Truck

In 1985, in the US, the wife and husband team of Susan Wolpert and Raymond Lesser established the Funny Times…

… an on-line, newspaper-style publication known for its progressive and liberal perspective on a “world gone totally insane”.

They’re right! These are ‘funny-times’.

Alas, not funny ‘ha-ha’…

… they’re funny peculiar and probably verging on, peculiarly dangerous.

Nothing’s going right.

Charmer was elected on a programme of change but all the signs are he’s fallen into the very deep hole called the change-gap…

… a concept defined and developed by Gustavo Razzetti, author of Stretch for Change…

… where the difference between the promise of change and the capacity for change, don’t match. A lesson for all managers and leaders treading a path of ‘change’.

In the 60’s, Dr. Jerry Jellison identified the change, ‘J-curve’. Start a ‘change’; morale and performance plunges and in time, begins to recover on an upward trajectory, like an umbrella handle.

I’m not sure we are at the bottom of the curve and I’m very sure I don’t see the curve going upward.

We see it in Streeting’s NHS…

… he’s stuck in the ‘The Transition Trap’… where change causes disruption but fails to create a corresponding momentum. Old structures are dismantled faster than new ones are built and…

… where transition is confused with transformation.

Businesses can transition from an already high digital base (bar-codes, online transactions, web-sales, chat-bots) onto…

… a better, faster digital base using AI and creating an environment where customers can add value to the business, like the garment, self-checkouts in UNIQLO.

The NHS… has an App but some hospitals insist on using different systems. Primary care is in a digital halfway house, practices refusing to cooperate.

Community care, all starting from a much lower base…

… ‘transforming’, into something truly digital is an entirely slower, more costly, complex job of work than transitioning.

The ‘change’ word itself tells us what we have to face up to and where our attention should be:

C – Culture. Everyone says we must change the culture of the NHS. Will that be the compassionate bit, the caring, sympathetic, non-judgemental bit, or the bullying, intimidating, threatening bit? Maybe the slow-to-move, glacial bit?

Culture is entrenched, engrained and embedded.

Peter Drucker called management, a liberal art. How we arrange our collective efforts to adapt, improve and survive.

If you want to change how the NHS thinks and moves, first change the ‘climate’.

Climate dictates culture. We are each our own micro-climate…. it’s called attitude.

We can each decide to say, ‘I’m sorry we didn’t get this right, how can we do it better next time?’

Each of us can decide to say; ‘we’ and ‘us’, instead of ‘you’ and ‘I’.

We can change the ‘climate’ by asking the people we work with; ‘what three things do you think should be the top of my to-do-list today’?

‘Please, tell me what I need to know’.

H – How. If you want people to change something give them the ‘how’ as well as the ‘when’. Show people what good looks like and the chances are they’ll get on and do it… often, better.

A – Adapt. If you are on a change programme and I’d rather you called it a Good, Better, Best campaign…

… be ready for things to ‘J’… to go wrong, to slow up, lose direction, go off at a tangent.

Inflexibility is the enemy of doing things differently. Be prepared to adapt, acclimatise, be nimble.

N – No. Knowing when to say ‘no’ takes courage. When changes aren’t working, be prepared to pull the plug. Saying ‘no’ is much more sensible than ploughing on, hoping something will come right.

G – Gather. No one person is the font-of-all-knowledge. Before you embark on a ‘change programme’, look around you. In this country, overseas, think tanks…

… find out what’s worked elsewhere.

All healthcare systems are facing funding and demand problems; there’s a lot going on and you may not have to reinvent the wheel.

E – Exciting. Let’s face it, no one likes change done-to-them but we do like change if we feel part of it, if we feel we are in charge.

‘We are going to change, discharge arrangements’

versus…

‘we are going to see if we can find a way of getting people home quicker and safer. Tell us what your ideas are…’

I know which works for me. Get it right and ‘Change’ is exciting, exhilarating and stimulating.

‘Change’… it’s a dangerous word. Be careful what you wish for. Charmer has come unstuck. The NHS is looking increasingly unstable.

Change is not delivered on the back of a truck…

… change is delivered by the people driving the truck.

News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.