First-Time Board CDIOs Programme — Cohort 5 Summary

TL;DR: More great learning. Finally getting a grip on timing! A great two days in Manchester. Want to buy a Thermomix?

Background

There’s some background to this Programme, which is available in the Cohort 1 Summary. You can see how it evolved in the Cohort 2, Cohort 3 and Cohort 4 summaries.

Iteration

There was quite a lot of content that remained the same, but with an additional supplier to accomodate and getting CIO superstar David Walliker joining us at last, things moved around a bit.

We couldn’t do this programme without the excellent logistics support from NHS Providers, and our sponsors. This time, we had cruical sponsorship from Channel 3, Moorhouse Consulting, SCC, Block and Nervecentre, the first time we’d had 5 sponsors. This meant that we were able to fund travel for people for the first time. This felt important in the financial climate the NHS finds itself in; to remove as many barriers as we can to people feeling able to attend. We also gave each delegate the same two books as in Cohort 3 and 4, namely The First 90 days and Aspirationally Idle.

Faculty supporting cohort 5:

• Rebecca Moore
• Amy Freeman
• Martin Sadler
• Kate Warriner
• David Walliker
• Mike Fell
• Andy Callow

It was 10 months since we ran Cohort 4, and the wait was worth it, as the majority of delgates were operating at Board level, some only for a matter of days. We initially agreed to 14 delegates (normally we’ve said our limit is 12), but we had two drop outs on the day due to family circumstances. I’m sure people who do this stuff professionally have a known drop out rate, but I’m always disappointed when people are unable to come, not least as someone else could have taken their place. Anyway, even with the drop outs, we had our largest number of attendees, but this feels about the right number — any more and the conversations would feel less natural.

Cohort 5 Programme Summary

We managed to arrive in Manchester in a period of settled weather and beautiful sun and mild temperatues. As we open the session, I always say something along the lines of that the Faculty do this as much out of self-interest as wanting to give something back to the CIO community. This was no different and as I headed into Manchester, feeling worn down by the challenges of life in a Trust, I was bouyed by the prospect of spending time with some bright people and the opportunoity to exchange ideas.

Day 1

You’ll see the agenda is intersperced with book slots — this is where delegates bring a book to give away and talk about the impact it has had on them personally and/or professionally.

After introductions, Amy kicked us off with some Board Basics, setting out the different it means in being on the Board vs a below-board Digital Director. This included sharing her governance structure and how she seeks assurance from the various teams in her portfolio.

Block (first-time sponsoring), led a session on World Class Performance, bringing performance expert Simon Hartley to draw on his experience with elite sportspeople. Stefan and he led it in a brilliantly conversational style. Simon touched on the reality of imposter sydrome, and challenged that the wording syndrome implies that is is something you catch, whereas more accuratly it should be Imposter Moments. He talked about the importance of going out of comfort zones for growth and recognising when we are too long in the comfort zone.

Normally, I do slot on the first 100 days on day 2, but this Cohort I was promoted to day 1. I’d added an additional section to my “How Not To Suck” series of blogs which raised a chuckle.

David from SCC (at least for now), offered his perspective on time in public and private sectors and all things between. He showed some brilliantly creative slides, including his “Career Frogger” illustration.

Martin and Joel from Moorhouse led us on a session about Influencing the Board and asked us to think about the characteristics of influence and what strengths we could play to. They also talked about the nature of changing Board members and the big effect it can have on Board dynamics. I was delighted when they spilled a big bag of Lego over the table and invited delegates to do some Serious Play and create a representation of the influence they have and would like to have.

As the day headed towards the close, Nervecentre facitated a demo, showing the exerimentation they’ve been doing with AI and the considerations that very quickly emerge about having prompts that are too wide.

At the end of Day 1, Martin gave everyone a small piece of homework to do.

His finale for me however, was making conversation with the number of Thermomix reps in the lift, aquiring sufficient information in this time that he was able to do a mini sales pitch to the couple behind us in the check-in queue.

Day 2

After a brief opportunity for delegates to feedback from Day 1, Martin kicked us off with the homework. He then did a typically engaging, challenging and irreverent tour-de-force on Service Management, drawing of course from his highly regarded book “Aspirationally Idle”.

Unfortunatly Kate wasn’t able to join us in person, but did manage to share a few words of wisdom. We missed you Kate!

Channel 3 then led us on a session on AI readiness, including a very thought-provoking breakout session, using their readiness framework.

We then had the brilliant Mike Fell, who gave us an update on the national Cyber Security picture and some pointers for what Boards should be aware of and focused on. I loved how Mike is really clear that this is not a tech thing, Cyber Security is a patient safety issue. I never dare take any photos that Mike shares as he’s generous with sharing material to help us all, but recognise the risk of that giving any help to those who may wish to harm us.

Being in David’s patch, we were really lucky to have some of his time, to take us through his experience as one of the longest serving Board CDIOs in the NHS and provoke us into thinking about the point of being on the Board is to get out of our lanes and think about how the whole organisation is working. Fabulous stuff.

We then managed to split the group in two and squeeze in an Action Learning Set, seeking to try and put some of new thinking into action.

As we came to a close, we distributed the books (see list in Appenix A below) — people were able to pick the book they wanted to take away. We sorted out mentoring arrangements for the next 6 months and collected some feedback on what worked well and what would work better.

Reflections/Feedback

• We had a few audio books — and need to make it clearer in the bumpf that we share out that that is acceptable
• We actually sought to collect delegate and faculty bios in advance, but still didn’t get them all back in time to allow for prior circulation. Perhaps we need to add a bit of an incenitve, apply a bit of nudge theory?
• We still failed to ask each supplier to give a one-page summary of what they do

Appendix A: The Gifted Books

• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• The Art of War — Sun Tzu
• The Ultra Processed People by by Chris van Tulleken
• What White People Can Do Next by Emma Babiri
• Quiet by Susan Cain
• Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
• Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
• The Diary of a CEO by Steve Bartlett
• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
• Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
• The Guilty Feminist by Deborah Frances-White
• Make Your Bed by Admiral William H McRaven
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• No Bullsh*t leadership by Chris Hirst