Change Conversations in Healthcare: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic
Whatever your organisation’s healthcare – or broader health sector – context, this course will prepare your people to step into and engage in (rather than avoid) needed change conversations, even under conditions of pressure.
Conducted with groups (potentially, just about any) in your organisation, the course will also help those involved develop their personal and interpersonal effectiveness more broadly.
Two versions of the course are offered – though we can also work with you to create a tailored program. The two versions are Introductory (3 hours) and Regular (2 days equivalent).
Each version includes punchy, to-the-point and engaging e-learning modules and reflective exercises together with very interactive workshops (online or face-to-face), with a focus on actual challenges facing participants.
The Introductory and Regular course versions are outlined below.
INTRODUCTORY COURSE
The Introductory Course equips your managers and professionals with a structure and set of tools for preparing to engage safely and productively with others on whatever change and other challenges they face. Examples might be in areas such as stuck change, respectful behaviour, teamwork, collaboration, conflict, development and performance.
These are commonly areas where conversations are avoided or handled poorly by managers and professionals. Yet, stronger outcomes as well as better, safer conversations are possible with the skills and tools introduced in this course.
Participants learn to ground what they say more in data and evidence, demonstrate practical empathy for others, and speak to what is true to them.
The approach they learn is simple to grasp, powerful and deep-reaching in its impacts, and generalisable to virtually any change-related or uncomfortable interpersonal situation.
The Introductory Course involves 1 hour of punchy and engaging online modules as well as reflection activities to introduce the basic concepts, followed by an interactive 2-hour virtual workshop to explore applications and participants’ challenges.
This learning approach:
- Minimises time away from regular work;
- Gives participants freedom to choose when they learn the basic content and;
- Ensures that valuable workshop time is focused on participants’ needs and concerns as well as practical applications.
Participants learn to apply the Australian-developed and internationally-recognised OBREAU conversation model (observation, reasonableness, authenticity), a method they can use to help figure out, and approach, pretty much any change or interpersonal issue they need to deal with.
As a standalone mini course, this is an ideal accompaniment to a leadership, professional development, or coaching program, or as a unique and valuable development opportunity for a team.
The online modules cover these topics:
- Why conversations about change are so important – and why they often don’t go well, if at all
- Dialogue – developing joint understandings, as far as possible, for change
- Common default behaviours that get in the way of successful change conversations
- Introduction to the OBREAU conversation model
- Case examples of applying the model
- Practical pointers for putting OBREAU to work.
In the workshop, we look into questions raised by participants, consider applications in their workplace contexts, and give them opportunities to try out the OBREAU tools with a change issue for themselves.
As evidence of OBREAU’s international recognition, a workshop on the model was awarded ‘Outstanding Educator Workshop” at the (US) Association of Leadership Educators Conference in 2016. OBREAU is also used by HealthCareCAN(ADA)’s learning arm, CHA Learning, in an e-learning course, ‘Talking About Tough Issues’, in partnership with Don Dunoon.
In summary, participants in the introductory Change Conversations: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic course gain:
- A structure they can potentially use in preparing for conversation on virtually any change issue
- Insights into how to reduce defensiveness and threat, and promote safety, when talking about change and other difficult issues
- Initial practice in applying the OBREAU model with a change issue relevant to themselves
The skills introduced in this course are foundational capabilities underpinning other soft skills such as influence and managing relationships. We’re getting people started on a set of practices they can potentially apply in a wide variety of contexts.
Contact us to find out more about Change Conversartions: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic – Introductory Course.
REGULAR COURSE
The Regular course incorporates, then builds upon and deepens, the learning from the Introductory course. To take a dive-training analogy, whereas the Introductory course visits a ‘shallow, relatively protected reef for diving practice’, the regular course involves ‘a series of visits and practice sessions at deeper, more challenging reefs’.
Combining 3 hours of engaging self-paced learning over 2-3 months with 3 x 3-hour highly interactive workshops, the Regular course helps participants engage with others safely and productively about change, even in pressured and demanding environments. The skills learned are applicable in situations of, for instance, apparent conflict, stuck change, people skirting around sensitive topics, or where psychological safety appears to be lacking. Such situations, if not handled well, can be missed opportunities for growth and improvement and very costly to organisations.
Change conversation skills are among the most fundamental skills managers and professionals need, with potentially big, positive impacts on workplace performance and culture.
(All the following content on this page relates to the Regular Course.)
Engaging Through Deeper Conversation, Dialogue
In Change Conversations in Healthcare: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic participants learn how to engage with others through deeper conversation, dialogue, to move beyond common patterns, and explore vexing, ‘thorny’, ‘sticky’ change issues in greater depth, to build shared understandings, as far as possible, as a basis for further action.
Even where change is contested, or unpopular, or where others express no interest in in-depth conversations, the methods participants learn will put them in a stronger position.
They learn to see more of the complexities of change, ground the conversation in data, explore different perspectives, and authentically share what’s important, thereby creating a solid platform for moving ahead.
The course helps participants activate more of the potentially available intelligence (their own and others’) in working through the issues. (Think of ‘potentially available intelligence’ as otherwise hidden, trapped, unspoken, as if ‘below the waterline’ of an iceberg – yet potentially accessible through dialogue.)
What’s more, participants can put their new skills into practice immediately, potentially reaping benefits from Day 1, though – and as with any practice – they will get better as they continue to work on their skills.
Drawing on the OBREAU conversation model (Observation, Reasonableness, Authenticity), the course utilises engaging e-learning content (punchy, to-the-point modules) together with reflection exercises as well as highly practical and interactive live virtual workshops.
Contact us to find out more about Change Conversations in Healthcare: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic and how it can benefit your managers and professionals – and the organisation.
Building Capabilities in Three Critical Areas
Whereas many courses focus on knowledge or skill acquisition in narrow technical or specialist domains, Change Conversations in Healthcare: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic builds underlying capabilities in three key areas (as shown in the graphic).
These capabilities are critical to offsetting some of the detrimental effects of intense pressures and associated defensive communications patterns, as well as maximising the attainment of desired outcomes, again as shown in the graphic.
Hover over each capability area in the graphic to learn more.
Building Capabilities in Three Critical Areas
Whereas many courses focus on knowledge or skill acquisition in narrow technical or specialist domains, Change Conversations in Healthcare: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic builds underlying capabilities in three key areas (as shown in the graphic).
These capabilities are critical to offsetting some of the detrimental effects of intense pressures and associated defensive communications patterns, as well as maximising the attainment of desired outcomes, again as shown in the graphic (zoom to enlarge).
Leading to Outcomes:
• Faster progress on change and transformation
• Better achievement of business results
• Healthier, more open workgroup cultures
How the Regular Course is Organised and Presented
Change Conversations in Healthcare: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic is conducted with in-organisation cohorts and is designed to minimise participants’ time away from regular work. The regular course involves the equivalent of 2 days of learning, ordinarily over 2-3 months. The e-learning modules and reflective activities consist of about 3 hours learning over this time, coupled with 3 x 3-hour live, virtual workshops (or shorter peer learning meetings if preferred).
The e-learning sessions are designed to be fast-paced (modules average 6 minutes running time) and highly engaging. Realistic scenarios, practical advice and action tips will ensure your participants find the modules useful and stimulating. As one put it, “All of the modules were very informative and clear in concept”. The modules include work sheets and guides to help learners put the concepts and tools to work from the get-go.
The live workshops provide opportunities for participants to work together in small groups, helping each other apply the concepts and tools from the e-learning modules in making sense of their challenges, preparing to speak, engaging to advance change, and developing their own mindset capabilities. The spacing between workshops enables opportunities for practice and reflection, ensuring ‘fresh material’ to work with in the next session. (While 3 x 3-hour workshops is the norm, other arrangements, including for shorter sessions, can be made to suit client needs.)
The combination of these two modes of learning – e-learning modules and live, virtual peer learning meetings/workshops – gives learners a richer, more compelling and more potent experience than either mode could alone.
Additional options include:
A train-the-trainer service, enabling your internal learning and development people to run the live, virtual workshops (or shorter peer learning meetings) directly, supported by the e-learning modules.
Customisation of the e-learning modules to better meet your organisation’s needs, including with the development of locally relevant scenarios.
Individual coaching, to assist learners in working through their own change challenges.
Contact us to find out more about the course, including pricing. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how economical is Change Conversations in Healthcare: Safer, Clearer, More Authentic.
Which Groups Will Most Benefit?
The course will benefit just about anyone needing to work with others to bring about change in healthcare settings. Examples include:
- Executives leading major cross-organisational system change
- Planners, change managers, and facilitators supporting change initiatives
- Clinicians seeking to improve practice or processes in their specialist areas
- Managers implementing change, including change prescribed from above
- Team leaders wanting to make progress on specific issues with groups or individuals (about, e.g., teamwork, values/behaviour, or performance)
- Functional specialists (e.g., HR, Finance, IT, Quality) working to enable change with partner departments
- Individual contributors seeking change on aspects of concern to them, e.g., regarding the behaviour of colleagues or having their own needs recognised.
The course can be adapted for virtually any cohort, including executive teams and groups of individuals impacted by change.
