Ahead of its time

So what's the next big idea? Emma Forrest talks to 'blue-sky' thinkers about the challenges of the future and how NHS managers are to meet them

Jackie Fabien, pay and workforce team, Cabinet Office's office of public services reform Currently conducting a review of leadership needs across the public sector 'The office of public services reform has been reviewing the landscape of leadership and its development across public services. One important theme has been around networking, coaching and sharing best practice; essentially learning from each other.

'The challenge is: how do busy leaders create the time and exploit the opportunities to learn from one another, sharing business problems and identifying potential solutions?'

Ms Fabien believes leaders in the health service and local government fail to realise the prospects that could be available if they considered working in another sector.

'Not enough public sector leaders move across sectors. OPSR has found that increased emphasis on succession planning is imperative if public services are to benefit from the talent in their organisations.

'They are very different organisations but have similar needs and very similar leadership skills are required. Greater emphasis on networking across services would lead to cross-sector opportunities being identified, and could feed into organisational succession planning processes.

'More regional collaboration is possible, for instance, such as a trust chief executive spending a week in a local authority.'

Philip Hadridge, organisational development facilitator, Modernisation Agency Works on future scenarios and planning exercises in the Department of Health and the NHS 'The key themes of the moment may have been around for a while but still demand attention.

'Self care, where the patient works in partnership with the NHS to look after themselves better, is a trend whose time is coming. The health service should be acting as a partner.

'Social marketing is also key.We need to learn from the commercial sector to develop customer relations management; learning about the different people we serve.'

On a more personal level for leaders, Mr Hadridge points to 'servant leadership', where leaders help every other person in their team as best they can.He believes this is particularly important in the breaking down of barriers between managers and leaders.

Professor Michael West, director of research and professor of organisational psychology, Aston Business School Developing Team-based Working , co-authored by Professor West and Lynn Markiewicz, was published by Blackwell in September 'We have talked a lot about the softer side of leadership, such as the integrity of leaders. The next big issue is strategic leadership and key to that is the leading of teams throughout a whole organisation.'

To begin with, Professor West sounds a note of caution.

'Leaders need to be aware that this is about value creation; it is not about counting costs and seeing everything as a potential cost. It is about setting local visions that are interpretations of national targets - centrally.

'I believe the government recognises that this is the only way to go.The role of a leader is to establish and communicate those and how they are going to be delivered.'

The establishment of a team from the outset is crucial. 'Instead of it happening by default, decide on who is and is not in a team, what team members' roles are, where your organisation ends and begins and which parts of teams need to relate to one another.

'Goals and performance measures should then be decided on, as should how they can relate to better value for patients.They should then be communicated.A strategy should be developed, whether it is for better quality of patient care for a particular disorder or how to co-operate with other teams.'

Professor West stresses that teams aiming for patient value should go beyond the obvious.

'Consider what will make a big difference to your patient. If your car has a burst tyre, you want it repaired quickly and cheaply. But the person repairing it could also give you a tyre that will never burst again, and could give you a map of roads with better surfaces to help your tyre last longer.

It is about creating radical value and teams that can do that.'

Finally, all leaders should be spending time with other leaders and mentors, preferably from outside their organisation.