Having a Virtual Coffee
When I came to Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (BHT) Karen kindly popped into my calendar a 30 minute virtual coffee meeting for anyone who wanted to, to join for a virtual coffee.
This was new to me so I just went with the flow, and what this flow has turned out to be has been really useful.
As we’re moving so fast I don’t prep any materials for these sessions and keep it pretty unstructured — most often I’ll scan my calendar of the last week to talk about some of the things I’ve been involved in, and scan the calendar for the next week to see what’s coming up — in part to get input from other members of the team who will probably have more expertise than me on some of the topics! Occasionally others have flagged to me things that it would be useful to share more broadly
It seems to be popular with folks as more than 30 people regularly rock up! Imagine buying coffee for 30 people and the size of the table we’d need if we did this in real life….
Anyway, in the last 3 weeks this is the diversity of topics we’ve covered.
Walking on wards
As some of you will know I’ve acquired blue gilets to identify the Digital team as we’re out and about in the hospital, and that’s fine for people who have a clinical background — but if yiou don’t it can be daunting walking on wards — particularly on the basics like ‘bare below the elbow’, but also what to do if a shrieking alarm goes off when you’re there. Which is why Joe (Rouse) gave a presentation on what to expect
The blue gilet rota
And talking of gilets, Olly gave a session on how walking the wards in a Gilet made him feel…
Our Wellbeing Town Hall — get slide
We had an ‘All ICT’ meeting with 120 people attending. I’d arranged for a 30 minute session on our Trust’s wellbeing services, and wasn’t bsure how it wopuld go. In the end it went brilliantly with personal testimony from some folks about their experience of anxiety and depression — in part stimulated by a slide from Davinder on Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Our plan is to have regular well being sessions and these are our draft topic areas:
- Coercive Behaviours — 1st March
- Emotional Intelligence — April
- Looking out for each other — May
- Rightful Speech — June
- Conflict — July
- Work/life Balance — August
The CDS 6.3 upgrade and a ‘Bucks excellence report’ from the CEO
We had another Saturday period of PAS downtime and I thanked the folks for their efforts, and we even got spotted by the CEO which then generated a ‘Bucks excellence report’ from Neil for the team!
Apprenticeships
And we reinforced the message from the ICT all team meeting how serious we’re taking Apprenticeships with this slide from Chris
Coaching
Daniela updated us on her own experience of being a coach and mentor — and also promoted our input to build a culture of coaching and mentoring across Health and Social Care within Buckinghamshire by:
- Creating organisational growth mindsets.
- Ensure that senior leaders buy into and engage in coaching.
- Accredit internal coaches and mentors.
- Help everyone develop the capability to use coaching skills.
- Make coaching and feedback part of everyday life.
Any downsides?
Not everyone can make the slot — whether that be meetings or non-working days — so I’ve promised to try and send an email update to everyone covering what we discussed (and this blog satisfies that need for this week 😉)
I’m also conscious not to talk (too much) about more formal things particularly if it’s important a wider audience needs to hear it — in previous lives the first time folks have found out about something has been by weeknotes or social media posts rather than directly from the person — and I understand how that can be received badly.
I might even follow the great example of Ross Fullerton where he used to do regular video updates (see Ross, shout out to you 😉)
And a virtual coffee does nor replace the need for the normal communications that come with being a leader of any shape or size — so it’s useful to keep reminding myself of that!
Anyway, if you don’t do a virtual coffee why don’t you try it — what’s the worse that happens? You might just end up having a cup of coffee by yourself…
