What does this mean for the Effective Practitioner?

Transcription

1 Change Management Key Message Change is an inevitable part of life it s how we approach, manage and learn from change initiatives that can mean success or failure over the long term. The role of a leader, no matter where they are or the role they play within an organisation, is to be open to change, recognising and embracing risk, whilst having the perseverance and skills to drive the change through to completion. A leader does not work alone a leader needs to be able to communicate a change project to others, to gather the support that is needed and ensure there are sufficient resources in place to implement and embed change for sustainable service improvement. What does this mean for the Effective Practitioner? An Effective Practitioner needs to be a change agent to help transform and improve services in line with best practice evidence, and to lead and communicate change to those around as needed. Sustainable change needs to be well managed and it is important for the NMAHP to have strong communication, networking and influencing skills whilst also being able to identify risks and put mitigation strategies in place to ensure that quality care continues.

2 Leading & Communicating Change Leadership should be at all levels. It is not necessarily limited to those in a management role. One of the key attributes of a transformational leader is to be able to cultivate an environment where everyone contributes to new and innovative ideas, with the leader driving and communicating any change initiatives that emerge to others. The leader must establish and communicate a shared vision, provide support and motivation throughout all stages of the change project and have the tenacity and perseverance to drive the change through to completion. Consider a change initiative that you are leading in your practice area. Planning for change: The first stage is to define the change and develop a vision that you can share with others. Describe: o The proposed change and why it is needed o The anticipated outcomes when the change is implemented your vision of what success looks like. o Who will be affected by the change. o The resources that are needed to implement the change. o The key actions and milestones that need to be achieved to implement the change effectively. Ask for feedback and suggestions from others to help you draw up your plan of action. Identify any calculated risks you need to take to implement the change what do you and colleagues need to do differently to make the change happen? Put yourself into other people s shoes so that you can anticipate their feedback and develop a strategy for dealing with objections or resistance to change. Identify a wider group or network of people who you need to influence and get buy-in to your project and design a communication plan to ensure that you get the support you need from them. Implementing and embedding the change Identify who can help you implement the change on the ground do you need to support their learning and development so that they can contribute and carry out activities as part of this change initiative? Establish formal measures of progress and use and any internal communication systems to give colleagues regular updates on the change project. Convene regular meetings where colleagues have an opportunity to ask questions and share their experiences of the project.

3 NOTES Celebrate successes as the project progresses this will help to keep motivation high and team members engaged with the process. Document any changes in processes so help establish new ways of working. Identify ways in which you could develop as a change leader. This might be improving your communication skills, your networking and influencing skills, your creativity and innovation skills for continuous quality improvement. Record your learning in your professional portfolio. KSF Core Dimensions: Service Improvement, Quality.

4 Notes Managing Risk Innovation is inherently seen as a good thing, helping us to rethink and improve the services we offer. It can involve small incremental changes or radical changes in what and how services are delivered. Innovation needs not only a culture of creativity and change but also a positive approach to managing risk that embraces and mitigates against risk, allowing a team to try things out and learn from mistakes. The challenge is how to balance innovation and risk yet maintain quality to ensure there isn t a negative impact on person-centred, safe and effective care. Consider a new innovation or service improvement that has been suggested in your team. Establish a positive risk management strategy for the innovation project that will allow the change to happen keeping a watchful eye on the potential risks and how to minimise their impact. o During a team member discuss all the possible risks that could occur if the new innovation initiative were to happen. o Review existing documentation on other initiatives and meet with others to gather expert opinions on potential risks. Create a risk log to assess the impact for each of the risks identified and mitigation strategies. Click here to download a sample risk log template. o Document each risk, the likelihood of the risk occurring (low, medium or high) and the impact of the risk if it did occur (low, medium, high). o Include how you will mitigate against each risk. This may be to consider how you could reduce or prevent the risk actually happening in the first place, balancing the cost and resources needed to implement this approach before the risk has occurred. An alternative could be to devise a plan of action and contingencies to minimise the impact if the risk actually occurred. Identify team members who can monitor individual risks and alert the team if any risks are imminent. Update the risk log as the new innovation project progresses. Review how your risk management approach has helped to maintain quality while fostering innovation. Record your learning in your professional portfolio. KSF Core Dimensions: Service Improvement, Quality.

5 Effective Team Working Consider a typical service user and identify the range of teams who provide care and support to the service user, carers and family members. Which of these teams are you involved in? In your opinion how effective do you think these teams are? You should consider effectiveness in terms of trust within the team, a shared vision and goals, and open communication between team members. Click here to download a team profiling tool which will help you to identify the stages of team development. What is working well in the team? What could be improved? How do you contribute to the effectiveness of the team? In what ways could you improve team effectiveness? What actions do you now need to take to improve team effectiveness? Record your learning in your professional portfolio. KSF Core Dimensions: Communication, Personal and People Development. Notes

6 Managing Conflict Conflict involves feelings and emotions potentially arising from you or others feeling under-appreciated, being taken for granted, an atmosphere of uncertainty in the environment, tacit allowance of poor performance or bad behaviour, misinformation or misperception. Conflict can also arise when dealing with service users, carers and family member. This activity is designed to help you manage conflict. 1. Think of a situation either in your work or home life where you ve come into conflict with someone else. What was the issue? How did it make you feel? How did you react and deal with the conflict? o Did you react in a challenging way perhaps shout or lose your temper? o Did you try to ignore it and hope the conflict would go away? o Did you freeze, were you indecisive which resulted in the conflict continuing without being resolved? o Did you confront the issue calmly and assertively, seeking clarification and ways to resolve the situation? How long did it affect you afterwards? Who did you talk to about it? Was the best possible outcome achieved for all involved? If not, what were the reasons for this? Could you have handled the situation better if you d been able to be more assertive, or kept calm? 2. Think of a conflict situation in work which you need to address. What is the issue and who is involved? How has the conflict arisen e.g. poor management, poor performance, lack of clarity in job roles, workload, poor communication, inadequate training, unfair treatment, equality and diversity concerns, bullying or harassment? Taking any differences in how you and others deal with conflict, identify what you need to do and say that may help resolve the conflict. o Take the opportunity to discuss the issue with each of the individuals involved to establish their perspective. o Consider how you could break the problem done into smaller parts, prioritise the issues and tackle each one in turn. This may involve being clear on accepted behaviour, work processes or standards of performance. Reflect on what went well and what could have been done better when trying to resolve the conflict. If a stalemate or impasse arises:

7 o o o look for common ground; identify any hidden agendas and look for possible alternatives; ask others for help in identifying ways to deal with the situation. Record your learning in your professional portfolio. KSF Core Dimensions: Communication. Notes

8 Reflection It is good practice to reflect and record the learning you undertake in the workplace. Gibbs ( provides a useful model for reflection that you can refer to when recording your learning. You may also access a Reflective Account form and other reflection tools on the Effective Practitioner website. Notes