The Strengths Revolution with Steve Morgan | Strengths | Resources | Taking Risks: Recent Episodes
Steve Morgan
If you are looking to identify and develop your strengths and talents, take calculated risks and make decisions, The Strengths Revolution with Steve Morgan will help your personal development, as well as helping you support your clients, employees, teams and wider organisations. Knowing your strengths will also support positive risk-taking and decision making as part of good risk management.
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.
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.
How serious are we about truly developing the talent of our key people? The world is over-populated with academic pursuit of leadership initiatives, all competing to produce people with accredited qualifications. But what about developing people with the confidence to deliver on the practical day-to-day challenges that our businesses through at people? In this episode I outline my specifically created Strengths Leadership Programme for the key staff members... our team leaders & team managers. Based in the Gallup research and literature it focuses on identifying talent, developing strengths, and applying this knowledge to personal and team development in the practices that team leaders work in every day. It offers a 4-day workshop introduction, but is focused more on local impact of knowledge through supervised and supported practice over a year, and the nurturing of specific peer group support. If you're looking for another certificate to hang on the wall go somewhere else.
How do you go about identifying your natural talents? Most of us stroll through life largely oblivious to what we may excel at. Either we are subject to the constant focus on our weaknesses, and attempting to get them fixed, in the flawed assumption that this helps us to massively improve our performance. Or, we are simply just not aware of resources that can focus attention more on the task of identifying the talents and developing our true strengths. The Gallup organisation has not just researched this area for several decades, but also mined the massive database to inform and develop the tools for strengths development. In this episode I reflect on this process of identifying talents and developing strengths. I use my own results from taking the StrengthsFinder test (on two separate occasions) to illustrate the process and themes of talent that have emerged out of the Gallup work.
It's one thing to have a great idea but another entirely to put it successfully into practice, particularly if it is about delivering on difficult and challenging decisions. What does it take to put positive risk-taking into practice with clarity and confidence? This was a concept I developed in 1994 and have been refining and implementing with so many people in the intervening years. Everyone wants to feel like they do good risk-taking practice, but when examined closely there are a plethora of obstacles to be overcome in the process. In this episode I outline a list of 14 essential ingredients for putting positive risk-taking into practice. A combination of shared understanding by individuals, teams and organisation management is a good starting point; but that is often difficult enough to achieve. I outline the value of strengths-based practice for underpinning good risk-taking decisions, as well as consensus in teams, adequate training, supervision and support, and the application of checklists and tools I designed specifically for the purpose.
A good idea is about 10 percent of the effort, it's the implementation and hard work that makes up the bulk of the effort. But how do we go about identifying and implementing good ideas? What can we use to help us deliver great work? In the case of a Strengths Approach and Positive Risk-Taking, two of my signature ways of working, I have developed specific practice development tools to help not just identify the ideas but just as importantly put them into practice. In this episode I outline the Practice Based Evidence evaluation and implementation tools I use in my team development work to put these two particular concepts into practice. These are practice-based tools to be owned and used by frontline staff and teams; these are definitely not managerial tools with a top-down need to audit. There comes a moment when you need to stop revving up the car and shove it into gear (David Maloney), and these tools are part of the gear mechanism not the braking system!
Why do we need to be constantly changing things? Is there too much change going on in the world? It is tempting to look back with rose-tinted glasses for the better times, and to bemoan the worst of what is going on at present. But change has undeniably contributed more positive than negative outcomes for most people. However, in business how can we best manage the process of change in order to achieve the forward momentum that brings positive gains? Prefer & Sutton remind us that a google search elicits much more interest in strategy than in implementation; so we are far more likely to want to engage in talking about change than actually doing it. In this episode I recount the 8 key ingredients that Pfeffer & Sutton identify for increasing the odds of making the right kind of change. Listening to people is the most significant factor. I also outline the four forces they suggest are needed to create the environment for change to take place. Change is a fact, it is happening all of the time, so lets get it right.
What qualities do we look for in our great leaders and great managers? Can one person embody both functions? The great leader connects people to a vision of a better future, and a great manager instils quality performance in other people to achieve the steps towards the ultimate goals. In this episode I use a series of quotes from the business literature to examine the roles of a great leader and a great manager. It is for you the individual to reflect on how these quotes resonate with your own experiences of being led and managed, and of leading and managing. I also briefly reflect on some of my experiences across the last 30 years of being led and managed.
What is the distinction between leadership and management? Do we need to have more of one and less of the other? Ideally we need the good experiences of both. In this episode I explore the future focus of leadership alongside the present focus of management. Using a series of quotes from the literature the contrast and the complimentary nature of both can emerge, and it is for each of us to reflect on how our own experiences resonate with the messages offered. Leadership can not be learned from academic theory, it needs to be experienced, and for the experience to be refined through constructive feedback. Management should be about people more than it is about systems and processes. The primary functions of management have a place, but they should not be enabled to become the mainframe of the picture that people have to fit into. It is the strengths and creativity of people that contributes most to achievement, not the managerial tools and targets.
Are we really developing the strengths of our staff in the workplace? I previously outlined my own Team Strengths Assessment, but in this episode I focus on the messages emerging from the Gallup organisation strengths research. Buckingham & Coffman published First, Break All The Rules in 1999, which included 12 questions we should continually be asking ourselves to identify if we and our employers are really focused on identifying and exploiting what we do best. The questions focus on personal strengths and support and supervision in the workplace. Do you do what you do best every day? This is the key question to focus on, but whether we do or whether we don't depends so much on having the right conditions within the workplace geared to developing us.
Do we only draw on the evidence that supports our original beliefs? The strengths approach is supported by a relatively small evidence base in the healthcare world, but if we look to the business world the quantity greatly amplifies. However, quantity should never be allowed to overshadow the quality of an evidence base. In this episode I review the critical questions that Pfeffer & Sutton present so we do not accept evidence without analysis. They also question a fundamental tenet of the strengths approach by asking just how important 'talent' really is to effective outcomes. The Gallup organisation have developed an extensive database over several decades to support the efficacy of strengths-based thinking across most industries across the world. The research identifies that successful businesses share common strengths-based approaches. The Gallup literature has also identified the key messages about what the great managers know and do. Talent is a key ingredient, but how it is managed and nurtured contributes to the difference that enables greater success.
Are we just in the business of keeping academics in jobs? Best practice is the ultimate goal for delivery of any self-respecting business, but we must be confident in the evidence that underpins our beliefs in a particular way of working. A strengths approach is no different, and making best use of our personal assets and resources needs more than just a warm feeling that it is the right thing to do. Within the research community there are conflicting views on the efficacy of working to a strengths approach. The good news is that the critics are asking for more evidence, rather than questioning the efficacy of the approach itself. Translating evidence into practice comes with its own challenges, and my adopting of 'Practice Based Evidence' as a business name was largely informed by a need to strike a balance that is respectful to the messages from real time experiences. In this episode I reflect on the strengths evidence emerging largely from strengths-based case management, with additional studies in children & families, substance misuse and corrections services. Positive outcomes are reported across a wide range of measures, and ultimately the quality of evidence has to be respected above the quantity of studies (though many on the academic side of that debate may have further questions).
How do we help to develop and nurture our primary resource, our individual staff? The research tells us we spend too much time trying to fix their weaknesses, and not nearly enough identifying and exploiting their unique gifts and talents. A motivated workforce is a profitable workforce, so it makes sense from the personal and business development angles to spend more time developing strengths-based resources. In this episode I examine some of the questions and steps from strengths literature that reinforce the use of the Strengths Assessment tool outlined in the previous episode. Mike Pegg draws together a useful list of reflections on why we achieved in the past, and how we can nurture success in the future. Marcus Buckingham offers a 6-step process for helping individual's to develop their personal strengths statements, and to exploit strengths whilst managing weaknesses.
How do we develop the potential of our individual staff members? We are all individual's with unique abilities, interests, drives and motivations; but do we really spend time identifying and nurturing these? The Gallup organisation research suggests that the most successful leaders and businesses do, but the majority are still focused more on fixing flaws and weaknesses. A focus on developing and exploiting strengths makes good business sense, so the question is how to go about doing it. In this episode I outline the structure and approach of the Practice Based Evidence Staff Strengths Assessment tool. Exploring values, collaborations, creativity, team working and knowledge base. This tool has been accepted as an invaluable addition (or even preferred replacement) for traditional organisational appraisal systems. If it's staff development you genuinely want to achieve this tool will be a valuable addition to any toolkit.
In his relationship to others the word that comes to mind for me in describing Steve would be generosity. He gave of his time, but perhaps more important was the quality of that gift. Steve had a generosity of spirit that shone through his passion to understand and help people. To describe Steve by his professional role of psychologist is to miss the point; he was a humanist who believed in the potential of others and dedicated his life to supporting and developing people. His choice of the Spanish word ‘Entero’ was apt for describing his passion for the whole person, supporting people to discover or recover their own solutions, identity and true place in the world.
His conference presentations were dynamic and engaging, and his workshops were always a passionate process of exploration and discovery. Steve understood the stupidity of some of the systems we have created, but was always prepared to work within them to create better leadership and conditions for change. He infused everything he did with a big heart, but on 28th September 2015 that heart tragically failed him. I lost my greatest guide and mentor, and the world of mental health lost one of its brightest lights. To use one of his favourite words, knowing you Steve was truly ‘groovy’… rest in peace my dear friend.
With all the expectations placed on providing excellent service to clients how can we truly expect staff to value others when they don't feel valued themselves? So, the concept of a strengths assessment should apply equally to staff members as it does to their work with clients. In this episode I explore some of the key messages from the wide-ranging Gallup organisation's strengths research. The focus is on why we should pay more attention to developing individual potentials, and less to fixing weaknesses. I also explore those feelings we experience when we are engaged in activity that is most likely connected to our real strengths and talents.
In recent episodes I have explored the meaning of recovery and concluded that I fully support the original intentions of its service user creators, but despair at the corporate take-over and misappropriation of a good idea. I have also explored how the 'can do' strengths approach lends practical reality to the conceptual language of recovery. But how does recovery happen in practice? In this episode I explore some of the resistance that it, and most new concepts, confront alongside the challenges within a deep-rooted culture that need to change in order to provide the conditions for these good ideas to flourish. I also explore the tools that have been created to implement recovery, but argue in favour of choice if we are to inhabit the service user's life with the trappings of bureaucracy. Finally, I identify recovery as yet another concept where family/carers express concerns at feeling like they are an afterthought in the discussion of what happens in the delivery of a service.
Having explored the concept of recovery in the previous episode I concluded that I fully support the original service users' intentions but despair at the corporate take-over of manifestly good ideas in order to decorate their own complex and confused way of going about things. As a realist I have to accept that recovery has become a leading mantra headlining the development of 21st century mental health services, but I struggle with the degree of confusion expressed by so many practitioners who would rather not be asked to describe what it actually means. What does the Strengths Approach lend to this set of circumstances? In this episode I compare the language of the principles of recovery with the practical 'doing it' approach offered by the strengths movement. We can sit around and talk about conceptualisations as long as we like, but at some point someone has to do something, and that is where the strengths approach comes into its own.
'Recovery' can simply be described as to regain, get back or restore something which has been lost, but in health and social care services we don't tend to go for the simple and straight forward, particularly when confused and complicated are on offer. I fully support the concept of recovery, as it was originally identified by service users, but I despair at how easily those in power feel able to misappropriate good ideas to dress up their otherwise complex demands. Now I tend to see recovery as something designed by service users, hijacked by commissioners, managers and politicians, and crashed by practitioners. In this episode I explore how a uniquely personal and individual concept of great merit and purpose has become subsumed into the corporate world of strategic direction, and subsequently lost in translation. The original pioneers foretold in warnings of how the concept will lose its power when it becomes systematised, but the world of bureaucracy is not known for heeding warnings, particularly if they don't appeal to the perpetual need to homogenise the individual experience.
Solution Focused Therapy has been established in the US since the early 1970's, but didn't make an impact in Europe until the mid to late 1980's. The approach is largely attributed to Steve de Shazer, and has garnered considerable favour with the attibution of 'Brief' in front of its title. Many clients and practitioners alike favour the specific focus on finding solutions through brief interactions and short term interventions. In my work presenting a strengths approach I have often encountered practitioners asking 'isn't this a bit like Brief Solution Focused Therapy?' In this episode I examine the strengths credentials of this approach, with reference to its underlying core principles, the therapeutic roles of clients and practitioners, and its therapeutic approach underpinned by specific lines of inquiry. Discover the secrets of the 'miracle question'.
We all know what motivation is... it is what gets us out of bed and out of the door. But what if you have a problem with alcohol, or with misuse of other drugs? What role does motivation play in our desire or ability to change our behaviour patterns? In this episode I explore the strengths-based credentials of the concept of motivational interviewing. Introduced by William Miller in the early 1980's, this has become a prominent therapeutic intervention in the field of substance misuse, but what is the concept based on, and how does it work in practice? I attempt to briefly explore some of the questions posed here, look at the strengths & motivational interviewing research, and establish a link to the cycle of change.
Take a picture of this... it's 1998 and Martin Seligman is just installed as president of the American Psychological Association. He challenges the massed ranks of psychology professionals to change their fundamental ethos, from a focus on pathology to a pursuit of what makes for an excellent life. Positive Psychology is born; but does it match up to its claims to be the birth of a strengths way of thinking for developing a healthy and fulfilling life? Probably not; but what psychologists can lay a more robust claim to is applying the life scientific to a strengths approach. In this episode I explore the underlying claims and concepts that have become known as positive psychology, and also identify how it is put into practice. I also outline the virtues and character strengths that make up the 'manual of the sanities'.
AI is more frequently known as Artificial intelligence, but in the context of organisational change I am focusing this episode on Appreciative Inquiry. But, apart from the simple assumption of showing some appreciation to another person, what is it? David Cooperrider and colleagues have claimed this to be a uniquely strengths-based approach to the leadership and management of organisational change; and also that strengths-based management may just be the management innovation of our time! However, the concept of change does not sit easily with everyone; for one thing, it can give the impression that there is never enough time to implement some seriously good ideas before the next management initiative is passed down. In this episode I outline the strengths credentials of Appreciative Inquiry, its 4-dimensional cycle, as well as the 5 principles and 6 essential conditions for it to occur. It may require skilled facilitation by a trained practitioner, but it also offers all of us a positive language to adopt and apply to our own thinking about the organisations we presently inhabit.
The strengths approach shares many values, principles and practices with other well known approaches, one of which is Appreciative Inquiry. During a conversation planning for a workshop presentation at a conference the question of establishing a 'provocative proposition' arose... a concept closely integrated into the practice of Appreciative Inquiry. In this episode I establish my statement as: 'Positive risk-taking will transform the relationship of individuals and organisations to risk forever!' I then test out this statement against the eight criteria for a good provocative proposition. See whether you agree, and more importantly, learn a little more about how positive risk-taking should be implemented to maximum effect.
Person centred planning is a concept well established in learning disability services, with a clear set of principles, broad questions, tools and methods for capturing plans. But, what does it really look like in practice? In this episode I narrate a detailed case example from a service I had been involved in developing. This case study of Sarah (not her real name) highlights not just the challenges of diagnosed multiple conditions, but also the barriers that have to be overcome in getting your close sources of support to change in order to achieve your desired wishes. Some of Sarah's presentation is undoubtedly challenging, but this episode explains how they have been accommodated and overcome with creative thinking, as well as illustrating the process happening in practice.
The strengths approach is all about being person-centred, but the concept of person-centred planning is much more closely associated with learning disability services. It is about ensuring the individual's needs, wants and personal choices are paramount; and that the role of workers is to listen and learn from the individual in order to shape service responses to meet the priorities expressed. In this episode I outline the historical development of person-centred planning, its 4 principles, 2 broad questions, 4 specific tools, the 'circle of care', and the outcomes represented occasionally by the 'Personal Book' or 'One-Page Profile'. I also review some of the examples of how it is best implemented, and what the critics have to say about whether it really works or not.
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 ahs 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 perosn-centred review can be regained through a visionary, strengths-based and creatiove approach to individaul reviews. It includes a sereis 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.
Working with Strengths is a consistent process of identifying strengths through a strengths assessment, leading to the identification of personal priorities. These priorities become the separate strengths-based support plans, but the identified strengths also apply in managing crises and concerns. In this episode this whole process is illustrated through the details of the case study of Aluna, and African lady arriving in London at a young age, but the victim of horrendous abuses. The case study illustrates how the initial information we receive sets up a very narrow and generally negative picture of a person. Time is the ultimate requirement in order to encourage someone to build trust and engage with services that can be of help and support. The process of engaging trust is most successfully achieved through a focus on a person's capabilities, not by just keeping them focused on the problems and difficulties they experience. Aluna was very clear what she wanted, and how she could work with certain services to achieve her aims, but both she and the services held concerns that a strengths approach can also be adapted to resolve.
When delivering ideas about a strengths approach I am frequently confronted by the need for practitioners to discuss their most extreme example of a severly depressed completely entrenched person who has no strengths. My immediate response is that everyone has strengths, just on some occasions it is a greater challenge identifying and developing them. The real failure of perception is to take the superficial picture as the whole picture. We need to dig beyond the surface in creative ways that respond to each individual and their personal circumstances. In this episode I outline 10 questions to keep in mind when the search for strengths proves most challenging. These questions have some similarlity with the approach adopted in Brief Solution Focused Therapy, with an emphasis on exception-finding, scaling, coping and what's better types of questions.
You may be a supremely spontaneous individual, but we all still need degrees of planning if we are to be confident of setting in motion the powerful action to help us in achieving our dreams and aspirations. In planning for achievement it is common sense to think that our strengths will be focal in the process, but they apply equally to plans for managing our concerns and crises. 'Working with Strengths' is a process that follows the path of strengths assessment to stated priorities to strengths-based support plans. In this episode I offer brief checklists of prompts to guide the construction of strengths-based plans for achieving our priorities and for managing our concerns. It is the application, not just the identification of our strengths, that enables action and positive change. These checklists should apply equally to personal reflection or to our work in supporting others.
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.
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?
Within the context of service-centred working can a meeting ever be person-centred? In this episode I outline experiences of ward rounds and community reviews that are frequently presented by the services as being person-centred, but are clearly service-centred. Our use and misuse of language is more often than not a reflection of our values and ultimately a reflection of what we deliver as a service, so it needs careful attention. Attendance at meetings does not equate to involvement in meetings. So what will it take to make service meetings, particularly client reviews more genuinely person-centred? I present four messages to guide us towards this aim.
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.
Building up a strengths assessment based on personal reflection, or helping others to construct a picture requires a positive outlook and a determination to enquire into what has worked in the past, what is working at present, and what is wanted in the future. Alongside the picture of who we are, we should concentrate on building the picture of what we have and what we want. In the practical but essential components of shelter, finances and relationships, it is important to reflect on what works for each of us, and why it works? In terms of housing, where we live can be equally as important as what type of accommodation we prefer to live in. In this episode I explore the questions that help us to dig for the detail around home, work, relationships, leisure, daily living, and spiritual reflections.
Building up a strengths assessment based on personal reflection, or helping others to construct a picture, requires a positive outlook and a determination to enquire into what has worked in the past, what is working at present, and what is wanted in the future. It is about developing an inventory of resources that can then be productively applied to achieving desired future priorities and/or managing life's difficulties and challenges with greater skill and confidence. It should start from some of the big open-ended questions about who we are, and what we like about ourselves, and what we want for the future. With this standpoint in mind, a reflection on personality traits and personal qualities helps to focus attention more on the question of who we are. In this episode I briefly explore some of the personality traits and qualities that help to define us, and how we might identify them in ourselves or others. Issues of health are also explored alongside these traits.
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.
How do we go about building a picture of our strengths, and those of others? We don't usually greet each other by enquiring what we are no good at, or what we have recently screwed up; yet we also do not naturally and consistently search deeply for those inner-most strengths and natural talents. Listen to any conversation between people who have met for the first time, at a conference for example, and they explore what defines each other in a the positive sense of 'what do you do?' or 'what are your specific interests in the subject of the conference?' We should never make the big decisions based on the negative of weaknesses, we should build it on the drives and motivations, the dreams and aspirations. In this episode I outline an 8-point checklist as prompts for building up a picture of our strengths. These are our resources, from within us and around us, so we should be devoting more time to identifying them and making best use of them. Ultimately it is our strengths that best equip us to manage our problems and weaknesses. Off the top of your head what would you identify as your best qualities and strengths? Then keep adding to that initial picture over time.
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.
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.
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?
Is good leadership the antidote to a poor management culture? It is too simplistic a premise, as what is really needed for supporting the implementation of best practice is good leadership coupled with good management. The two do not produce good results if working in opposition! It is one thing to have a good vision of where a business or service should be aiming to go, but the what & why questions of leadership need to be complemented by the how & when questions of management. In this episode a number of quotes from recognised management and leadership gurus are explored; and seven characteristics of good leadership are identified.
In this interview Anne Clilverd talks about the important therapeutic value that pets provide for their owners and for others. They offer a remarkable range of functions that can help people across all age groups. She also talks briefly about her work with the Pets as Therapy charity.
We shouldn't be happy just being critics; do so with constructive responses, so you are always being helpful in your role of criticising others. I have been a critic of the management culture in general in recent episodes of this show, but also need to stand up and be counted in my response alongside my criticism. I have chosen a process of transformation of my own recent work, particularly positive risk-taking and risk decision-making, to align it more with the needs of more senior managers and business leaders. These are people who are continually making high risk decisions, but in my experience in health and social care they commission me to work with their practitioners and teams, but don't take part in any of the work. It is my intention to refocus my work through the EPIC Program of online marketing and coaching, into a transformation statement directed to my new ideal client avatar through a new webinar that can lead some people through strategy sessions into my signature programme. It is my intention to offer a high degree of transformation for senior people experiencing difficulties or fears in relation to their decision-making. Michelle Mone is a lingerie tycoon who has recently publicly spoken about her daily fears about these decisions, despite being a very successful entrepreneur, so Michelle helps me to identify the type of people I wouls ideally want to be working with.
In this episode a couple of recent newspaper articles reflect on the malaise of the management culture in two UK world class institutions... the NHS and BBC. Damning reports into the culture of management in the NHS are being withheld until after the imminent general election, where the description of the sturcture is described as 'totally shocking' and 'not fit for purpose'. Could this be the very structure that was re-structured against previous manifesto promises by the Tory led government initiative? Meanwhile, over at the BBC it would appear that investigative journalists who blow the whistle on previous BBC celebs for child abuse scandals, are themselves demoted and sidelined, while the bullies are promoted! Great institutions are created from lofty principles and values, but it would appear that by a process of evolution the management function gradually grows into a misguided sense of its own self-importance. Bureaucracy becomes top heavy, unmanageable, and filled with overpaid people who have little understanding or connection with the true heart of the enterprise. There is no simple solution to a malignacy decades in the incubation; but we must continue to respect our world class institutions for their founding principles and uphold their core values as theur main purpose.
It can be argued that over several decades the function of management has morphed from the role of supporting the essential development of a business into a role of managers running the business for their own primary gain. Recognised management academic gurus have identified the dangers of management for management sake, and the way it can block the functioning of the frontline workers. This has been my experience throughout many structured interviews with frontline clinicians in health and social care services in the UK. Managers need to reconnect with the primary business of its business. The excellent managers contribute significantly to developing staff to identify and make best use of their strengths. Good management is a talent in its own right, but the majority of what constitutes management can frustrate and block creativity, and largely ignore the vital strengths.
An interview with Anne Clilverd as she reflects back on three specific teams to identify what elements contribute to good team-working. An acute admissions ward where, despite being based on a hierarchy, a strong sense of belonging was fostered. The environment was supportive through all staff being encouraged to contribute their observations in a way that was respected by multidisciplinary colleagues. Compass as a walk-in advice and mental health centre also offering a degree of outreach work as a new initiative at a time when long-stay hospitals were beginning to be closed down. This initiative was joint funded and managed by health and social care, operating as a small multidisciplinary team of four people committed to a strong set of values and principles. As a group the workers need to feel confident to have their ideas openly and constructively critiqued; and they were supported by an advisory group that included several service users and representatives of local voluntary sector services. As team manager Anne worked in the Kings cross Community Mental Health Team. This type of team functions as a group of individuals who come together for a common purpose, but belonging may be more to the team name than a sense of full collective working. The team manager carries the specific responsibility to stamp a personality on the team through a vision for common goals and purpose, and the quality of supervision as a means for encouraging reflection and professional/personal development.
We all work in teams from time-to-time but how much do we really focus on identifying and developing the individual talents of the workers, and the overall strengths of good team-working? A team is a group of people coming together for a common purpose or goal, and often it is the challenges and difficulties that define the work of the team that will most influence its outlook in terms of development. All too often teams and services look on training and developing the areas of weakness, to the detriment of boosting and exploiting areas of success into areas of excellence. In this episode I outline my categorisation of teams in relation to the degree in which they relate to, identify, and work with strengths, and the Team Strengths Assessment tool that I developed in the early 2000's to support this area of practice development. Examples of three types of mental health teams are referred to as examples where these tools have been used.
This episode is the first part of an interview with Anne Clilverd, formerly Team Manager of the Kings Cross Community Mental Health Team in London. In this discussion Anne reflects on where she first became aware of Narrative Therapy, how she followed through the specific training faciltated by Michael White, and some of the challenges of embedding it into her primary work role in a community service. The concept of the 'outsider witness' as a distinct function within Narrative Therapy is explored in relation to the therapeutic role offered with clients. Specific reference is made to use of the therapeutic approach in locally designed 'Mental Health Matters' workshops, where a client, carer and practitioner are able to work together in supporting people to tell and analyse their own story. The role of family and cultural values are able to be honoured as an element that can emerge through a workshop style of approach to embedding the ideas of Narrative Therapy. The approach can also be shared and adapted through staff supervision with practitioners open and interested in developing the ideas into their practice, and for exploring how they are functioning in the practitioner role.
The term narrative is important for many reasons; it is the means by which we recount our lives, the events, emotions and experiences that make up the patchwork of our existence. It is the core of each interpersonal relationship, and it has become a continual theme throughout my working career. The fundamental basis of mental health care is the trust and confidence built through the power of working relationships, enabling people to tell their stories. Documenting our work also presents a conflict between the dominance of bureaucratic tick-box approaches and the need to represent someone through a narrative of their lives. Then there is narrative therapy as a psychotherapeutic approach to talking treatments. This episode concludes by outlining two of the core components of narrative therapy, before the next episode which will take the form of an interview with a friend and colleague who has trained in narrative therapy.
In this episode the focus is on informal unpaid carers in the health and social care system. Who carers are, and the roles they perform, are honoured as amazing strengths that can be relied upon. However, the role comes with burdens and pressures, and services have not been so quick to see carers as a priority for the vital support they need. The focus for this episode was triggered through reading an article by Nicci Gerrard in the Observer newspaper (UK Sunday broadsheet). She was reflecting on her father's experiences of dementia, and more specifically on the damaging effect of a hospital admission on his ability to function independently. It is not a way of blaming staff or the service, but more a reality check on how the demands of an ageing population are overloading the existing service. John's Campaign has been established to promote greater access for carers on to hospital wards, particularly to continue supporting their loved ones who have succumbed to dementia. The costs are very minimal and the benefits for patients, carers and staff are very significant. Good practice in this issue exists in small pockets, but the challenge of the campaign is for best practice to become standard practice everywhere.
In this episode I maintain a focus on suicide risk by reviewing risk factors and the importance of counter-balancing these with a focus on protective factors and strengths. A specific program in Detroit has generated debate and pilot sites in the UK to develop a zero tolerance to suicide risk, and while aiming for zero suicides is an excellent ideal, it raises several important questions. Firstly, some people have made a clear and final decision to take their own lives for their own complex and personal reasons, so how will choice be respected within a zero tolerance approach? Will services be recognised for reductions in suicide rates or will the blame culture still focus on the diminishing few completed cases? Should any practitioners or advocates seriously question the ethos and intentions behind a zero tolerance approach? Suicide risk factors from the known research are outlined, and the more personalised reflection of protective factors are highlighted. The emphasis on assessing and working with suicide risk is placed on the quality information through narrative approaches, not the more frequent bureaucratic requirement for ticking boxes.
What role does positive risk-taking have to play when someone is experiencing and expressing serious suicidal thoughts? Firstly, we have a duty to take such expressions very seriously, but the language of suicide risk can often appear overwhelming to others, and generate great fears of what might be. Do we respond in a way that manages the other person, manages the situation, and ultimately takes over through assuming control over and for the person? Do we really take that step backwards, and give ourselves whatever time is available to listen to the person and help them explore their options in a supported relationship? We cannot eliminate risk, but do we become overwhelmed by a fear of engaging in the real conversation? There is no such thing as a risk-free option, and in this episode I outline a case example from my own practice that illustrates how positive risk-taking was put in place through listening and acting on what the individual has to say, identifying alternatives, and exploring strengths and potential protective factors alongside the serious expression of risk.
This episode is an interview with Satsanga (Lawrence Borish) reflecting on a case example of Alice, who he worked with whilst on a family counselling placement in his Masters Degree Social Work training in the US back in 1968. The placement was focused on cultural awareness, and the specific referral emerged through neighbourly concern for a woman whose behaviour and appearance was deteriorating. However, on engaging Alice, Satsanga discusses how, as a young inexperienced social worker, he is suddenly presented with an expression of suicidal ideas. How we respond to these immediate circumstances can have a heavy bearing on the future life of another person. The interview explores issues of engagement of trusting working relationships, working with instinct, exploration of genuine alternatives to suicide, genuine collaboration between a person and a worker... all of which are important components of the process of 'positive risk-taking'. The discussion raises thoughts about how we are supported, or not, to make difficult decisions; and could a decision-making process from a bygone era remain relevant today?
In this episode Steve Morgan reflects on the brief life of his cat, Juno, and the strength we derive from our pets, not just what we offer to them. Juno's sudden and unexpected death prompts reflection not just on the life she brought to Steve's home; no, this was a cat that provided the inspiration for a blog... Juno's View at http://cardiffcoolcat.com/ offering a creative option as to how to view a local city. All pet owners and lovers are challenged to take a long look at your pet(s) and identify the source of strength they provide for you.
The turn of the year is the time when many people set the resolutions, that quickly become forgotten, or are a repeat of the ones set previous years. This is not the best way to make meaningful changes in your personal or business life. Planning and goal-setting can be an invaluable component of successful change and sustaining achievements. Michael Hyatt has an influential programme '5 days to your best year ever', but this type of process doesn't always have to apply to the turn of the year. In this episode I outline a 5-stage process to setting those SMART goals, from personal belief and reflection through to specific goals, actions and the all-important need to review... keep on your own case if you want to make best use of the idea of planning and goal-setting. This episode asks you to focus goals broadly across your life, so they need to be personal as well as business oriented.
Steve Morgan in conversation with Kirt Hunte about what contributes to good team-working. We frequently make a claim to be a team but function more as a group of individuals. What influence does the team manager or team leader have on the identity and function of the team? Can a talented group of individuals simply come together as a great team? Does the size of the team have any affect on its ability to function as a team? The creativity and risk-taking required for developing a new initiative is very different from the long term sustainability of an established team or service. Kirt and Steve reflect on football teams and mental health teams through their observations and experiences over many years. Reference is also made to the book entitled 'Organizing Genius' by Warren Bennis and Patricia Biederman describing and analysing seven case studies of great teams.
Good teamworking, as with so many things, is easily stated and claimed, but not always so easily evidenced. Bringing people together under the name of a specific 'team' doesn't necessarily mean that they function as a true team. From a strengths perspective, Steve Morgan offers a taxonomy of strengths focused teams... looking at three different levels in relation to the degree of strengths thinking and working that are incorporated into routine teamworking. He further develops the analysis of teamworking through outlining six principles of strengths-based teams... adapted from the original strengths principles focused on how we work with service users or clients. It is recognised that in any given team there will be individuals who function at different levels in relation to strengths-based principles and practice; however, the extensive Gallup organisation research invites us to improve our overall effectiveness and value by focusing more in a strengths way of working.
What makes a great team? A great leader? Talented individuals? A clear purpose? All of the above and more. This episode helps to define what we mean by 'team', as most of us function within a range of different types of teams... sports, management, service provision or focused task or product, all require good team-working. However, teamwork is often easier to talk about than to deliver. In this episode Steve Morgan focuses on an influential book on his team development work, written by Warren Bennis and Patricia Biederman 'Organising Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration'. A combination of great leadership and talented individuals are required, but the great groups studied in this seminal publication help to identify fifteen components of what contribute to the development of 'great groups'. In connection with previous episodes, it is also important to recognise that interfering bureaucracy is entirely absent from the works of the historic great groups!
As western industrialised societies have drifted into a post-industrial service industries world, one thing proliferates more than the most infectious of diseases... bureaucracy! Now anything to do with paper, or its electronic offspring, reigns supreme. Managing, auditing and regulating have become effective barriers to creativity and innovation. The new mantra is standardisation, systematisation, uniformity and safety... conformity ensures mediocrity will be the outer limits of permitted imagination. Do the children of today dream and aspire to become a bureaucrat when they grow up? Do they loose sleep over the excitement of their first suit and form to fill? Take with a large degree of caution any bureaucrat promising to reduce the plethora of bureaucracy. It is not in their interests to free up other people to exercise their talents, initiative and decision-making skills.
Why develop care or support plans in health and social care services? Isn't it just another one of those bureaucratic requirements from the world of box-ticking, form-filling, audit-pleasing managerial culture? Well no it shouldn't be; we need a thoughtful person-centred approach to the complex physical and psychological needs experienced by many people across all age groups and disabilities. The strengths approach focuses specifically on the priorities expressed by the person through the vehicle of a strengths assessment, and these priority wishes will only become achievable goals if we put some kind of plan in place. The planning element is essentially about actions and responsibilities for actions. Within a strengths approach care or support planning is not limited to strengths-based wishes, we also need to plan for the difficulties and concerns that need to be managed. But the paperwork, paper-based or electronic, will have a role to play if we can keep it to the essential minimum amount.
Putting together a business plan is vitally important but requires some caution. We are reminded that the realities of life happen to us while we are busy making other plans. For all the well thought out plans we still need to respond to events and circumstances. This episode explores five reasons why we should be cautious about the amount of time invested in planning, as well as the danger of becoming rigidly attached to our plans. Steve Morgan uses his own experiences through the Practice Based Evidence Consultancy in response to each of the points of caution.
Whatever your career or business that you are involved in, you may engage in degrees of forward planning. So why put together a business plan? Whether you are 'planning' (i.e. the vision thing) or making plans (i.e. the detail thing), there are a number of good reasons to have a plan for your business or career in place, and also to keep reviewing that plan. This episode sets out 6 reasons in favour of degrees of planning, and uses the presenter's own personal experience in moving from employment in a national organisation to going it alone in self-employment as a case study to illustrate the reasons. The episode finishes with a message of caution through a reality check, life may rarely mirror your plans.
This episode raises the philosophical question of 'why plan?', and what role does planning play in our day-to-day lives? We all have needs and wants, and it is the conscious or subconscious plans that help us to exert some control in our aim of achieving them. We engage in relationship plans, financial goals, career planning, and chosen uses of leisure time. It is a natural human activity that can become quickly mired in the bureaucratic jargon of goal-setting, care planning, support planning, where we talk of being person-centred when our systems are imposing service-centred solutions on people. It can be a conflict between a requirement for order and a way of managing chaos, even though some people claim to prefer chaos. Plans can't guarantee success but they can help to build confidence, apply order and structure, focus our energy, provide a road map. In the event of a crisis we have means of responding with our own personal crisis plans; and in anticipation of something desired going wrong we should have some kind of contingency plans.
Dave is a reported case example (not interview) of someone advancing in age and who is not only coming to terms with complex health problems, but is also adamant about exerting his own views of what a plan for his life should look like when in contact with health care professionals. Dave has recently lost his wife in a road traffic accident, and his children are concerned about his care needs as he is now diagnosed with Alzheimers disease. Dave puts his strengths to work, using skills he has developed over many years as a financial advisor, as well as his passion for reading up about his condition and the way services should work for him, not making him fit into a standard bureaucratic process. He challenges his local services to be genuinely person-centred and flexible in the way they meet with him, listen to him, and document his wishes. He also makes it very clear that he will not become a token gesture to service user involvement by refusing an invitation to join a local strategic committee.
One of the main challenges of the widely recognised ageing population is how we tap into the deep well of resources in older people, as well as identifying more resources in order to support older people with specific needs. This episode will explore the idea of 'care capital' from the perspective of contributing through voluntary work. An emphais is placed on the baby boomer generation, with a wealth of skills and talents alongside a desire to contribute something back into society. What do others gain from our charitable contributions? The flip side of that coin is that we also gain enormously from making contributions of time and effort; not least the protective factors that come from structured physical and psychological activity. There are a multitude of opportunities in local communities, but our more flexible way of thinking about work should also be reflected in more flexible ways in which we may be able to shape our voluntary contributions, so that we tap into the strengths of the many. A good neighbour befriending scheme is identified as one personal example.
In conversation with Toby Williamson regarding his role in the Mental Health Foundation focused on Later Life. Services for older people are traditionally looked on negatively, particularly dementia. In this episode Toby reflects on the positives of how we are living longer, and the majority of people, even those 'living with dementia', are experiencing a good quality of life. Mental health problems are not a necessary companion of growing older, and even the comparative cognitive decline can be adapted to. We can develop more of our own protective factors by planning more for an active retirement. Two-thirds of people living with dementia do so in their own homes, and the Dementia Friendly Communities and Age Friendly Cities initiatives are two of the many positive developments contributing to the better well-being of older people. The challenges for service providers is to attract more excellent practitioners to see the exciting challenges and opportunities offered by working in these services. The lack of cure or effective medical treatments opens the door to a range of other exciting therapeutic opportunities for supporting people and their informal carers. Finally, we should also do more to tap into the 'care capital' potential of baby boomers retiring with experience and a commitment to contribute back to society.
Toby Williamson works for the UK Mental Health Foundation in the role of Head of Development & Later Life, and is extensively published particularly around the subjects of Values and Mental Capacity. Here he talks about what we mean by 'values' in mental health practice, borrowing a phrase from Professor Bill Fulford who describes them as 'action guiding words'. He explores the importance of values diversity, reflected particularly in the expectations of how we set up multidisciplinary teams. Toby draws on examples from his previous role managing Impact, an assertive outreach team developed in the voluntary sector services run by Mind in Hammersmith & Fulham (west London). Toby and Steve also reflect on the conflict between person-centred values upheld by the majority of public service practitioners, and the commercial values slowly creeping into UK public services in recent years.
What are values? This episode highlights the importance of reflecting on these largely unseen influences on everything we think, we do, we decide, they inform our core beliefs, they are the sum of who we are. Nothing more than that! So, if they have such a significant influence we would be well advised to be more aware of what they are. They come dressed up in almost endless lists of good words, but this episode argues for spending more time examining the impact they have on the ways we behave and act in particular situations. Steve Morgan poses a series of questions to help us explore our underlying values, offering examples from his own experiences by way of illustration. Core personal and corporate values are contrasted, and examples are identified of where conflicting values can contribute to better decisions, or even disasters. As a strengths approach, the examination of values is one way of demonstrating how we are putting genuine person-centred practice into action.
Kirt Hunte talks about his passions for Liverpool Football Club, playing sunday league football, and cricket. A jokey conversation but with the important final message that we should enjoy what we love, love what we enjoy, and instill passion into that which excites us. Not forgetting to drink good red wine in celebration!
Kirt discusses his early introduction to the nursing profession growing up in Trinidad, before making the move to Guy's Hospital in London. He reflects on a few important influences in those formative professional years before he developed his specialist interest in acute mental health care and the provision of crisis response and resolution teams. He initiated the South Camden Crisis Team in 2001 and managed it through to 2011, and is in a good position to reflect on the qualities of a good team as well as its individual practitioners. Kirt identifies the support and development of new workers as one of many rewards of team management, as well as his rare combination of bringing gestalt psychotherapeutic skills and experience into the arena of short-term crisis working.
How often do we stop and reflect on our values and principles? Not often enough, despite the fact they influence who we are, what we think, what we decide, and how we present to the world around us. It can often take a sudden message or event that sharply challenges our values that triggers that very reflection on our personal standpoint. One such message recently encountered in the UK Observer Sunday newspaper was an article examining the gulf between the wealth and focus of private equity firms increasingly owning and running social care services for our most vulnerable people in society. The senior personnel and owners/shareholders are on astronomic salaries and dividends, and by contrast, many of the workers are forced to provide the work for less than a minimum wage. If we examine the NHS Constitution we can be forgiven if we ask the question 'what price are we now placing on compassion and care?' Meanwhile, the politicians of all persuasions seem equally complicit in the neglect of fundamental values-based practice, more concerned not to offend the powerful in their pursuit of value-for-money (aka greed and inequality). Our most vulnerable and needy in society should never become pawns in the game of profit, but the slow creeping takeover by private equity of the ownership of social care is making care and compassion commodities to be exploited.
In this second part of the interview Wanda Rusiecki talks about the work she does as a case manager with specific service users, 'getting on the healthy side' and supporting people to exercise more control over their own lives. She recognises the real reasons behind the cynacism and mistrust that some people come with, and how the focus on the conversation and humble listening helps to create a different experience of services for many people. The issue of 'time' is discussed; it is the service user's time, so we need to ask how they want to make best use of it, rather than succumbing only to systems needs that serve more bureaucratic requirements. Helping people to search for satisfaction also brings greater satisfaction in the work for practitioners.
Wanda Rusiecki also reflects on working alongside the criminal justice system through court order treatment, the importance of integrating mental and physical health care to be truly holistic, and the role for peer services employing service users to tap into their experience and talents.
Wanda Rusiecki has been working in 'intensive case management' services in New York State for 25 years, supporting some of the most vulnerable people experiencing mental health problems within the state system. Wanda describes her experiences working intensively with small caseloads of people with very complex problems, who require a stronger degree of linking and co-ordinating of services as well as more creative ways of engaging trusting working relationships. Wanda's reflections pick up on her value base that emerged from childhood as a theme for connecting with those who present as different. She identifies the importance of 'strengths' in her own approach of developing the conversation and listening more through 'looking for the healthy side of people'. Wanda identifies the characteristics of what makes for a good case manager and what has sustained her to stay in this line of work for the long-term, as well as the challenges that the 'system' presents when trying to deliver best practice. The true meaning of 'recovery' is identified through eliciting each individual to tell their own story and identifiy their own priorities.
How do we go about making decisions? The answer partly depends on the situations or circumstances we are in... situational decision-making is an assessment of the situation followed by a quick mental simulation of the likely outcome of our chosen course of action. It is based in experience, responds to pressures on available time, and helps us manage ambiguous detail. It is a partly intuitively based approach to decision-making. Alternatively, analytical decision-making is a more structured approach applied to research, clinical and other work situations where masses of abstract data need processing, or a range of different people come together to make a decision, and there is a greater requirement to objectively justify the decision. Ultimately it is not so much about finding the right or wrong decision, but more about our 'confidence' in the decisions we have made. Confidence will be underpinned by a focus on the strengths that can be identified and productively applied as a crucial component in our decision-making approach. An absence of identified strengths can still offer confidence, but in these circumstances it will be confidence in making the more risk averse decisions.
Positive risk-taking and risk decision-making are challenges that can be achieved with greater confidence if the right conditions are in place. For practitioners within health and social care services, and others beyond these services, a number of factors can influence your degree of confidence in your decision-making. Being genuinely person-centred, as we are always dealing with an individual with their unique combination of strengths alongside the problems and the risks. Good team-working, and support and supervision, can greatly influence the quality of decisions influenced through the culture of the team or service. The issue of 'culture' should also extend to the wider organisation, through the understanding of positive risk-taking and processes of decision-making, and supporting people's decisions irrespective of outcome if they have followed reasonable guidelines of good practice. Accessing appropriate tools to guide and influence decision-making, as well as prioritising the time needed for some of those more complex and challenging decisions.
Risk-taking is part of a healthy way of living, and we make decisions every day. However, just occasionally we are confronted with potential life-changing decisions, such as changing a job, moving our home, expressing feelings for others, ,arriage, children, divorce, and end of life choices. How can we face some of these major decisions and make them with greater degrees of confidence? This episode offers a number of common sense tips to help us develop that confidence. Being reflective, checking things out with trusted friends, being aware of consequences, being open to learning not just seeing things as simple as success or failure.
Sue Jugon describes her interest and influence on developing a unique assertive outreach team within a rural locality of Northamptonshire in England over 10 years. She explains how this type of service connected with her fundamental values and principles for working with some of the most vulnerable people. She questions what services are actually doing to engage with people needing appropriate services, and the importance of identifying the staff members who she felt would work in different ways and form a genuine 'team approach'. 'Funky Mental Health' is a description of Sue's vision for the different type of service needed, and she identifies the need for 'skilled misfits' if you are truly going to deliver something out of the ordinary.
An interview with Sue Jugon exploring the influences on her practice as a mental health nurse, team and service manager. Looking at the early influences of growing up in a farming background, and coming into nursing from initial experiences within learning disability services. A strong emphasis emerges about taking opportunities to have a go at things, without being constrained by the possibilities of failure. Sue is a person for whom working with the most vulnerable people is a life-long passion, and her career path has never deviated from the values and principles that remain focused on the needs of the most vulnerable. She also talks about her own continuing aspirations, and a natural talent for exploring the playing of different musical instruments. Above all else, it is the love of her children that keeps her focused on who she is, and continues to bring out the best of a dedicated person.
Are we risk takers or are we generally more conservative in our risk decision making, more risk averse? There is no blanket answer to this question for any of us, as there are different situations and circumstances that influence us in different ways. Health and Social Care service practitioners may become more risk averse in particular situations, and some will be more risk averse depending on their own experiences. When is it ok to be risk averse? When it is the clearly reasoned decision based on careful consideration of the information available to us. Risk decisions will be part of everyday experiences within health and social care services across all sectors e.g. mental health, learning disability or older persons services. The same principles apply to all of us in our personal lives, when we are confronted with situations that require a difficult decision.
We live and work to varying degrees in a blame culture, which can drive us unintentionally to make more risk averse decisions on occasions. But taking risks is an essential part of a healthy life. The questions that we need to address are why we take risks, and then to consider how we go about taking risks. The concept of Positive Risk-Taking is discussed in this episode, as something that emerged in the thinking relating to mental health services, but is equally applicable to everyone's lives. The concept is firmly based in strengths-thinking, because we gain confidence in taking risks if we are more aware of our or others strengths. The discussion highlights the importance of clearer use of language in order to communicate more precisely what we mean. A further message is that a risk averse option is not a risk-free option. Quotes are used to illustrate the importance of taking risks in our lives.
In Part 2 of this extensive interview Steve Onyett explores his work interests and influences. With a focus on the current challenging and exciting times faced by health and social care services he discusses ideas around leadership, the role that solution focused approaches have played in his practice as well as development of others, and the 'bonkers' nature of the system that has emerged across the last couple of decades. In relation to the priorities of the 'system' the question arises as to whether there is a place for the Sacred Fools to make a real impact? As for the next steps in his journey he explores the importance to him of becoming involved in the 'Way of Council' approach to personal development, and also outlines the true meaning of listening as he explores the idea of 'listening from the heart'. Steve embodies an excellent example of how and why we should honour both our ancestors as great influences on our own development, but also our successors through our care for the planet and the legacy we pass on to the next generation.
Professor Steve Onyett reflects on the values that have influenced his work and personal development across the last 30 years, including where those values have emerged from. He identifies two particular people who have been influential, one specifically on his professional roles in mental health services, and the other offering him a mentoring role in his development as a spiritual being. Steve is a well respected facilitator, coach, researcher and writer, but this interview also explores his aspirations in areas of environmental activism and the wider humanistic approach to personal development and his desire to support others. He is particularly engaged in the 'Way of Council', and the idea of a deeper 'listening from the heart'.
An ordinary life is an exceptional life in so many ways, particularly if we devote some time to reflecting on who we really are, what we are good at, and what we want out of our normal lives. So, can the idea of a Strengths Assessment as derived from health and social care services apply to everyone else who has nothing to do with being in need of or delivering such services?
Lets leave the idea of paperwork tools and unnecessary bureaucracy in its rightful place (the bin?). The concept is perfectly applicable to all of us when we think of it as our own informal subconscious way of adapting our personal values and principles to situations we find ourselves in throughout our lives. A strengths approach can provide a guide to the path we follow, whether that is a rocky rooad or a smooth highway at different points in time.
Thinking about and applying our strengths happens in every situation... moving home, changing jobs, developing new relationships or bringing up children. We draw on our accumulated experiences and resources, as well as taking a few risks along the journey.
We don't normally confront a challenge by seeking out and applying our weaknesses. We actually draw on what we can do, what we are good at, apply our skills, adapt to circumstances, and call on others with the necessary expertise to help us accomplish the challenge. We work to our strengths!
When should we be starting to build up a Strengths Assessment, including within health and social care services? The answer is 'immediately', it should be a natural default position to how we connect with people and think about who they really are.
Searching for and using peoples strengths should be equally relevant when someone is acutely unwell or going through a period of crisis. It is not something that we just set aside a one-off time slot to complete; it is an on-going fluid conversation. The picture has to emerge over time if we are to have faith in it as an accurate positive picture of personal resources.
It requires a different mindset of practitioners working with clients/patients/service users. Medical approaches focus on the issue of identifying the diagnosis, as a descriptor of problems. It requires degrees of self-disclosure in order to engage a stronger therapeutic relationship.
Paperwork has a place for prompting and capturing the detail; but bureaucracy has no place in a picture of positive practice. We are ultimately helping people to build a positive picture of themselves, and of the resources they can personally apply to exert more control over their own experiences.
Building a Strengths Assessment is like painting a picture, requiring careful attention to the detailed layers of its construction. From the broad brush of the different parts of our lives, to the strokes and touches that represent the fine detail of who we are. Nobody's life is simply black and white, we all have colours, contrasts and textures that help to define us. But don't expect the canvass to give up its secrets lightly, a Strengths Assessment requires attention and passionate inquiry of a life lived and a future one hoped for. The detail of a Strengths Assessment addresses the core questions of what is going on at the moment, what do you want to change, and what resources are needed to achieve that change? It is based in a few very practical principles that are outlined in this episode.
Death has a strange way of focusing us on the good times, on the positive experiences of the deceased, whatever the bigger picture may have looked like. In this episode Steve reflects on the recent sudden death of his ex-wife, but this is more of an emotional tribute to the ways in which the two children of the former marriage cope with difficult circumstances. In adversity we can sometimes draw on a well of personal strengths and qualities that we may have been unaware even existed. There are many way in which we identify and use our strengths.
An interview with Satsanga (Lawrence Borish) where he details the story of Anna, a client from the early days of his Social Work career, and the challenges of supporting Anna to achieve her dreams within a system that unintentionally institutionalises people. The case study illustrates how a strengths approach can be put into practice, and the challenges and risks that have to be overcome in order to support people in a genuinely person-centred way.
An interview with Satsanga (Lawrence Borish) about his life in Social Work, exploring his values and reflections on the role that a strengths approach has played in the way he engages with people. He also reflects on some of the barriers he has encountered to other people thinking and working in this way.
What do we mean by assessment? As a concept it applies in ordinary lives not just in formailsed services. Most assessment focuses on the problems and deficits, so we need to be prompted to give equal attention to what we are good at. A strengths assessment will offer resources and confidence to underpin any call-to-action. It helps us to articulate our priorities and exert some control over our own lives. Genuinely working with strengths still has barriers to overcome.
When building a picture of our strengths it is important to reflect back on personal achievements and events in our history that we can take some pride in. This episode showcases a hospital radio programme built around a sponsored parachute jump on 3rd May 1981.
A new skill involves the development of new brain synapses, but true talents and strengths are interwoven in the whole weave of the brain.
We need to focus more attention on what we can do, and less obsession with fixing weaknesses.
Focus on what you have control over.
It's about systems as much as it is about people.
Talent needs encouragement and direction.
Being aware of weaknesses is a part of helping us to build on our strengths.
Our talents run deep, they are not just superficial positive comments.
We are not always encouraged to identify talents, so for many people they are unaware of them.
They can often be discovered by accident, when we are least expecting something to emerge.
We need to be open and personally reflective to recognise when a talent is at play.
Everyone has talents the trick is how to discover them.
Don't waste time comparing yourselves to other experts, they had to start somewhere as well.
Once discovered we have a personal responsibility to make best use of our talents, for the benfit of ourselves and others.
It is the productive application of a talent that underpins the development of a strength.
We don't spend enough time identifying and working with our personal qualities and strengths, but we all have them.
We all have talents, abilities, capabilities, desires, motivations and wishes.
Our strengths underpin our abilitiy to take risks and make decisions.
As an approach in health and social care the concept emerged through Social Workers in the University of Kansas in the early 1980's.
As a focus for successful businesses worldwide the study of strengths has been a key programme for the Gallup organisation for several decades.
The approach applies equally to individual clients, employees, teams and organisation-wide.