Pecan news – Summer 2021

Welcome to our summer newsletter, giving you insights into some of our most recent client work and trends in culture, change and performance.

 

Breaking down silos and creating momentum for change

UK hospitals have been under pressure like never before. Whilst most of the focus has rightly been on the superhuman efforts of the NHS clinicians, they – and patients – rely heavily on the army of porters, cleaners, caterers and maintenance staff to keep their hospitals functioning and safe.

We’ve been working with the Estates and Facilities team in a large NHS Trust to help them deliver a seamless and consistently excellent service to the hospitals they serve. The teams have always been hugely proud of their purpose, however – following a merger – they didn’t feel a strong sense of belonging to the new organisation, and it was getting in the way of collaboration.

Pecan led a culture review which revealed valuable insights into their culture, including helpful traits to keep, and aspects requiring change. We then worked with their leadership team to create a prioritised culture plan (including identifying a small number of behaviour and mindset shifts that will give the biggest positive impact) and helped to set up a change ambassadors group to influence and embed change from within. The conditions for change are being created and reinforced through 360-degree feedback, plus one-to-one and team coaching.

We’re delighted that they’re already seeing a difference:
“Our challenge has been to breakdown siloes, overcome some change resistance and create a shared sense of responsibility for our service delivery. Pecan have already given us fresh insight into what’s working and what we need to do differently. We have renewed energy and momentum, taking everyone with us and making changes stick. I’m confident that as we implement our plan patients, clinicians and visitors will experience the benefits.” Head of Operational Estates

Would your organisation benefit from fresh insight and renewed energy? If so, we’d love to explore how Pecan can help. Get in touch today for an informal conversation.

 

Creating a learning culture

We’re excited to be supporting USS, the pension provider for universities and higher education institutions, to live its value of Excellence. This means further evolving the learning culture, supporting greater innovation, adaptability and enabling colleagues to bring their best self to work. Pecan has co-designed and is now facilitating a menu of interactive learning modules for staff, covering personal values, emotional intelligence, maximising relationships, neuroscience, resilience and self-care.  For leaders the programme also includes strategic thinking and commercial awareness, problem solving and continuous improvement, relationship management and collaboration, high-performing teams, people management and motivation.

Feedback from participants includes:

• “Extremely thought-provoking with great tools to help us be our best selves”
• “An important time to reflect on how the way I am currently working and living and a chance to focus on some areas for improvement”
• “Enlightening”

And from programme sponsors:

• “The playbacks have been really positive, tabling innovative ideas that will make a big difference, all delivered through compelling pitches”
• “I have been impressed by the quality of analysis, problem definition, commercial awareness, stakeholder engagement, communication, teamwork and dialogue.  It’s very gratifying to hear how the programme has helped in furthering your strategic thinking and implementation plans”
• “…delighted with each presentation and impressed with the innovation, thought processes and potential benefits for the pensions business”

You can find out more when Helen McEwan, Chief Pensions Officer from USS, speaks to Pecan’s Cracking Culture Change podcast later this year: more details below!

 

 

Conversation tools to help re-energise

Many of the organisations and leaders that we’re talking to at the moment are feeling weary.

It’s unsurprising: the pandemic has taken a

lot out of us all, as leaders and as individuals. So, we were particularly thrilled to develop some engagement tools for Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England, to help re-boot, re-connect and re-energise their people.

We designed three simple yet powerful conversation tools for the team:

1. Reflect & Reconnect
2. Reengage & Rebuild
3. Review, learn & improve

It’s early days, but initial feedback is fantastic. In a workshop with Ama Afrifa-Tchie, MHFA England’s Head of People, Wellbeing & Equity, grateful participants said the conversation tools were proving “therapeutic”, giving them “opportunity to connect in ways that people hadn’t been able to do recently”, and helping them “take ownership for priorities”.

 

Introducing Jess

We’re delighted to introduce Jess Annison to the Pecan community as a new associate. One of our Pecan values is Science & Passion: we combine the neuroscience of how people learn and what causes habits to change with creating energy, creativity, drive and ownership. Alongside her work with us, Jess is going to be studying for a MSc in Applied Positive and Coaching Psychology and will be part of helping ensure our tools, facilitation and coaching continue to be sector-leading and evidence-based.

 

Cracking Culture Change: Pecan’s new podcast – coming soon!

We’re hard at work recording a fantastic series of podcasts to help you transform your organisational culture. Each episode will feature an inspiring conversation with a guest doing great stuff in the culture space – and we can’t wait to share their stories with you! The first episode will be launched later in the summer.

 

More inspiration

What we’re

• Reading – Rutger Bregman’s “Humankind: A hopeful history”
• Watching – Susan Pinker’s TED talk: The secret to living longer may be your social life
• Listening – HBR’s podcast: Lessons in innovation from Beyonce and Bowie

 

A final word

In the last newsletter we introduced you to Otis, Pecan’s Head of Wellbeing. This time it’s the turn of Shadow, his deputy.  Shadow says: “You can’t pour from an empty cup. Great leaders look after themselves as well as their teams – whether that’s a snooze in the sun, or a good stretch – it will leave you refreshed and reinvigorated”.

Wishing you all the very best for the rest of the summer. Please do forward this newsletter to anyone who might find it useful. If you’ve received it from a colleague, you can register for future newsletters here.