Why now is the time to consider organisational development
Some of our ‘normal’ ways of working have been severely tested during the Covid-19 crisis. For some, the health service turned into a high-performing health system, achieving things that we have aspired to for years. But it also exposed the roles, value and purpose of different parts of our health and care system, the ethics of decision making, and the uneven distribution of system-wide mobilization.
As a result, across all parts of the system, people are grappling with complex change issues, either to sustain the best of the experience or to radically alter parts of the system’s response. To make change sustainable, those issues require more than one-stop management solutions. Organisational development (OD) works alongside people to build confidence, competence and energy to create meaningful change.
How can we help?
Our team of experienced OD practitioners can support you to work with your system or to build a common purpose and determine the future, generating energy for change and fostering collective resilience.
Why choose organisational development at The King’s Fund
Unlike other consulting approaches, OD at The King’s Fund starts from the premise that the experts in addressing these issues are the people who face them every day. What inhibits them is often a range of interlinking systems factors.
OD at The King’s Fund centres on partnering with people to improve relationships within an organisation and across the system. Strengthen the quality of those relationships, and you strengthen your chances of resolving immediate issues.
The King’s Fund’s unique expertise
OD practitioners at The King’s Fund bring with them a powerful combination of expertise that works on three levels:
Hands-on experience Many of our OD practitioners reached senior positions in a variety of health care roles before pursuing a career in consulting. They can empathise fully with the complexity of issues their clients face.
Many of our OD practitioners reached senior positions in a variety of health care roles before pursuing a career in consulting. They can empathise fully with the complexity of issues their clients face.
Highly skilled in OD Relationship-building is second nature to our practitioners. They are highly skilled in partnering with clients, moving alongside client systems to help them to surface issues and understand the human dynamics behind them. They have at their fingertips theoretical frameworks and a toolkit of interventions to help implement and sustain change.
Relationship-building is second nature to our practitioners. They are highly skilled in partnering with clients, moving alongside client systems to help them to surface issues and understand the human dynamics behind them. They have at their fingertips theoretical frameworks and a toolkit of interventions to help implement and sustain change.
Contextual understanding The King’s Fund has a reputation for producing high-quality research and policy analysis. This work informs and enhances that of our OD practitioners. As a result, they have an in-depth knowledge of the broader context that surrounds the health service. In their work with you, our practitioners draw on that policy expertise to help make sense of the wider forces affecting health care.
The King’s Fund has a reputation for producing high-quality research and policy analysis. This work informs and enhances that of our OD practitioners. As a result, they have an in-depth knowledge of the broader context that surrounds the health service. In their work with you, our practitioners draw on that policy expertise to help make sense of the wider forces affecting health care.
Our guiding principles and approach
Our principles
- Sustainable change happens when you engage the whole system, working across boundaries and traditional roles.
- The people doing the job are usually those who best understand the issues and can be the agents of change for their organisations.
- Our role is that of partner, working alongside our clients to surface issues and co-create change. We create the conditions, the provocation and the stimulation for you to access your own ability to change.
- We take an appreciative approach – we surface what is working and work with the energy for change.
- We have expertise in clinical engagement and are aware of the dilemmas specific to clinicians’ working pressures.
Our approach
Our approach is participatory, action-orientated, group enquiry.
In this we:
- don’t start out with an end in mind
- pay attention to how people talk about things
- challenge assumptions
- inquire into anxieties and fears
- identify systemic patterns and impact
- support groups to hold each other to account.
- Further case studies
Are some of these issues familiar to your organisation?
Our organisational development team have specific experience in situations where these issues arise, as these case studies show:
- Using action learning to develop a more strategic approach to quality improvement at Oxleas
- Empowering clinical directors to lead at Barts Health NHS Trust
- Leadership support for the AQuA Integrated Care Discovery Communities
- Transforming the NHS: a programme for senior leaders at NHS North West Leadership Academy
- Strategic support for the Sign up to Safety campaign
- A quality improvement fellowship programme for Health Education East of England
- Helping Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust to understand its organisational culture
- Strengthening and improving: working with leaders at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Empowering board members at the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service
For more details about how our organisational development (OD) practitioners could help your organisation, please call 020 7307 2650 or email leadership@kingsfund.org.uk.
