At ICE, we believe that individuals, communities and organisations can achieve great things that will go on to not only change their lives, but also the lives of others around them. When we ask our partners ‘what’s important to you?’ and ‘what matters to your leaders?’, we are not looking for a rehearsed elevator pitch. In fact, the vulnerability to admit that there are unknowns, uncertainties and unease within an organisation can lead to the most successful and sustainable organisational transformations.

When it comes to leadership development programmes, we think it’s a bit like picking a restaurant. You may be looking for a Michelin star tasting menu, or you could be after an all-you-can-eat buffet that will fuel your teams for days. Whatever direction your taste-buds take you in, you’re placing a lot of trust in that restaurant. From cleanliness standards to cooking techniques, you’re likely to be limited in how tailored your dining experience will be.

By their nature, leadership development programmes can be very hit and miss. Get it right, and your organisation will become future-proofed to thrive, not just survive. However, if you expose your teams to a ‘rotten egg’ leadership development programme, you can expect bouts of nausea, and your organisation can become infected with the kind of limiting factors that you’d hoped to expel altogether.

So, why not visit an experience that encourages off-menu orders? When it comes to developing your leaders, we are always led by your unique requirements. Using our expertise across the fields of behavioural insights and research, culture, engagement and design for transformation, we are well-versed in preparing your leaders for any and every challenge they may face. We’ve also unlocked the potential of our working sheepdogs and Herdwick sheep, and trust us, they’re a high performing team. Using their raw, unfiltered feedback, you will discover things about how you work and why you work, including how you communicate (verbal and non-verbal), your style of leadership when under pressure vs. feeling confident and how to be ‘at your best’. All of this can be applied to any and every situation you will face.

By using our cultural diagnostic tools with your teams, we are able to deep dive into understanding your organisation’s drivers, energy levels, competency alignment and any potential barriers that may be blocking you being ‘at your best’.

Recently, 13 STP place-based care system leaders partnered with ICE to explore their strengths, purpose and behaviours. Here’s a little of what happened:

Technically, modern leadership development can be taught in a classroom, sure – but do you really want the developing leaders within your organisation to be spoon-fed lengthy PowerPoint presentations that leave little to no time for individual reflection, development and growth? We know we didn’t, and so we created Natural Leaders! Modern leadership is a lived experience, and we have created spaces away from stuffy meeting rooms for you to acquire the tools and behavioural techniques that will be essential in achieving your outcomes.

Partners have fed back that their partnership with ICE achieved:

• Increased levels of trust amongst team members, which they attribute to their teams’ willingness to embrace our cry for vulnerability within the group
• Commitment to a clear plan of action, with both personal and group accountability being cemented in a series of ‘I will’ and ‘We will’ statements
• The skills to deal with conflict and a shift in mindset, with challenge now being seen as a positive
• All team buy-in – making the implicit, explicit
• A greater sense of what’s important to each other, as well as their teams as a whole
• Accountability and step change in delivering what was promised.

As experts in the field of behavioural insights and design, we will work closely with you to ensure that your transformation is a sustained change that will become embedded as your new ‘business as usual’.

To find out how our immersive vivid action learning programmes can benefit your organisation, please get in touch via stuart@icecreates.com

Most of our conversations with leaders will at some point focus on energy. It could be their personal energy and resilience for leading change – ‘I just need the energy’ or ‘I never seem to switch off and recharge’. It may be how to motivate and engage the energy of the people who work for and with them - ‘If we spent as long talking about solutions rather problems and work rather than social life, we’d have sorted it ages ago!’ Alternatively, it might be how to ‘manage’ the people who sap energy and will give a thousand reasons why change won’t work, or why they are not prepared to make personal behavioural changes - ‘I’ve always done it this way…’ –sometimes described as organisational ‘mood hoovers’.

Energy management is a critical leadership skill, both personally and within teams. There are some simple steps you can take to manage your energy and help create energy for others. Radcliffe identifies 4 types of energy - physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. There needs to be balance with all four, otherwise we experience an energy deficit which can unbalance our effectiveness and, in extreme circumstances, cause energy crisis.

“Your first and foremost job as a leader is to manage your own energy, and help manage the energy of those around you.”

-         Peter Drucker

At ICE, we love the metaphors that Andy Cope uses in ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ about ‘shining a light’ with energy and creating energy for others as opposed to ‘casting a shadow’ for yourself and others. Our work with individuals through coaching, team effectiveness and leadership development helps people to see themselves how other people see and experience their energy and, most importantly, what they can do to take control and manage their energy resources.

There are some very practical and tactical actions that you can take to you manage your energy and resources, such as:

• Working out when your energy is highest - are you a lark or an owl? Focus on important or demanding activities when you’re most energised
• Knowing what refreshes your energy and planning these activities/treats into your routine
• Identifying what saps your energy and working out how you can manage/mitigate/avoid this.

We find people who make transformational changes are those who are able to connect to their purpose, their drivers, their ‘why’ or their purpose. Typically, they have more energy and are also more resilient. In their busy daily lives, they are people who are able to be clear about what is important and are able to link their choices about where and how they spend their energy. We call this values-driven behaviour connected to purpose. The personal application also works for leading teams; after all, we are all human.

“I’m convinced that the most effective competitors in the 21st century will be the organisations that learn how to harness the emotional energy of employees.”

-         Noel Tichy

Culture Map, developed by ICE, provides insight using people’s assessment of preferred, current and future desired culture. It looks at how much energy they are able to bring to their work, dependent on the alignment of culture and what is called ‘cultural entropy’ i.e. what stops things and people changing and ‘gets in the way’.

Based on Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Barrett’s work on Human Consciousness, we know that if people do not feel that some of the more basic needs are being addressed, they cannot move to be transformational - affecting and leading change - often connected to energy.

This quick assessment can be a really helpful start to the conversation and journey around ‘What do we need to do to help people have more energy and bring more of themselves to the challenges?”

Culture Map works in a range of different settings and sectors with powerful results.

If you would like to learn more about connecting your energy and motivating and managing energy in others, or how Culture Map can help, please contact us at leadership@icecreates.com

Are your business reviews going to plan?

Whether local authority, private or voluntary sector, this time of year always holds significant value to your organisation.

The office is quieter than usual and several chairs sit tight to their partnering desks with a smattering of post-it note reminders in view. While some of you may be thinking, ‘Yes! One week, three days and seven hours until I’m on the beach too!’, we are thinking about something slightly different.

With quarter one in the rear-view mirror and quarter two passing at great speed, the question to ask yourself and your colleagues is - ‘How are we doing against our business plans and objectives?’

Has the enormity of the plan made it difficult to know where to start for some of your colleagues? Has the day job just got in the way? Perhaps by copying a previous approach, you’ve found that efforts just aren’t bearing any fruit? Maybe the metrics and KPIs that are in place aren’t meaningful or relevant anymore?

There are many possibilities behind why things don’t go to plan or solid results aren’t taking shape. As SME practitioners in both transformation & organisational development, ICE has been asked to co-create solutions for a whole host of different scenarios.

The commonality that appears from most of our transformative conversations is that resources are always at a premium. Taking time out to conduct an intervention is often seen as a risk or ‘impossibility’, as it will undoubtedly impact upon staff’s ability to perform their day job. However, people are appreciative of the fact that if you change nothing, nothing changes.

One size will never be fit for all purposes and therefore, our approach takes into account the differences in processes, scale, scope and the desired outcomes. Each service review is set up individually with the right people, timescales and agreed outcomes to make it a success for you. This includes ensuring enough time is reserved to allow genuine knowledge transfer, so the review delivers flourishing (not just sustainable) change in the short and long-term.

We would welcome the opportunity to speak with you directly about your plans, their scalability and what really matters to you.

To help start your discussions, we have shared three outlines of our methods to delivering change at varying scales in order to help you map out which approach is right for your situation.

Small Scale Example – Sometimes referred to as a rapid review or temperature test, this approach is used in low complexity and lower volume transactional systems that do not cross functional boundaries.  Teams of staff representing end-to-end flows of work spend 1-2 days per week creating a current state map with a baseline of measures and data. This can take place in as little as 2 weeks. 

Through the following envisage (future state) stage, small quick-wins are identified, along with experiments that can be contained within the team. 

Action plans are used to drive progress, and are regularly reviewed to track benefits achieved.

Medium Scale Example – This approach is used in more complex and higher volume systems that often have a ‘break fix’ element.  They will impact on more than one team.  Teams of staff representing end-to-end flows of work spend 2 days per week creating a detailed current state picture, supported by data and performance measures.  The exploratory stage takes longer - 5-6 weeks. 

Through the envisage stage, experiments are identified, along with the resources required to run them successfully.  These experiments often cover more than one team.  Twice weekly reviews are held during the experiment to track benefits achieved. Full roll-in plans are developed, and action plans are created for larger scale changes.

Large Scale Example – This approach is used in high complexity project systems that often have high volume transactional elements within wider processes. They have significantly cross-functional boundaries.  A team of staff representing end-to-end flows of work spend 2-3 days per week creating a detailed current state picture, supported by data and performance measures.  The explore stage takes longer - 6-8 weeks. 

Through the envisage stage, experiments are identified along with the resources required to run them successfully. These experiments often cover more than one team and can require a daily review to track benefits achieved and to unblock system conditions. 

Full roll-in plans are developed and action plans are created for larger scale changes that may include restructures or significant changes to accompanying systems such as IT.

To find out more, contact Simon Platt on 0151 647 4700 or at simon.platt@icecreates.com

We've taken time to reflect after last week's Health+Care and wanted to share our thoughts, insights and takeaways with you...

Richard Forshaw-Smith

I enjoyed hearing how people are pushing the boundaries of innovation, and was impressed with the appetite for trying out new ideas. I heard how new technologies were helping with better diagnosis of abdominal illnesses, how disruptive tech is changing the way hearing tests are carried out in care homes and how improvements in wound care products help district nurses help their patients. Above all, there is a real willingness to explore partnership working to support people and make better happen.

Simon Platt

The interesting insight I gained from Health+Care (and it is a common theme across all health and care landscapes) was the importance of listening and the language we choose to respond with. Every visitor to our 'secret garden' and every individual I spoke with as I walked around the event hall had a different set of needs and reasons for being there. Therefore, the significance of concisely and attentively conversing with individuals before then connecting them to the most appropriate offer was key.

I witnessed conversations on other stands ending both successfully and in failure because people were either capable or incapable of 'joining the dots' with potential clients. At ICE's secret garden stand, the messages and language were clear and we are always proud of our ability to listen to what people have to say.

Being able to conclude an event such as Health+Care with over 100 new 'budding' relationships across our diverse portfolio is testament to getting our approach right. We listen, we learn, we excite, we reconnect the passion and the aspiration and that establishes trust and wins hearts and minds.

Amanda Madden

From the outset, ICE wanted Health+Care to be a place where we could engage with people. We wanted to create an environment that put people at ease, that intrigued them so they asked questions and that helped us to explain the things we are passionate about - helping people and organisations to be at their best. Our creative team set to work and the ‘secret garden’ was created. As a stand it did everything we hoped it would; it drew people in, it was a talking point and it enabled us to connect with people in a very different way.  

Personally, people never cease to amaze me. We spoke to people who are working in some of the most challenging environments, yet their commitment and resolve to ‘make better happen’ was immense and inspiring. It was a privilege to be able to explore how we could support them, and I am really looking forward to working with a number of the people/organisations that we met.

Stuart Jackson

A meeting of 1000s of people exploring what is important to them for their places and their people - that is what Health+Care was like for me. Did we find the answers? I doubt it.

Did we find inspiration? Yes, I did. We spoke with amazing people who were passionate and clearly committed to a journey to an unknown place called ‘integrated care’. I loved being in our garden and most of the kind feedback we received was that it was so very different and welcoming, which was one of the main themes of our shared conversations. We must think and act differently. 

This means we all need to be brave, creative (have ideas that add value) and I think most importantly, be ready to give power over to others, particularly for our citizens, patients and families. At the end of all of this, trust is the most important virtue we need. So in the week that saw British politics reach crisis point, we must one by one take our decisions from the perspective of acting for the good of the many, and not of the few. We must drive towards making our health and social care systems one. We know the end point, what we don’t know is the journey. What we do know is there is every bit of resource skill and an amazing amount of passion to get us there. 

Heidi King

It has been interesting and insightful to hear from over 100 health and care organisations at the show.

I was really pleased to hear and see that our metaphors for successful integration and transformation really chimed with individuals and organisations from across the spectrum. It was also really exciting to see how the personalisation agenda could support patients towards greater control over their health and how digital innovation is really driving this forward. I was also pleased to hear about how mental health is rising up the agenda so that as a system, we can work together to tackle whole person wellness. The platform is set for useful and exciting conversations over the coming weeks and months.

Carly Farley

It was nice to see what I’ve been hearing about being put into practice. Pharmaceuticals are now really coming round to new ways of working, and it isn’t about sales reps pushing for more sales and more profit. Going beyond the pill now means better outcomes for patients, so more support - digitally and physically - which means better outcomes for clinicians and therefore a better return for pharmaceuticals. After all, a better health population and happy clinicians means more profit.

Since the conference, I’ve been particularly looking forward to catching with up with one or two contacts around what they’re doing digitally and how Puffell can support that; some are definitely further down the line than others! 

Stephen Theobald

This year was a real mix for me; the conversations I had across the two days were really varied and interesting. The meaningful conversations for me were the ones that explored current challenges that individuals and organisations are facing, and what they thought the answers to these challenges may be. Some had a clear plan of how to move forward, some were shaky but felt they had something in place, unsure whether it was right or wrong, and some had no clue where to even begin! What was great to see was the real leap even from last year’s event of people and organisations willing to explore digital solutions to support better health and wellness for the entire population.

 We are looking forward to taking our learning forward and continuing these conversations.

As always, you can call us on 0845 519 3423 to see how we can co-create and inspire together.

The ICE team is getting excited about attending this year’s Health+Care conference – attending sessions, meeting and talking to new and existing contacts in and around the show and on our stand F91.

Ahead of the show, here are a few of their reflections about the sessions and experiences they are looking forward to and why. What are you looking forward to? We’d love to hear!

Jane Cryer

Job at ICE: Director (Transformation and OD)

I’m really looking forward to hearing about:

• Person-centred care because it’s want we all want, we just need to learn how to work together to make it happen

• Systems leadership - integrating care  because it is THE challenge as health and care leaders we have to address

• Vanguards and learning from what works in the new models of care, so we can spread and share to accelerate transformation

• Elephant in the room because we all know it’s there, so what are we going to do? Talking and sharing would be a good start

Richard Forshaw-Smith

Job at ICE: Director (Business Development, Marketing & Engagement)

I’m looking forward to:

• Mid Nottinghamshire Better Together Vanguard from 11:15 - 11:50 in the Local Systems Transformation stream because I'm interested in examples of best practice in system transformation

• How the internet of things is revolutionising health and care from 10:30 - 11:00 in the Technology First stream which includes:

• Introduction to IoTUK
• Opportunities & challenges facing carers
• Innovation in the care sector
• Case studies & research

I'm interested in seeing if there is any genuinely disruptive tech that's adding value.

Carly Farley

Job at ICE: Behavioural Brand Manager

I’m most looking forward to:

Reinvestment opportunities to enhance patient care. We know the NHS has changed, and will continue to change, particularly over the next five years, so the role of pharmas in this is always an interesting view point.

Enabling change for a sustainable NHS - the role of biosimilar medicines. With the NHS being a unique healthcare system, biosimilars offer increased patient and clinician choice, and enhanced value - I’m intrigued by what other perks biosimilars can bring, and how this will affect the market, and the NHS as a whole.

Stuart Jackson - 'Stu'

Job at ICE: People, behaviours and leadership

I’m looking forward to http://www.healthpluscare.co.uk/future-of-public-health  

I’m really excited to meet like-minded people and to find out more about what matters to you, particularly things like why you do the job you do and what excites you about it? What inspires you? And quirky things like your favourite music or flavour of ice cream. You can learn a lot from the little things :-)

Heidi King

Job at ICE: Director (Marketing and Engagement)

I’m really looking forward to conversations, sharing insights and stories around improving health and wellness outcomes and resilience for our communities. Together, we can learn what matters from each other and change lives for the better.

http://www.healthpluscare.co.uk/future-of-public-health    

Amanda Madden

Job at ICE: People, positive behaviours and living well

I am really looking forward to Health+Care and exploring the latest thinking on behavioural person-centred approaches. I really want to share and explore, especially with pharma companies, about how such approaches can support increased patient outcomes, whilst delivering on the clinical markers such as increased adherence, better condition management and improved health and wellness.

Simon Platt

Job at ICE: Senior Change Practitioner

I'm particularly looking forward to the session on the West Wakefield MCP Vanguard as I have heard they are making good progress with their model and want to see if there are easy tips others could look to adopt and adapt.

Equally, as social prescribing is something I am immensely passionate about, I will be ensuring I attend the Support for Commissioners: How can we embed Social Prescribing across the NHS. Having seen the likes of Halton Wellbeing Enterprise CIC and the VARotherham services making a positive impact on their local citizens and the health and care landscape, I am convinced there is more to be done to encourage further uptake.

Stephen Theobald

Job at ICE: Digital and Behaviour Change Specialist

I am most looking forward to the session around Technology enabled care: the national vision http://www.healthpluscare.co.uk/technology-first-4t4l

I think there are endless opportunities for technology to support commissioners across health and social care and we need to start better utilising the technology at our finger tips. On a different note, and more importantly, I am looking forward to meeting all of the wonderful people throughout the show, finding out what interests and excites them.

Come and meet us on our stand with a gardening theme and find out about nurturing integrated care. We’d love to chat about your conference highlights and all things Health+Care.

We’re on stand F91 – see you there!

Sonny looked through the paperwork and sighed. “Oh dear!” he said. “That is a lot to worry about but don’t bluster, Mrs Fluster, our transformation and integration teams have everything in hand.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Mrs Fluster. “Our teams are really worried and confused. No-one can agree a way forward that will cost less money. Everyone wants to help and be brave, but they’re scared of taking risks."

“Now, Mrs Fluster, calm yourself,” said Sonny. “We’re not on our own and there is a way to make our community grow and flourish. Yes. Yes, indeed. The solution lies in gardening!”

“Gardening?” said Mrs Fluster. “You’re not making any sense!”

“Oh, but don’t you see, Mrs Fluster? Gardening is how we’ll do it! With gardening, we’ll all know where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.”

He went on to explain: “Think of us like a garden. You can’t leave it to sort itself out. Fruitful, productive gardens need both nature and nurture.”

How to make your garden grow

Firstly, you need to know your garden - the type of soil, its plants and the plants you want to grow. Which parts are exposed to the wind, which need to be in the shade? This is like insight into what’s really happening and what is really important to your teams. A word of caution! It must be grounded in truth and everyone given a voice.

The next step is to create the right environment for growth in your garden. Your Leadership does this. Don’t forget to add nutrients to feed it – resources and support for people to agree what is important to them; to make difficult decisions, explore the art of the possible and be creative with ideas that will add value. And water – the free flow of communication and exchange of information, making it all safer for your teams to experiment and flourish.

Now that you’re all prepared, you can start to plant and create new things. Remember to work together, co-create it, and pay attention to what is important to everyone and everything in your garden. After all, in your garden you need to know which plants and seeds flourish where, and when to plant them to get the best from them.

Your plants need plenty of nurturing and encouragement along the way. For leaders, this means being out in your teams and the community, regularly telling simple and personalised stories, connecting people to the vision. Think about the newly established plants and saplings in your garden. You have to encourage the roots to go down deep. Values and emotional connections are just like the roots of your new saplings. Your stories need to grow and stay in people’s minds, so use metaphors and pictures to reinforce your stories. This needs time, just as you wouldn’t keep pulling up saplings to check they are growing as that would quickly kill them!

So, allow your garden to grow. For sure, some plants may be in the wrong place and need moving. Weeds will come and need pulling out and you’ll need to make sure it gets plenty of water and ongoing care.

But, with plenty of water, the right care and guidance, this approach will help your garden to thrive throughout the seasons.

To be continued...

"The way many organisations try to deal with current problems often seems to make things worse, not better. Most have gone through numerous rounds of change programmes, mergers, centralisations, decentralisations, new IT systems, new mission statements, new balanced scorecards, or new rewards programmes.

Collectively, it can seem like the current way organisations are run has been stretched to its limits - and these traditional ways of working often seem part of the problem, not the solution.

We hope for more, for radically better ways, but is that possible, or is it idealistic, wishful thinking? Supposing it is possible to create organisations that draw out more of our human potential...what would this be like? How do we bring them to life? These are questions at the heart of this short storybook. To me, this is not merely academic, but a very practical question. Increasingly, more and more of us long to be part of creating amazing places to work and be. Places where the best happens every day!”

- Stuart Jackson, co-founder ICE

One warm spring morning Sonny Brightside was at his desk, pondering and puzzling the mammoth task ahead of him: his community was still not able to be as resilient and self supporting as it could be - and that mattered to him. Sonny wanted people to be the best they could be, living in a happier, healthier place where everyone could grow and flourish. A loud knock at the door interrupted Sonny. “Oh, what a huge pile of paper!” he said as Mrs Fluster staggered in, weighed down by pages and pages of paper. “What’s all that?”

“The blue ones are all the important things we’ve already spent money on, but this even bigger yellow pile is all the important things we still need to do and we don’t have the money to do. How are we ever going to do all the things we have to, never mind the things we want to do?"

"I know we have a plan, but I really don’t know how we can make it work?"

“Mr Senior needs his new medicine, Miss Brady is coming home from hospital and the young ones are up to mischief again, causing mayhem in the parks and shops.”

To be continued...

January can often be a time to reflect on what we have achieved in the last year. For me, a standout was spending time at the IRRV national conference with the Revenues & Benefits team from Tewkesbury Borough Council – and what an event it turned out to be!

Almost 12 months ago, ICE began working on a transformation programme with the service, and the conference was the culmination and celebration of all that we have achieved together. It’s been a long journey but with outstanding results, and the commitment and enthusiasm of the team throughout the process has been a pleasure to witness.

The team wanted to improve efficiency and processes, drive culture change and, most importantly, determine how to deliver better services to their customers. At the outset they had backlogs of work and long processing times.  The service was very reactive, with little or no capacity to look into the future and be proactive in their approach.

Using the ICE 7Es model, we worked with the team to transfer skills and knowledge which empowered them to make significant and sustainable changes in their system. The outcome: recognition at the IRRV Performance Awards 2015 as a top performing service and a transformation to be truly proud of.

One of the key features of ICE’s 7Es model is that we work with you and not doing change to you. Therefore, working together, the teams have achieved so much, including:

• The Benefits team being ranked 15 out of 201 district councils and top performer in Gloucestershire
• Elimination of the backlog of work
• New claims: processing time reduced from 37 days to 9 days
• Change of circumstances: processing time reduced from 25 days to 8 days
• Significant increase in Benefits subsidy
• 80% reduction in failure demand into the Benefits service
• 75% increase in Revenues customers having their accounts administered at the point of contact
• 60% reduction in incorrect ad-hoc bills
• Creation of a motivated and empowered work force: open to change and with capacity to build wider partnerships

The core team we worked with included all levels of staff from the front line through to the Head of Service, with leadership and sponsorship from the Deputy Chief Executive. Having achieved so much in such a short space of time, we decided that it would be a great idea to enter the IRRV Performance Awards.  The service had never considered this in the past and it was testimony to the new way in which they now looked at their world. So, together, we began to think about the applications and put pen to paper.

To our delight, both the Revenues and Benefits teams were shortlisted into the last five nationally for their respective team of the year awards. The awards panel sent judges along to the Council to talk to the team about the work that they had done, and are continuing to do.  This was a great success, with both teams subsequently being invited along to the IRRV Performance Awards Gala dinner in Telford on 7^th October 2015.

It was a joy to see their pride and sense of achievement on the awards night, and the realisation that they were indeed recognised for their hard work and positive attitude towards continuous service improvement.  I watched with all of the pride of a mother around her brood as they awaited the results and, despite not getting the award overall, they truly believed in themselves and their own achievements as their name came up on the big screen as national finalists.

Giving those that do the work the power, culture and enthusiasm to keep making better happen is truly a rewarding job and makes me realise it’s why I go to work every day, and something I can be truly proud of.

You don’t need a trophy or an award to be a winner, you just need the right way of thinking and the behaviour to keep on going, to achieve the outcomes you seek and to keep on growing.

Here’s to the next 12 months and the journey that keeps on going!

To find out more about ICE’s 7Es model and how we can help you on your transformation journey, contact: rachel.stamp@icecreates.com or call 0151 647 4700