Developing Leadership Impact & Influence in the NHS |
The Need
NHS Workforce Review Team (WRT)
WRT is a group of dedicated healthcare workforce planners who provide objective modelling, analysis and evidence-based recommendations in order to enable patient-centred and clinically driven strategic decision making across the healthcare workforce.
WRT gives expert advice on workforce planning for the NHS producing reliable data and intelligence about the workforce needed to deliver high quality modern health and social care in order to meet changing demands from all areas of the Health Service.
The team's analysis is trusted and helps drive decision making and shape workforce strategies. They have a well deserved reputation for accuracy and impartiality.
The Leadership Team recognised that having the best technical analysis and recommendations is essential but that is not the complete picture. It is also vital to establish the personal impact and credibility with their wide range of stakeholders-to sustain and deepen relationships with decision makers and partners.
The Greenbank Partnership were invited to work with the WRT Leadership Team with a focus on developing their reputation, personal impact and positive influence-both as a team and as individuals.
The Solution
We started our work together by focussing on strengths. The team already had a strong reputation and we wanted to help each member capture their personal strengths as seen by their work colleagues. We used an exercise that helped each individual gather specific, detailed positive feedback from situations where others had seen them performing at their best. Not only did this give everyone a real confidence boost-but it also gave them an in depth understanding of what others valued in their work-giving them the opportunity to leverage this going forwards.
We followed this up with a 2 day workshop: 'Developing Positive Impact & Influence'. Greenbank brought a range of approaches to the workshop - both from our experience in management learning and also from the world of theatre. It was a highly interactive workshop with plenty of time for both discussion and practice. The range of topics were tailored to suit the specific needs of WRT and included:
- Identifying a clear understanding of the team's current reputation and identifying strategies and tactics to move this reputation forward with their wide range of stakeholders
- Developing personal impact through increased inner confidence and the best use of both voice and body language
- Extending each person's repertoire of influencing styles and helping them to decide which to use in a variety of situations and with different people
- Using team insights and reflective practice skills to focus on current influencing challenges
Two months late we ran a follow-up one day workshop. The morning provided the opportunity for a series of individual 'surgery' sessions for each person to work on an area where they wanted more support. Some chose to work on their voice and body language and others wanted to develop an influencing plan for situations or people they were finding particularly challenging. In the afternoon the group took part in a meeting whether they needed to influence one another to reach decisions. A review of this exercise was followed by 1:1 personal feedback with one of the two tutors to anchor learning and personal action plans for further development.
The Result
The outcomes from the workshop were a series of SMART action plans-both for the team as a whole and for each individual.
Since attending the workshop the team have continued to use the techniques covered-making them a regular part of their Leadership Team meetings. The feedback from team members has been that they have continued to put the skills into practice and that there is has been a significant, positive impact on relationships with stakeholders. A further series of coaching sessions have now been set up to reinforce the learning and help individuals continue their development in this vital area.
