Breaking out of the echo chamber
Tangible action
Taken on their own, though, new ideas are never enough. “The real hope is that they don’t just stay in the classroom,” says Pearce. “The expectation is that they translate into tangible action.” For that very reason, there was also a good deal of group work during the second two modules of the programme, enabling delegates from clinical triumvirates and colleagues from the corporate divisions to share plans of action on particular projects. “This is the accountability loop,” says Cryer. “The design of the programme has thrown down ideas and challenges. The question was what delegates were going to do with them. What were they going to do next?” The answers arrived quickly. Some delegates had been using the programme to inform their efforts to improve the breast screening service in Coventry and Warwickshire, securing new equipment and more staff. Others were working on bringing all community health services in the region under the same umbrella as the acute University Hospitals Trust, so that all services were managed under one integrated care board, with better patient experience of coordinated care and health outcomes as a result. Delegates such as Strategic Director Jamie Deas were able to use the programme to rehearse and reframe all the issues involved in bringing a multitude of services under one roof before the official launch of the Coventry & Warwickshire Integrated Care Board on 1 July, 2024. Ultimately, says Cryer, the Leadership Programme was aimed at achieving real change at the UHCW Trust, and fostering “a culture of continuous improvement across the healthcare system”. 2*
“There are so many daily challenges facing NHS hospitals and clinics that it can all become quite reactive,” says Dan Pearce, Director of Organisational Development at the University Hospitals of Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust (UHCW). “So often, we see hard-working professionals with their gaze fixed on the urgent matters needing their immediate attention and, as a result, losing sight of the bigger picture.” “Really, the only way we can regain that focus on the big picture is to create a space for people to talk and think differently”. That space during 2023 and 2024 was provided by the Leadership Programme designed by Warwick Business School’s Professor Bernard Crump 1* and Jane Cryer, and delivered by the School’s academics. “As an outsider who has also been on the inside, I know how the NHS can become mired in operational weeds and how difficult it is to get a head up and think more strategically,” says Cryer, a former NHS Manager and Director who has been designing and delivering leadership programmes for the past 15 years.
“But the aim of the WBS programme has been to emphasise to senior leaders at UHCW that they have agency, and to provide them with the right ‘provocations’ to act upon that agency.” Those ‘provocations’ have come in the form of a series of modules in the WBS programme designed specifically to “get people thinking”. There was a focus on Compassionate Leadership in the context of the NHS’s own values framework in a session led by Tamara Friedrich, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, in the first module held in the autumn of 2023; while Helen Bevan, Professor of Practice, led on Systems Leadership in the second module. In the following module held in May 2024, Pietro Micheli, Professor of Business Performance and Innovation, joined Cryer to take delegates through various aspects of Managing Performance. These aspects included the communication of strategy, measurement systems, behavioural thinking, the creation of a culture of performance, as well as exploring the links between performance, improvement and innovation.
Widening the breadth of thinking was not only the remit of the modules. It was also the focus of three coaching sessions offered to each individual during the programme, as well as action learning sets. The coaching sessions included 360-degree assessments in which delegates received confidential, anonymous evaluations from their peers, while the action learning sets saw small breakout groups gather together to share insights on the challenges they were facing in the workplace. The groups consisted not only of clinical leaders but also coaches and corporate leaders. “It was all about stretching our thinking,” says Dan Pearce. “NHS leaders can spend so much time in an echo chamber with the same ideas and approaches to problems reverberating around us that it was good to meet in another forum where there was free licence for new ideas to emerge.
“It is all about a collective and compassionate learning culture where people are more respectful and understanding of each other as they embrace new ways of doing things. “From this culture, a community of senior leaders in the organisation emerges which can create a supportive environment for their staff and ultimately a better service for service users.” A community of senior leaders definitely took shape during the WBS Leadership Programme, she notes, as more senior UHCW leaders joined up in the second and third modules. Dan Pearce joined up after the first module after his predecessor at UHCW retired. Hardeep Bagga, Director of Pharmacy, and Matt Wright of Clinical Support Services were new faces on the third. As delegates left and joined the modules over the year, and triumvirate leaders moved roles over that time, creating new dynamics between the cohort, the programme had to be agile More newcomers will undoubtedly follow as Warwick Business School designs further modules on leadership and system-wide change, and UHCW continues to develop a leadership that can meet the challenges of the coming years. 1* The late Professor Bernard Crump was instrumental in creating the Triumvirate Programme and was UHCW Programme Director until May 2024 2* This draws inspiration from the five- year long partnership concluded in 2021 between the NHS and the Virginia Mason Institute (VMI), of the US. The goal of the partnership was to implement a systematic approach to quality improvement in five English hospital systems (NHS trusts). in its delivery of effective and participant-centred learning.
“I could see valuable new ideas sparking up, and real shifts in our thinking.”
The aim of the WBS programme has been to emphasise to senior leaders at UHCW that they have agency, and to provide them with the right ‘provocations’ to act upon that agency.”
Jane Cryer, Programme Leader
wbs.ac.uk
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Leadership Programme
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