Positive risk-taking is a challenging area of practice, so it should ideally be seen as a collective activity, not just the duty of individuals. In this video I explore what teams need in order to develop their risk decision-making practice.
Use the following link to also access a free training webinar which introduces my simple 5-step process to risk decision-making, which also form the core modules of the Positive Risk-Taking Membership Site:
Working with risk and making risk decisions is an essential part of the work of any practitioner in health and social care settings. But, is our risk training really fit for purpose in many organisations? The following short video sets out the case for a training strategy focused more on teams, in order to be a more effective use of time and resources.
Use the following link to also access a free training webinar which introduces my simple 5-step process to risk decision-making, which also form the core modules of the Positive Risk-Taking Membership Site:
https://app.webinarjam.net/register/21360/99e6026a97
So, what does funky and creative working look like when you have to implement things through a team? It is one thing for a creative individual to plough their own furrow, but as soon as you get two or more people together the opportunity arises for three or more opinions on how to go about things!
In this episode I outline my consultancy work across 2000-2010 with an assertive outreach team that was based in Kettering, Northamptonshire. The vision was largely developed by the team manager, Sue Jugon, with reference to the training I undertook as part of the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. It requires careful recruitment, and the type of training and practice development support established at the time as the Practice Based Evidence consultancy.
What it looks like is a commitment to good clear communication, flexible working, and on-going reflection and developmental support. The outcomes were best reflected in the changes seen in what were deemed to be very challenging clients when you devote sufficient respectful time, and deliver client-centred working rather than overblown service rhetoric.
For the full content of this episode click the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/095-a-funky-case-study/id867043694?i=361448998&mt=2
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” [Phil Jackson]
We spend so many hours, and restless nights, focused on work, so don’t we deserve to get enjoyment, fun and creative challenge in our work? Managerial structures, systems, procedures and processes are designed to achieve consistency and homogeneity of output. Monitoring and auditing of standards and targets keeps a watchful eye how we work. So, are we in danger of losing the pursuit of genuine creative endeavour? Where will positive risk-taking fit into this controlled picture?
In this episode I reflect on a review of a previous book I co-authored that identified our approach as ‘Funky Mental Health’. Funky ways of working are about working with and around the rules; breaking the rules in a creative rather than illegal way. It is about pushing the boundaries, but needs a few conditions to support it to happen. I outline how it needs a vision, a guide of what exceptional people do naturally, a flexible environment, and team-working. I also reference a classic example of putting all of this into practice from my Practice Based Evidence consultancy work.
For the full content of this episode click the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/094-making-it-funky/id867043694?i=360203262&mt=2
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” [Scott Adams].
‘Strengths’ Assertive Outreach: A Review of Seven Practice Development Programmes.
The Practice Based Evidence consultancy made special efforts to get involved in going beyond simple training; focusing on developing teams with a positive impact on practice. It is one thing to claim to support best practice, but another thing entirely to provide evidence for such claims. Assertive Outreach teams in the UK were a particular passion from the original establishment of the consultancy in October 2001. The following article was first published in the Mental Health Review Journal (June 2008) and is reproduced with their kind permission; it is an evaluation of the support provided, from a strengths perspective, for seven such teams.
ABSTRACT
Assertive outreach is based on extensive international research and has been promoted in the UK in 1999 as a key area of the National Service Framework for Mental Health. Its primary aim is to provide a specialist service for people disengaged from traditional approaches of mental health services, but very little attention has been paid to how such services can be developed. Practice Based Evidence, a practice development consultancy, has engaged seven assertive outreach teams to focus on development first, and follow-up evaluation of the impact of reflective practice on team functioning. This has prompted a number of strengths-based recommendations for changing the way we think about developing services before we engage in research and evaluation.
PDF: ‘Strengths’ Assertive Outreach: A Review of Seven Practice Development Programmes
How effective are all of the meetings you attend? It’s very likely that whatever business you are working in you will have to attend meetings either occasionally or frequently. They take up an inordinate amount of time, but the question is just how much time are they wasting?
In this episode I will take a formal definition of meetings, but add my twist with several reflections on how I have experienced meetings on occasions. Hot-air, self-importance, shared insecurities, ineffective time-wasting… but enough of me!
How can we attempt to make this precious time as effective and engaging as possible? I set out seven pointers that can help achieve these goals in ways that either reflect the good practice you are already doing, or will transform the experience of all who need to be attending.
For the full content of this episode click on iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/062-problems-with-meetings/id867043694?i=344569093&mt=2
“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.” [J.K. Galbraith].
In this episode I continue my focus on one of my favourite business books ‘Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration’ by Warren Bennis & Patricia Biederman. I am interested in their take home lessons final chapter, drawing conclusions about great leadership and great teams from six in-depth case studies.
I use three of my own favourite experiences of being a part of teams that have made significant achievements in their own local ways, both as a personal reflection and as an illustration of the 15 messages identified in the book. The final five messages are explored in this episode, with a focus on optimism and motivations that help drive people to greater achievements. I reflect on the rewards that exciting work provides to those engaged in it, and how great leaders provide what their staff need and then give them freedom to develop and innovate.
For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/057-leaders-great-groups/id867043694?i=341592554&mt=2
“Great work is done by people who are not afraid to be great.” [Fernando Flores].
In this episode I continue my focus on one of my favourite business books ‘Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration’ by Warren Bennis & Patricia Biederman. I am interested in their take home lessons final chapter, drawing conclusions about great leadership and great teams from six in-depth case studies.
I use three of my own favourite experiences of being a part of teams that have made significant achievements in their own local ways, both as a personal reflection and as an illustration of the 15 messages identified in the book. Five further messages are explored in this episode, in addition to the five messages in episode 55 and a final five messages in the next episode. I reflect on the excitement of starting from scratch in helping to develop a new idea, and how great groups feel like they are on a mission, and develop a sense of separateness from all the other services around them.
For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/056-leaders-great-groups-2/id867043694?i=341592553&mt=2
“Find people who share your values, and you will conquer the world together.” [John Ratzenberger].
In this episode I focus on one of my favourite business books ‘Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration’ by Warren Bennis & Patricia Biederman.
I am interested in their take home lessons final chapter, drawing conclusions about great leadership and great teams from six in-depth case studies. I use three of my own favourite experiences of being a part of teams that have made significant achievements in their own local ways, both as a personal reflection and as an illustration of the 15 messages identified in the book.
Five messages are explored in this and each of the following two episodes of the show. Can great leaders exist without having great people around them, or can great groups exist without a recognised great leader? Can the intense bright light of the great teams be sustained?
For the full content of this episode click on iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/strengths-revolution-steve/id867043694
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/055-leaders-great-groups-1/id867043694?i=340049505&mt=2
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” John Quincy Adams.
In health and social care services we have a long tradition of adopting a scatter-gun approach to staff training. Perhaps this is why staff members often feel negative about mandatory training initiatives, or feel that provision is often made as a knee-jerk response to something going wrong. More generous feedback emerges from events that individual’s have personally chosen to attend, but these often have little positive ripple effect out into the team they are part of… if you weren’t there you simply aren’t going to know much about it.
The Practice Based Evidence initiative has long tried to establish a strengths approach to training, as well as to working with service users. The essence is to get all team members to provide a baseline evaluation of the good and not so good practice in their team, against a series of positive statements of best practice that should be relevant to the way they work. Hence, several Practice Based Evidence tools were devised to address different types of teams and different person-centred approaches to working.
In the case of one of the Newham Community Mental Health Teams in 2006 an honest anonymised evaluation of team practice helped to identify the priorities for a subsequent 5-day programme tailored to their needs. This example illustrates how a practice development approach to training initiatives can respond to the needs identified by practitioners themselves, impact on the practice of a whole team, and engage people more in the process of change. This is how a strengths approach can apply as much to team development as it should do for working with service users.
More recently, in 2014/15, a programme of work with North East London NHS Foundation Trust acute care services focused on the place of positive risk-taking in relation to the work of crisis assessment and home treatment teams, including the teams for adult and older adults services. The programme commenced with team-based training workshops in order to focus in on relevant current clinical material and practices. It was followed up some 6-9 months later with in-service conversational semi-structured interviews of 28 staff, and a further number of Practice Based Evidence designed for purpose evaluation tools. The final reporting is a means of identifying positive practice, as well as giving staff a means for identifying what they can and need to change in order to improve the implementation of best practice.
“Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.” [Ann Voskamp].
The Strengths Revolution 