In this video I define what a meeting is, provide 11 negative observations on how they play out, and offer 7 reflections on what can contribute to making them efective for everyone involved.
This presentation is part of a much wider email sequence offering strengths-based resources. To subscribe to that list click on the following link, follow the simple instructions, and get ready to receive an abundance of FREE and very practical information to implement in your own practice:
Reflecting on questions regarding the purpose and design of risk paperwork, and the role of evidence in its construction.
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:
What role does leadership play in good practice regarding how we work with risk? Leadership is often lacking, and management is all too often to the fore where considerations of risk are concerned in health and social care agencies. In this scenario fear and back-covering hold the attention, while good practice is presented as an unconvincing façade. Managers strangely play down any questions about excessive bureaucracy while still demanding all the paperwork is completed as the primary target. If something goes wrong it is the paperwork that gets sole attention, and real practice considerations are relegated to a place somewhere to the right of obscurity.
‘Good paperwork is a sign of good practice’ becomes the convenient smokescreen. This would be true if there was less management and more supportive leadership, as the need for paperwork would be put into perspective: as the essential minimum to support good practice not to hinder it. Good tools are a range of checklists and formats that have been shaped by good practice, and thus they are able to guide and prompt firstly, and capture good practice as a secondary function.
The Risk Decision-Making publication is the update of 17 years of working with individual practitioners and teams across countless organisations, both from within the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health initially and through the Practice Based Evidence consultancy since 2001. The tools and guidance are informed by what we know from the national and international research, but more significantly through the practice based evidence of hundreds of practitioners across all disciplines and service sectors. Most importantly, this publication refocuses the attention on risk as everyone’s business; so it is structured throughout to address issues from the perspective of individual’s, teams and the leadership & management of organisations. Whatever systems your leaders have bought or put into place there is still a role for guidance on best practice, so look no further.
Whether it is the occasional personal reflection or the more structured process in service delivery, we all review our progress from time to time. The purpose is to check in on the progress of our plans and actions towards the achievement of our priorities and goals, and just occasionally to check how we are managing lifes crises.
In UK mental health service the process has become known as the Care Programme Approach (CPA) since 1991. A simple set of indisputable principles were quickly transformed into practices that leave a lot to be desired. The power of a bureaucratic administrative stranglehold has never been more clearly illustrated than in the case of reviews by audited target setting. ‘Person-centred’ is a smoke and mirrors claim for something purposely designed to make services look good on a balance-sheet.
In this episode I outline how the genuine intention of person-centred review can be regained through a visionary, strengths-based and creative approach to individual reviews. It includes a series of questions we should all be constantly asking of ourselves in order to stay on the person-centred track. A Strengths Approach applies equally to people and the processes we come to wrap them up in.
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Why are we so enamoured with our impenetrable jargon and gobbledegook? All professions adopt it, seemingly as a badge of membership, and as an illustration of their special exclusivity. For the outsider, having the unfortunate need of the services of a professional, the langauage is often likely to be the first insurmountable barrier.
In this episode aI briefly explore how meetings can be fun experiences. In the undignified way you might want to adopt a game of ‘bullshit bingo’. In a more dignified way, it is a chairperson’s role to give permission for the use of the more humourous examples and anecdotes, even when the overall subject matter is heavy and serious. It should be more about encouraging lateral or creative thinking, but do it in simple and accessible language.
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Can the chairing of meetings, the very thing we often want to avoid, actually be fun? In this episode I discuss how the overall effectiveness of meetings can be directly proportional to the effectiveness of the chairperson.
Those who operate as control freaks with an over-inflated sense of self-importance, or those who are democratic to the point of becoming all talk and no action, are equally ineffective. The concept of the ‘revolving chair’ should just be left spinning.
I outline an approach to meetings that views them akin to a 3-act play, with several practical tips for fulfilling the role. I also outline the need for preparation and skilled facilitation as a pre-requisite for an effective chairperson. What does a strengths approach to managing the ebb and flow of meetings look like?
For the full content of this episode click on the links to iTunes and Sound Cloud (or go to Stitcher Radio):
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.
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How do we go about constructing a strengths assessment? Whether it be reflecting on our selves or working with other people, it is a flexible process developed over time, not a function to be mandated, timed and audited by a managerial approach.
For ourselves, it happens as and when we give ourselves time for reflection. With others, it is best achieved through an informal, conversational approach where the other person feels most comfortable; or it emerges from snippets of conversations over a period of time.
The focus is to build a positive picture, that can then be applied to achieving the goals we set for ourselves, or others set for themselves. It can be prompted and supported by paper or electronic forms, but they are purely supportive tools not the end purpose.
It can be developed by and within teams, but the key is always to be engaging the fullest involvement of the specific person who is the subject of the strengths assessment. In this episode I outline the five main areas of consideration for developing the practice of constructing a strengths assessment.
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How can we make more effective use of targets as a means of developing best practice? Perhaps a more pertinent question is: ‘Can we make effective use of targets at all?’
Nothing drains passion more effectively than constant demands for information to meet apparent targets, asked without consultation or explanation, and with no meaningful returns in the form of useful feedback. Auditing everything has become an industry – but to satisfy what? The function of co-ordinating care, specifically the Care Programme Approach (CPA), has become a focus for quantitative returns that seemingly have little to do with the quality of the working relationships and everything to do with numbers and signatures. As many service users, carers and practitioners will testify, presence at a meeting and signing a form does not necessarily reflect influence, involvement or even truthful agreement with the documented outcomes. Yet, the bureaucratic process keeps requiring the numbers with no apparent reciprocal benefits for practitioners and teams.
I wouldn’t argue against the need for auditing practice; but it does appear from conversations with many practitioners that there are widely differing perceptions about priorities between the management of services and the deliverers of services. Anecdotal sources suggest that most practitioners feel they only receive feedback from audit sources when things go wrong, and that good practice is not confirmed or highlighted when it happens. If practitioners, service users and carers were asked to define the parameters of what needs to be audited, there would be some disagreements between them but the priorities would probably look a lot different from what currently occurs. Most people in the real world are concerned about relationship-building in order to support people to be more self-reliant through identifying and working with their own strengths. Audit needs to be of practice and for practice, with a focus on sustaining current good practice. But that would only put an awful lot of middle management and auditors out of a job, for their focus is ‘change’ for its own sake; as long as the merry-go-round keeps moving they will have a purpose.
See ‘The Art of Coordinating Care’ publication for a detailed framework on delivering a service user-focused, strengths-based, bureaucracy-busting approach to real practice. It has been developed as a reflection of what good practice looks like, but will challenge all practitioners to step up to the mark to deliver values-based personalised services based on working with people’s strengths. Failure to do this leads to the alternative… the more usual current situation of an over-regulated system driven by the need to satisfy the politicians and public that if anything goes wrong ‘it will never happen again’. What the current system can ensure will never happen again is the enjoyment and creativity fuelled by the passion of people who want to make a positive contribution to service users lives.
Feel free to add your own comment about any issues raised above.
“Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?” [Frank Herbert].
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):
The Strengths Revolution 