1. Building commitment
to deliver our solutions
Helen Bevan
@helenbevan
Jonathan McShane
#hwblearn

3. What is our approach to change?
From To
Compliance Commitment
States a minimum States a collective goal that
performance standard that everyone can aspire to
everyone must achieve
Uses hierarchy, systems and Based on shared
standard procedures for co- goals, values and sense of
ordination and control purpose for co-ordination and
control
Threat of penalties/ Commitment to a common
sanctions/ shame creates purpose creates energy for
momentum for delivery delivery
Source: Helen Bevan

4. “Money incentives do not create
energy for change; the energy
comes from connection to
meaningful goals”
Ann-Charlott Norman, Talking about improvements:
discursive patterns and their conditions for learning,
March 2012

5. burning platform
versus
burning ambition
@PeterFuda

6. Lessons for
transformational change
1. In order to sustain transformational
change, we as leaders need to
move from a burning platform (fear
based urgency) to a burning
ambition (shared purpose for a
better future)
2. We as leaders need to articulate
personal reasons for change as
well as organisational reasons
3. If the fire (the compelling reason)
goes out, all other factors are
redundant @PeterFuda

7. [Shared] purpose goes way deeper than
vision and mission; it goes right into your
gut and taps some part of your primal self.
I believe that if you can bring people with
similar primal-purposes together and get
them all marching in the same direction,
amazing things can be achieved.
Seth Garguilo

8. Discretionary effort
is contractual
is personal

9. Avoiding “de facto”
purpose
• What leaders pay attention to matters to staff, and consequently
staff pay attention to that too
• Shared purpose can easily be displaced by a “de facto” purpose:
 hitting a target
 reducing costs
 reducing length of stay
 eliminating waste
 completing activities within a timescale
 complying with an inspection regime
• If purpose isn’t explicit and shared, then it is very easy for
something else to become a de facto purpose in the minds of the
workforce
Source: Delivering Public Services That Work: The Vanguard Method in the Public Sector

10. What focus for our improvement projects?
25
20
No of projects
15
10
5
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Mainly focussed Project Score Mainly focussed
on quality, safety on
and/or patient cost, productivity
experience
or efficiency
Source: 100 improvement projects on national improvement leadership programme October 2012

11. If we want people to take action, we have
to connect with their emotions through
values
values
emotion
action
Source: Marshall Ganz

12. Building commitment:
what do we need to do?
1. Tell a story

13. Building commitment:
what do we need to do?
1. Tell a story
2. Make it personal

14. Building commitment:
what do we need to do?
1. Tell a story
2. Make it personal
3. Be authentic

15. Building commitment:
what do we need to do?
1. Tell a story
2. Make it personal
3. Be authentic
4. Create a sense of “us” (and be clear about who
the “us” is)

16. Building commitment:
what do we need to do?
1. Tell a story
2. Make it personal
3. Be authentic
4. Create a sense of “us” (and be clear who the
“us” is)
5. Build in a call for urgent action

17. Task
• Find a “partner” to talk to (person A&B)
• Person A: tell person B a story about an
experience in your life that shaped who you
are today (3 minutes)
• Person B: do the same to person A (3
minutes)

18. Task
• What did you learn about each other and
your shared values through the stories?
• What unites you?
 Creates a sense of “us”
3 minutes

19. Helen’s favourite change management book of 2012
(it should be mandatory reading for
Health and Wellbeing Boards)
1. Connections create value
2. Power in community
3. Collaboration > control
4. Celebrate onlyness
5. Allow all talent
6. Consumers become co-creators
7. Mistakes can build trust
8. Learn. Unlearn. (Repeat)
9. Bank on openness
10. Social purpose unleashes ownership
11. (There are no answers)