An Introduction to Cross-Functional Leadership / Integrating Perspectives

By attending this event you will be able to:

• Gain new ways to identify the challenges of integrated working (working in multi-disciplinary teams or cross-sector collaborations)
• Understand the type of conceptual thinking and changes in communication that can help you to tackle these challenges, in time-pressured contexts
• Practice applying at least one tool.

If you decide after the introduction session that the tools explored could be relevant to your context and work, then after this session there will be an opportunity to register for the full programme (further details below).

We would recommend you hold the dates of the workshops below until you decide if you would like to participant in the full programme. If you are unable to make the dates, you can register your interest here and we will notify you with new dates when they are available in the year.

Full Programme Overview

Following on from the Introductory session. The programme features four sessions hosted once a fortnight over an eight-week cycle. In the intervening weeks, participants will work to apply what they have learnt with support from a self-paced learning platform. Videos, recaps, and activities will help you to move from understanding a concept or tool to putting it into practice and getting feedback. The programme is designed for a time commitment of 2 hours per week.

The workshops focus on ideas that you can implement quickly to help with breaking down complex problems, effective planning and communication across siloes, and making use of different kinds of evidence and expertise.

Workshop 1 – Talking with Experts: Using what others know

Thursday 19th October, 10:00 – 11:30am

Integrated working brings together people with a range of extensive knowledge, skills and experience: different forms of expertise.

This session introduces tools that can be used to:

• Diagnose the kinds of problems you are working on and how different kinds of expertise can help you
• Understand the level of understanding you need to have about the expertise of others in your teams, organisations or systems
• Communicate more effectively as a leader working with different kinds of experts and helping those experts work together.

Workshop 2 – Beyond What Works: Using a range of evidence

Thursday 2nd November, 10:00 – 11:30am

There are well-established ways to integrate certain kinds of evidence, such as randomised controlled trials about tried-and-tested interventions. In the context of complex challenges, uncertainty, or crisis, however, we often do not have the luxury of this kind of evidence.

This session introduces ways to access other forms of evidence, going beyond the ideas of ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’, to more deeply understand different data sources and what they can tell us.

Workshop 3 – Seeing the Wood and the Trees: From insights to big picture

Thursday 16th November, 10:00 – 11:30am

Leaders can integrate perspective by working to both ‘see the big picture’ and have an eye for the important details: being able to ‘zoom in and zoom out’ on what is happening and what is needed.

This sessions introduces tools for working with abstraction and complexity to help to connect a birds-eye vision or strategy to more concrete details and evidence of change.

Workshop 4 – More than Words: Communicating effectively across health and social car

Thursday 30th November, 10:00 -11:30am

Working across teams, organisations or systems requires new ways to communicate about what we are doing that will make sense in different roles, contexts, and specialisms. The work we are trying to talk about and carry out can be very complex. This session demonstrates how different kinds of maps, metaphors and models can be used to help in this work and explain some of the principles of what makes a good representation or analogy.