Leadership Insights
"Reset not Just Recovery" NHS Team Coaching
Sunday 20th September 2020
Mike Mullins
"The pandemic has unleashed amazing innovation across the service, with new ways of working, new ways of supporting patients, and new collaboration between services. We don't want to go back to the NHS as it was, we want to emerge in a new place. This is about reset not just recovery."
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation
The challenge of resetting not just recovering
The restoration of NHS services after COVID-19 needs to be about reset, as well as recovery. Starting this work again needs to be done carefully with local health leaders deciding what is best for their local communities and what can be managed. We know staff will need downtime to recover and process the emotional impact of what they have been through. It's vital that all the parts of the NHS and social care at local level, ideally ICPs, reflect, learn and plan together, as what happens in one part of the system inevitably affects another. There is now a real opportunity to harness the sense of empowerment the pandemic has created to radically sped up the transition towards integrated care across the NHS and social care.
NHS leaders, clinicians and their teams require quality time to pause, renew and reflect on lessons learned if they are going to be able to reset and plan the recovery of the NHS as an integrated service. Yet they are under pressure to deal with the immediate COVID - 19 crisis and face a second wave of suspended non-urgent procedures as well as the danger of emotional burn-out. Processing and embedding learning from the COVID - 19 pandemic needs to be done in a way that's re energising, practical, hope based and visionary. As experienced leadership team coaches we believe ICP system leaders can be supported to help their local NHS teams reset and recover through short, reflective but action focused, online (and later where conditions permit, socially distanced) group coaching conversations.
Our style as team coaches:
As team coaches seven principles underpin our way of working with leaders:
- "Inside out leadership" - we believe we can only lead others and influence change once we have the self-awareness, confidence and resilience to lead ourselves
- Experiential and relevant - we make learning practical, experiential and research based
- Inclusive - we seek to create a safe inclusive space for those who voices are often unheard
- Holistic - we help leaders process the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual aspects of their leadership in tough times
- Small group - based learning - to create cross system relationships of trust, support, challenge and encouragement to maintain learning and get real results
- Tailored and emergent approach - in short modular bursts of facilitated team coaching with time for reflection and application between
What's the purpose?
The purpose of "Reset not Just Recovery" Team Coaching for ICP Leadership Teams is fivefold, to:
- Create a space to pause and take stock collectively as cross - system ICP "teams" and process individual and "team" learning about effective leadership and best practice emerging out of the COVID-19 crisis
- Begin to process the emotional stress, and grief caused by the crisis and rebuild individual and team resilience and energy amongst system leaders in anticipation of the next wave of patient demand
- Strengthen cross-system understanding and partnerships that are already emerging
- Develop a collective vision and leadership narrative to support the integration of care
- Embed best practice learning in tailored, practical action plans in each ICP
How would the group coaching sessions work?
We believe in getting to personally know and understand the challenges and opportunity teams face before we start any formal coaching. We would start by conducting short half hour telephone or video conference 1:1 interviews with each "team" member. Generic themes from these interviews would be used to tailor the design of "team" coaching sessions and would be fed back to the team to prompt open and honest discussion. The flow of "team" coaching session online (or face to face, socially distanced, where possible) could potentially explore a number of leadership themes:
- How well - being personal and team resilience are foundational to effective leadership
- Who have we been at our best as system leaders in COVID- 19? Using appreciative inquiry to capture best clinical and leadership practice
- What's our vision for the future of integrated care in our STP/ICP based on partnership and hope? Articulating a collective vision of what integrated care will look like
- Developing a practical, realistic action plan that embeds the learning from the COVID-19 crisis and allows the ICP to realise its vision
- Articulating my leadership narrative - how do I engage my local teams with our shared vision for integration in a way that inspires hope and renews energy?
- Action group learning - an opportunity to be coached and to coach peers on live leadership opportunities and challenges presented by embedding the learning (a minimum of three sessions)
Each "team" coaching session would last a maximum of two hours allowing it to be held online if necessary. The number of sessions would depend on need. Individuals would also be offered the option of 1:1 coaching.
Contact us for a chat on 07973 642 875