – who, to get their work done, have to work across and beyond their own organisational boundaries.”
He added that there are already examples of where cross-sector leadership initiatives are making a difference to the communities they serve, while also reducing the burden on the NHS. For instance, in Norwich, there is Project Domino, a collaboration between the clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) for Norwich, North Norfolk and South Norfolk, the acute trust, local government and the police, which focuses on improving emergency care but moving the delivery away from extremely busy A&E departments out into the community. It has cut patient ‘traffic’ into A&E units, providing a more timely service to people who need it and reducing admissions into the city’s hospital.
However, to make this type of initiative work, Lake says you need to have confident cross-system players and leaders working across and beyond their own boundaries.
“Developing these skills can often be a bit tricky for senior people, because they will have a track record of being successful at commanding and controlling an environment while also nurturing and facilitating colleagues,” he said. “Whereas with systems leadership there is a fairly different set of skills needed. Rather than thinking about delivering ‘my own service’ it is about delivering and orienting and co-generating solutions to problems focused on the citizen, community or population.”
Three strands
The programme, which starts and finishes with two five-day modules in Leeds but also consists of four three-day modules located in different parts of the UK, is made up of three interwoven strands of learning: experiential learning and visits; group relations; and delivery.
Lake said: “As part of the experiential learning maybe we’ll go to Norwich, for instance, and have a look at Project Domino. We’ll also have experience activities and have speakers come in – for example, people from local government, MPs and academics with an expertise in systems leadership. The key part of this development programme is providing lots of exposure to new thinking, be that academic new thinking, practitioners telling stories or studying a site visit.”
The second strand of learning – group relations – is often stimulated by the learning from the first strand and will, at times, populate the discussion within group relations activities. “But, more importantly, as time progresses, conflicts gets surfaced, envies will be discussed and joyous collaborations will become the content of our talks,” Lake told NHE. “Usually, people find the output of this type of process to be truly transformative. They genuinely have to be curious about answering their core leadership question, which is: ‘What is it like to be on the receiving end of me?’ And, to be able to understand this, there is the parallel internal journey of ‘Who am I?”
Dr Nicholas Bradbury, head of systems leadership at the NHS Leadership Academy, added that the “transformative” learning requires participants to undertake “a deep exploration” of themselves, to ask and to answer some probing and difficult questions.
The third strand of learning the participants will experience is delivery. Lake stated that the Academy wants this group of people to produce something tangible – evidence that not only have they grown as an individual, but they have also, through the programme, delivered something they would not have delivered if they hadn’t been part of the project.
“We want to see a genuinely developmental improvement project that works across and beyond their own organisational boundaries,” he said. “So the programme itself will be the vehicle for delivering service improvement to the public sector.”
Transformation
Lake said that in most of the Academy’s programmes there is a specific qualification at the end of it, but with Intersect there isn’t. There will, however, be an evaluation of the programme, which will partly be about the increase in the capabilities of the participants and partly about the impact of their transformative initiatives.
Between six months and a year after the end of the programme, the Academy will get back in touch with the participants and ask them some quantitative and qualitative questions about what differences they have been able to make, as a result of the programme.
Jan Sobieraj, managing director of the NHS Leadership Academy, stated: “The NHS can no longer expect to tackle the challenges it faces in isolation. To deliver the exceptional outcomes and outstanding care the population needs, the health service needs to work in close partnership with local government, social care, education and the third sector as well as with our communities themselves.
“With the Intersect programme, we are looking to provide the next generation of system leaders from across the public and third sector with the skills, understanding and self-awareness that they will need to succeed.”
Throughout the project the participants will gain a deeper understanding of cross-sector dynamics, engage with participants from other sectors to gain a deeper understanding of behaviours, practices and processes outside their organisation, and exposure to leading edge thinking and collaboration.
But Lake told NHE: “One of the major aims is not just the delivery of the project, but the changed mindsets and capabilities of our participants. We want to provide a different set of evaluative eyes to 40 senior leaders going back out into their services who can look beyond their organisational walls and work with others effectively to deliver better services, systems and leadership for their communities across the UK.”
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