Two are placed at risk and seconded for six months to other organisations, one in a different sector. Another survives restructuring to find his responsibilities are now those once delivered by a team of six.

People are shifting (and being shifted) around. In almost every case, the scope of the new role is significantly broader, in unfamiliar territory and not from personal career choice. While some wing their way effortlessly through such circumstances, many understandably feel forced out of their comfort zone and concerned they cannot meet the new demands.  

‘Aim to make what may have been an enforced change into something that works for you’

Turning these situations to our advantage enhances our career prospects. It means choosing to focus not on fleeing to another comfort zone but on fighting to alter the dynamics of the new role until we feel we will be stretched, rather than snapped, by it.

If you want to “fight”, remember the power to negotiate is there before, not after, we accept the new position. Translate your concerns about achievability into the potential risks for the organisation and your family. Consider the way to address them: an affordable developmental programme to fill a skills gap; simplification of the mandate or range of projects; reduction in the number of direct reports; buy in more support at home. Above all, aim to make what may have been an enforced change into something that works for you.

Offer your observations and solutions to your prospective manager. Every little counts so don’t dismiss small or simple.

Working with the same people or not, your new role yields opportunity for you to reinvent yourself – taking forward the best but breaking with the worst of the past.

Anticipating what is to come, fashion a “new you” suited to the new role and, indeed, the next phase in your career.

Employ those readily available tips on starting a new job:

• Listen, watch and select a few carefully framed questions to see how the new place ticks
• Adapt to people’s preferences: communication by email, phone or face-to-face; report styles; briefing requirements
• Value and show respect for all. Take part in office socials but think twice about office politics.

Then it will be time to “stretch” into the role by working more productively and being more skilled in how you prioritise its demands and handle pressure.

Check out your boss’s expectations – how you can contribute to their success – and get regular feedback on. However much you think you know your trade, be open to learning. Delegate, support and develop your team.

Productivity also comes by keeping the role in perspective. Don’t draw all your value from your work. Where you can’t eliminate pressures, compensate with activities that relax and refresh you.

Taking on a new role can be a time of excitement or stress, but is usually a combination of all. Handle it well and we can increase our chances of success and gain a little more pride.

Originally published by the HSJ on 8th December 2010.

First make your own list. Start by reflecting on all your achievements to date, inside and outside work. Then consider testimonials, references, appraisals or compliments and comments on your past work.

Jog your memory further by reviewing the lists of “transferable skills” in career literature and on the internet. For skills more specific to that new profession or trade you seek, focus on materials, publications and websites of the pertinent organisations and sector. Supplement your ideas by scanning job adverts, job descriptions and person specifications.

Remember to include general skills, such as organisational, problem-solving, decision-making; delivering to deadlines, and oral and written communication as well as your unique ones – innovation, process engineering, financial acumen, conflict resolution and so on.

If changing sector, the type and significance of some of your skills will need to be expressed in a way that your new audience understands. For example, “patient and public involvement” may align more with customer care, marketing or public relations; “commissioning” is best translated into its elements such as business planning, resource management, procurement and market research.

Next, organise your listings so that you can easily recall and present them. If categorisation is not immediately obvious, consider the structure of an existing competency framework. Ideally use something you are familiar with such as the Knowledge and Skills Framework.

Subject to your needs, review the Institute of Healthcare Management’s Developing Through Partnership, the leadership qualities framework or the civil service’s competency and skills framework. Cross-reference to frameworks on specific roles and sectors – in and outside the UK.

When the time comes to submit an application, a CV restyle, that competency-based interview or simply a question in everyday conversation, be ready to prioritise and evidence each of your transferable skills. To evidence your competence, learn to “RAP” your answer in 10 to 15 words, describing:

• the result that you achieved;
• the action you took; and
• the problem you addressed.

Emphasise the action you demonstrated; replace non-transferable phrases and indicate the level of your ability. For example, “negotiated trust contracts” becomes “led negotiations across six organisations, achieving 2 per cent (£1m) savings while maintaining service outcomes”. If you can do it confidently, show how the skill might be applied in your new job.

Invest time, too, in learning about the new role, organisation or sector. Short of a secondment or job there, mixing within their networks is the best way to assess the culture of your prospective workplace.

Originally published by the HSJ on 18th October 2010.

Maintaining a positive attitude and being on your best behaviour will leave a lasting impression on your colleagues. You will feel better and more confident in pursuing the subsequent episode in your life or career if you leave with a good reputation and on a positive note.

It’s the personal aspects of your farewell that are likely to be most taxing

On a practical level, observe organisational procedures. If they aren’t already aware, your first priority is to inform your line manager before any other colleague first by speaking to them in person and then formally in writing. Use the conversation to confirm the finer details, such as the notice period. Be sure to offer and, if agreed, deliver an effective handover of remaining tasks. However strong or strained your relationship may be, thank your boss for their support.

Deal with the remaining practicalities in good time. Return organisational property to the appropriate staff and clear up your workspace and computer. Provide an oral and written handover to the relevant colleague, including the location of crucial contacts, documents and other items. Confirm leaver’s benefits including unused vacation and options for adding to, cashing in, rolling forward or transferring your pension plan.

From a professional perspective, bear in mind your future job search, networking and other career needs. Given the high mobility of the workforce, further accelerated in times of restructuring, it’s easy to lose important contacts. If you haven’t already done so, collect useful testimonials, accolades and appraisals. Ask your line manager and senior colleagues to provide a written reference.

Update your CV and send your social and professional networks your new contact details. These records are now readily available for prospective employers.

You never know whose support you will need in the future so, no matter what your experience or feelings, include all colleagues in your goodbye. Your departure is your final opportunity to celebrate, appreciate and repair relationships.

It’s the personal aspects of your farewell that are likely to be most taxing. Whatever the circumstances of your departure, say goodbyes personally. As a minimum, drop a personal (not group) email to let people know you are leaving. Make it casual, express your thanks and their specific contribution to you, extend a wish to stay in touch and include your contact information.

Whether a letter, email, farewell speech or parting word, be brief and to the point. Avoid sensitive issues, try not to be over-emotional or embarrass anyone. Think through and check what you intend to say, or do, with a trusted friend.    

Aim to make your departure an enjoyable experience for everyone. Stay positive and express gratitude. Focus on achievements, enjoyable times and how you have benefited. Remain sensitive to your colleagues’ situations and convey hope for their futures. This way, your parting gift will be to sustain, if not raise, morale among those you leave behind.

Originally published in the Health Service Journal on 9th September 2010.

Three main principles emerge, all centre on taking control: of your direction, your investments and your emotions. Things you would want to do in good times but are still more important to do in difficult ones.

Base your plan on a sound view of the future: you will need to speculate on all that is going to happen.

A strong business plan focuses the attention, actions and resources of businesses on their ultimate goal. With the first whiff of any change in the marketplace, their plans are revised to keep the company moving in the desired direction.

In recession, our first task is to revisit our career plan. As events unfold, adjust or write for the first time your ambitions and the benefits you seek to achieve. Reschedule or schedule time frames to ensure they are still realistic. Refresh or construct your action plan to keep on track.

Base your plan on a sound view of the future: you will need to speculate on all that is going to happen. How long do you expect the recession and public sector freeze to last? What impact is predicted for your sector, service and career? Watch news, listen to critics, surf the websites, network and debate with a range of people to identify the possible scenarios. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.

According to the New Statesman smart businesses are “leanbut not short sighted”. Being lean means managing your investments – inside and outside work. Mindful that it is easier to save than to earn, reducing expenditure also provides more flexibility and choice in your future career moves.

Scrutinise new purchases and recurrent spending: are they needed right now; could they be secured another way – made, mended, borrowed; and, if inevitable, be procured at the required quality but least cost?

As a minimum:

• Continue to increase and hone your competencies. Identify what in your sector – in recession – cannot be done without, and equip yourself to provide it.
• Prepare your marketing materials well in advance. Have your easy-read, results-based CV up to date. Prepare a 15 second summary of your unique contribution to the workplace. Use all available media to attract new work.
• Finally and most importantly, successful businesses understand the power of emotion on behaviour, decision making and action. They control their feelings to ensure their impact for the good. Being aware of the most likely reactions in periods of instability better places you to deal with them when they are evoked in yourself and in others.
• Where decisions about our future are taken out of our control, fear and anxiety predominate.
• Fear destroys confidence. A pre-prepared career plan for all scenarios shortcuts the paralysis and offers immediate direction to your activities.
• Steering our careers through recession and the ensuing reduction in NHS management costs is a challenge we all face.
• Setting out our pathway, harnessing our investments and managing emotions to support our career goals makes for a good start.

Originally published in the Health Service Journal in July 2010.

Reputation counts. A good one provides opportunities to do your job more easily, produce better results and generates rewards and progress in careers. When you’re respected there’s more chance others will seek your input, or hear our views and adopt our ideas.

Google yourself to see what is already out there about you and consider the impression it creates

When we are highly esteemed, others more readily use, recommend and appoint us. Collaborative and trustworthy colleagues are more confident to commit resources to our care, invest their time in our projects and draw us into their activities and networks.

Reputation is rooted in achievement, so harnessing our expertise to improve patient experience will always be our primary goal.

Observers inevitably form impressions – accurate and inaccurate – about us. In the natural course of events, these images are relayed to others. Subject to interest, as well as the reputation of the conveyor, views may be stored, used or discarded, added to an existing image and conveyed further. To ensure a true image of our character and competence is in circulation, we have to move beyond laying the foundation of a “job well done”. We must also safeguard, if not manage, our own reputation.

Start by confirming the reputation you need. Be aware of the spheres you want to work within, as well as those you need to influence, then identify the competencies, contributions, values and behaviours you must demonstrate. Even this first step may expose development needs to address.

Next, uncover your current reputation. What are others saying about you (if anything)? Good, bad or indifferent, significant or insignificant, far-reaching or localised, we all have a reputation.

Recall phrases commonly used about you. Observe reactions to your suggestions or support. Gather and reflect on feedback and testimonials about your performance and behaviour. Google yourself to see what is already out there about you and consider the impression it creates. Contrast the image you need with the one you have to reveal shortfalls in your reputation – challenge any misinformation and misapprehensions.

For example, you may need to improve your practice, contribute more or with more tact, be more fair or supportive with colleagues, or demonstrate more leadership, political awareness or integrity.

Create or raise your profile by taking up a speaking engagement, publishing an innovation, being active within a professional body, or simply displaying your name on documents to show ownership.

Having weighed up the shortfalls in your reputation, it’s time to put things right. As a minimum, deliver your promises, exhibit the best of behaviours, keep your networks vibrant. Stay positive, innovative or at least encouraging, especially in these tough times. But above all, find ways to support your colleagues, your boss and your organisation in making the NHS better.

Originally published in the HSJ on 14th June 2010.

Given our current failure rate, estimated by even the most modest commentators at more than one in three, managers should be aiming to see a better flow of innovative ideas generated and be smarter about implementing and sustaining them.

Give attention to the timid and even seemingly foolish suggestions of those around you

The computer adage “garbage in, garbage out”, is also appropriate toinnovation. If you’re short on ideas, stale or disheartened, then upgrade your inputs.

Start with existing best practices and solutions. Seek out reputable figures from public life – from contemporary business moguls and sports managers through to explorers and inventors of old – and soak in their experiences. Examine “alternative worlds”, concepts and experiences. Use various tools, techniques and templates to stimulate and structure your ideas.

Select seasoned facilitators to allow heated debate among your colleagues, and invite rank outsiders to challenge your ways of thinking. Draw in radical thinkers (to include your service users) and entertain the off the wall comments that take your breath away.

Give attention to the timid and even seemingly foolish suggestions of those around you. When challenged, shocked, insulted or annoyed with a proposal, stop. Invest a moment to question the seeming antagonist a little further before dismissing their notion. Let people tell their stories, express concerns and dreams, appreciate differences and co-design solutions.

Before implementation, test schemes to avoid abandoned projects, wasted resources and demoralisation. Benefits must be justifiable: increased value for patient, public, staff or other stakeholder. Outcomes must be consistent with your goals and values. The scale of improvement must warrant the investment and the level of disruption.

Convinced your proposals serve your purpose, assess the barriers to implementation. Unearth and make explicit the assumptions you have made in arriving at your solutions.

Do not underestimate the pull of organisational culture and heed operational hurdles. Calculate the likelihood and impact of failure then generate ideas to inform your implementation plan, illustrating how each is to be handled.

Finally, keep your implementation programme proportionate to the innovation. Select the right people to get the job done. Enable each to interact as needed with minimal formality.

Keep the programme on track: set realistic timeframes, hold regular check points, maintain motivation, feed back on deliverables and take remedial actions to prevent drift.

Be ready to take responsibility if things go wrong. Be ready to share success. Report on milestones met. Use organisational mechanisms to recognise and reward the efforts of those who lent support.

Innovation is critical whether you are leading an organisation, improving a service, or simply doing your job. However confident we may feel, the good news is we can all develop skills to innovate.

Originally published in the HSJ on 3rd May 2010.

Many health service managers are anxious. Their challenge is to not only sustain but further improve service quality against growing demands with constrained resources and, for many, organisational disruption.

Concern over jobs, livelihoods and careers is emerging.

At the organisations I have been involved with during the past few weeks I have seen some good leadership from managers at all levels. They remain focused, calmly absorb news on the pressures ahead and are carefully pacing themselves and supporting their staff through the uncertainty towards their goals.

In all the turbulence they have not lost their bearings. Whether natural trait or deliberate strategy, they seem to use four points of reference from which they glean information and act.

For one, these managers face and anticipate the future. They are unafraid to read the signs ahead and keep track of what is emerging (and disappearing) on the near and distant horizon. They collect information on the significant changes most likely to impact on their situation – and on how they will impact.

Effective managers prepare to avoid, minimise or even make opportunities out of the impending issues. They put aside potentially paralysing anxiety and channel their energies into action. They make space to be innovative about the way around or through the issue, always looking for what they and their organisation can gain.

They are aware of, but not overly concerned or distracted by, factors that are unlikely to affect them.

Second, they reflect on the near and distant past experience, without seeking to blame, justify or be nostalgic. The learning provides insight into potential “how to” and, perhaps, what not to do. It can also highlight the behaviours that helped and hindered progress.

Understanding the value of collaboration, they look outward to make the utmost of their resources and redesign services accordingly. Working across professional, organisational and sector divides releases everything from ideas and innovation through to economies of scale, while also improving service and patient experience.

Finally, these managers keep their eyes on today. Whatever the future will bring, they remain determined to reach their overall goal – the focus of their job, the remit of their team, the purpose of their organisation, the benefits for service users. They use every practice to encourage their staff to see opportunity in place of threat.

Assessing their priorities, they employ resources to greatest effect and create versatile plans, building in key review dates – especially for significant events.

Keeping our bearings in this and any season of change is essential for continued delivery at the level and quality required. We need to keep our eyes open to the challenges, hunt out solutions, extend our competence and hold fast, confident that we can do it.

Do you know what you want to be doing in five years’ time? You should. A carefully crafted career plan can show you the way forward, especially if your job is stuck in the doldrums and you lack inspiration to change it. The most successful plans are based on honest self-analysis: take time out to appraise your ambitions, experience and skills, and then draft a dynamic new CV.

Career plans

1. Have a career plan – however simple – if only to judge whether you are on target. Most of us have some kind of a plan, even if it’s only in our heads. Try committing yours to paper to see what it looks like.
2. Goals don’t need to be job-specific – fine if your ambition is to “be an astronaut” but not everyone is so definite. Don’t be put off expressing less explicit goals, such as ‘quality: of life and work experience’, or ‘variety: a wide portfolio of managerial skills and experience’.
3. Review your career plan regularly and set yourself fresh objectives: pin point contacts, competencies and knowledge you need to acquire, and roles to investigate further.
4. Make your plan realistic and effective:
   • Indulge in introspective and retrospection to unearth your values, explore what ‘makes you tick’, the skills you have honed, the places and people you like to work with. All this will be useful material when writing your CV later.
   • Anticipate what will be happening two to five years from now – to your profession, your organisation, your home circumstances and the world around you. Changes in these areas can help fulfill your ambitions, or inhibit them.
   • Strike a healthy life-work balance – position your plan in the context of your life and wider ambitions: each can play off the other and help or hinder you.
5. Keep a generic CV up and running on your computer. Update it regularly and overhaul it every two or three jobs, it should show your growing competencies and echo your career plan. Use it to build networks and be ready for relevant jobs when they come up.
6. Think twice before posting off your application. If done well the selection process will take up a lot of your time and energy. Does this position further your ambition, even by an indirect route?
7. Find out if you’re suited to the role by gathering plenty of intelligence on your prospective employer (including the organisation, department and team). Use your networks, as well as the employers adverts, job specs, websites and publicity material. What do they really want? What are they really like? Check if the job suits your career plan – and say so in your application.
8. Exploit (and time) your call to ‘discuss the post further’. Show you are well informed, ask pre-prepared questions to gain more insight, and market yourself by putting across a strong personal profile.
9. Make it easy for the short-listing panel to select you: tailor your CV to their requirements. Using the job description and person specification:
   • shape and structure the content. Move your most significant achievements to the front of each section. Be ruthless: edit out all irrelevant information.
   • Top your CV with a dynamic personal profile (a four or five line summary about you, your areas of expertise and career direction) and make it pertinent to the position.
10. Persuade some critical friends or colleagues to appraise your CV. Remembering the likely competition or the job, put yourself in the employers shoes – what kind of CV would impress you?

CV style file

• Choose and appropriate format: show your career progression by adopting a traditional chronological style, or highlight your transferable skills by using a skills-based format (list, with examples, your key skills aligning them to the employer’s requirements: then briefly add your career summary).
• Take care with layout, spacing and headings – be consistent.
• Pitch the wording at the readership and ban jargon, especially technical terms and abbreviations which may not be understood.
• Quantify your achievement showing the results – size of budgets, number of staff, etc.
• Be succinct.
• Read your finished CV aloud to see if it makes sense.
• Finally, triple check grammar and spellings – don’t rely on spell-checks, and take special care with names.

Originally published in the Health Management Journal in 2002.

Using marketing terminology in relation to the health service is more acceptable now than it has ever been. Many use the term “marketing” synonymously with selling, advertising or promotion and public relations.

Apply this view of marketing to the NHS and a picture appears of providers engaging in any range of activities to communicate more clearly about their service – what’s delivered, to whom and why people should use it. They may just be highlighting the availability of their service or, indeed, they may want to sustain or improve their service’s image.

Conscious of the less attractive competitive behaviors and marketing practices sometimes found within the private sector, many NHS organisations are rightly keen not to have resources squandered on needless or improper promotion. The Code of Practice for Promotion of NHS Services provides a guide to public services in their promotional activities.

The concept of marketing has evolved over past decades. It has moved from one of “selling” to one in which the needs and wishes of the customer are captured and reflected in the service. And services also seek to have a distinctive marketing strategy, to differentiate them from other providers and support the development of their provision.

This is reflected in the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) definition of marketing as “a management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” Public and voluntary sector managers prefer to substitute “efficiently” or “within the resources available” for the word “profitably” in agreeing their vision of effective marketing.

Those who adhere to this broader definition recognise that marketing has more in common with public and patient engagement than “selling”. They see it as an ongoing process of assessing and responding to your position within a dynamic marketing environment. For the NHS, this includes flexing provision to meet the needs and views of public and patients. It means being mindful of the existing or potential provision by “competitors” or alternative providers.

In this model, promotion is viewed as just one possible activity out of a range of optional “marketing mix” adjustments that might be used to keep your service viable or, to use another term, “contestable”.

Take the former view of marketing – that equates to selling, if not promotion – and the benefits are limited. They largely hinge around maintaining or improving your service’s image, and excelling over any competition.

Use the CIM’s broader definition of marketing, review marketing theory and apply the principles and practice to the NHS, and commissioners and providers alike will find there is a range of tools with which to assess and shape provision.

Some marketing techniques may be new, others may already be familiar. For instance, you can use environmental scanning frameworks, such as SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis to assess the future viability of a service.

Market analysis enables you to generate reliable information that can underpin and prioritise marketing efforts and the use of resources.

Mapping different types of customer is a good starting point. These might include commissioners, stakeholders and staff as well as patients, their families and carers, both within the local area and further afield.

In a tendering context, marketing positioning models can help to assess your service’s attractiveness to commissioners compared with those of competitors. Look at what percentage of the market competing providers have, and whether they focus on a niche group within the overall market.

Whatever tools you use, it helps to follow a clear market planning process. Start with marketing objectives, align these to market opportunities and resources, formulate a strategy, then develop and implement a detailed plan of specific marketing activities.

Originally published in the Health Management Journal Sept / Oct 2008

Though some appear to emerge spontaneously, the best teams are not built overnight. The challenge for health service managers is to build productive teams from the members and materials we have or can generate.

Your team will need a reputation for performance

Being familiar with the main ingredients of high performing teams helps us to know how well your team is comprised. For example, to be fully functional your team needs to have a unique and valid identity. Manifestly linked within your directorate and organisational strategy, a sound team remit will state your common aim, values and objectives together with outcome measures. To be effective, the remit must be understood and owned by each team member. It will be known and valued by beneficiaries inside and outside the organisation and there will be an agreed plan to see the remit delivered.

Your team will also need a reputation for performance. Identification of key performance measures, linked to organisational objectives, is a prerequisite. Evidence of team performance should be available and used to confirm the added value your team is bringing to its users and stakeholders. Within a competitive and resource-limited environment, bashfulness about declaring what you have done and for whom is not an option. Your future performance must also be assured: strong team leadership and innovation (including implementation of best practice) across the team will be critical.

Another ingredient is to operate from a supportive base. A strong team spirit will abound and be a necessary factor in sustaining your team through turbulent periods.

Also necessary is that the required competencies and resources are available to the team. Used wisely, they will also be optimised. Members will be clear about their unique contribution to the team and each will be seen to deliver their apportioned responsibilities. The team will use each other’s talents appropriately.

Knowing these key attributes gives you the chance to take a systematic, rather than reactive, approach to developing your own high performing team by:

• assessing your team’s current stage of maturity against the range of criteria;
• prioritising areas for improvement into a meaningful team improvement plan;
• embarking on your plan for improvement;
• measuring progress and continually refreshing the plan, addressing development priorities one by one.

Engage your team throughout the process. Encourage each contributor to advise on the team’s stage of development. Jointly review the results and design the development plan together. Ask each to offer their own talents in, or recommend the talents of others, in delivering the team plan. Above all, use the programme of activities itself to build your team closer together.

Originally published in the HSJ on 8th February 2010.