Leading with Hope, Heart and Head – IHI visit to Corporate

 21st May 2025

Written by Matt Oultram, Improvement Advisor, Corporate, and Jo Moore, Associate Director of Quality Improvement

This year’s IHI visit to Corporate had a unique focus – Leading with Hope, Heart and Head. It was designed to bring teams across Corporate together and discuss how we can continue to support our teams through challenges and complexities of leading our teams and delivering value as a trust over this financial year. We had the pleasure of hosting Pedro Delgado, Vice President of the IHI, who leads the IHI’s work across Europe. The session was attended by over 70 attendees, representing almost every team in Corporate.

Tanya Carter (Chief People Officer) and Kevin Curnow (Chief Finance Officer and QI Lead for Corporate) opened the session with introductions and an outline of the Trust’s current financial strategy.

Setting the scene

The Digital Team (Figure 1) offered an inspirational narrative of their journey since COVID-19, sharing how our digital infrastructure and systems at ELFT have undergone significant transformation, from rapid shifts to hybrid working and mobile device adoption to the establishment of robust governance structures like the Digital Strategy Board. We heard about the strides they have made in improving clinical systems and infrastructure. They described that despite risks such as revenue shortfalls and growing cyber threats, their commitment to enhancing patient care through digital innovation continues.

A key take-away from the team was a clear focus on bringing the whole team along on a three- year journey, investing in relationships and establishing a culture of trust, where staff ‘lean into’ a challenge together, maintaining constancy of purpose towards their goals.

The discussion section highlighted an opportunity to share great work and learning more widely across the trust, and join our corporate functions up more meaningfully across our management system.

Pedro’s “Habits of the Heart” talk showed us the importance of collective responsibility, valuing diversity, managing tension constructively, fostering personal agency and building community. Demonstrating how these principles are essential for creating a supportive and effective organizational culture. Pedro illustrated these points by reflecting on his team climbing to summit of the highest mountain in the Americas, Mount Aconcagua (Figure 2)

A sound bite that resonated with participants was Pedro’s closing statement from a former sports coach, reminding us that creating sustainable change which seeks to bring staff and service users with us on the journey takes time but is worth our investment.

‘You have to swim slow to swim well, and swim well to swim fast’

 

The World Café!

Following these insights, we progressed to the heart of the session: The World Cafe, where all attending broke into groups to address the questions –

• How do we lead our teams with hope through challenging times?
• What are the obstacles to maintaining hope?
• What support do we need to enable us to lead with hope?

How do we identify opportunities to maintain hope through challenging times? (Figure 3)

These are important questions and invited a multitude of responses, as summarized in the table below –

 

What’s next…

After some reflection, discussion and debate (Figure 4), we summarized the group conversations into the following goals –

 

Storytelling for Inspiration: Inspire and motivate teams by showcasing real-life examples of success and perseverance.

Peer Recognition – Small Teams: Foster a culture of appreciation and support, enhancing team morale and cohesion.

Celebrating Success: Boost team spirit and motivation by acknowledging and celebrating successes regularly.

Looking after Ourselves and Our Teams: Promote physical and mental well-being, reducing burnout and increasing overall productivity and job satisfaction.

Building on the Way We Communicate: Improve clarity, reduce misunderstandings, and ensure everyone is aware of and aligned with the department’s goals and progress.

Bringing Together Quality and Value: Achieve better outcomes by continuously improving processes, enhancing quality, and delivering value.

We heard final reflections from each of the tables, our senior leads and Pedro. By the end of the session, we had discussed the things that really matter to us moving forward.

We look forward to working with teams to put these goals into action. Thank you to all who attended and contributed to the session.