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A podcast that brings together primary care providers, healthcare planners, patients, innovators and others to talk about the changes that are happening in primary care in British Columbia.
Morgan: Are you building a team and
looking for a good place to start?
Are you trying to create more
teamwork in your existing team?
Yeah, me too.
We're into stage two of
the Pathway team building.
Sarah: And team building requires
a lot of time and effort.
If you're gonna work as a team,
this is really an essential stage.
In this episode, we're gonna focus
specifically on building relationships
and in particular on the value of
returning to shared purpose, shared goals.
As a kind of tool that you
can really use in this space.
morgan-_2_01-25-2024_114057:
Sarah, I agree about the
importance of team building it.
In our team right now in the ISU,
we've had a lot of growth and, just
the onboarding process takes a lot
of time, but also getting to know
everybody and figuring out where
people sort of fit together, an
important piece of work that we often,
can skip over if we're too rushed.
Sarah: Morgan, you often say if we
change one person, we change a team.
And, that's just, that's so true.
And It can get easy to kind of, you do
a mass onboarding of all the new people.
I think everyone does that fairly
well, but it's when you have one person
coming in at a time, I think it can,,
can sometimes get challenging and you
can forget that yes, you have all the
onboarding pieces, but there's also
the getting to know the team and the
team, getting to know the new person.
So really spending that time
as sort of a continuous thing.
It's not something you do once and it's
done, but needs to happen over time.
I think.
That, from the team-based care
coaches we work closely with,
we often hear stories of people
wanting to jump right into the work.
there's so much to do.
Clinics are so busy, and it can be
really easy to jump right into a
specific project or delivering care.
And what you really need to do
is go back to the beginning.
Sometimes think about team
agreements, shared purpose,
amie_1_12-20-2023_110634: can't really
work on improvement and, you know,
quality initiatives until you really
have that the relationship established.
So that's, that's key.
So we know when teams are
forming, it's not always going
to be rainbows and butterflies.
And, the fast-paced world of primary
care, we are working with, complex
patients, complex situations, and
it's natural that conflict will arise.
And, and conflict can, also a
way we can learn from each other.
and so There are some resources
in there to, to support that.
Sarah: That was Amy Huff and the learning
pathway was really her brainchild.
Like Amy said, it's not always
rainbows and butterflies.
And in our work with communities, we
often see the challenges that can come up
if team building stages kind of skipped.
morgan-_2_01-25-2024_114057: And Sarah,
it's, so easy to skip that, particularly
as providers who are busy and just
wanting to continue providing the care.
And you do need to make time for this.
I think it's really one of the
things I've learned over the
years is how important that is.
Sarah: And it's so important
to set and then I think reset
the groundwork for teams.
morgan-_2_01-25-2024_114057: There
are a couple of different tools,
Sarah, to help at this early stage.
shared purpose is one that we've
talked a little bit about, and
team agreements is another one.
We have done a whole episode on
team agreements back in season two.
And we'll put a link for
that in the show notes.
So people are interested in the pathway.
There's a whole kit on shared purpose,
which I think is a great place to start.
And this is very detailed.
It's got all the sort of practical steps
that you could walk through if you wanted
to, from, you know, meeting agendas, all
the way through to a slide deck that you
can, use and adapt for your own team.
I think what's important about this
stage is confirming or figuring out
the why of why you're working together.
And if you think about the three parts
of shared purpose, it's about the
purpose for patients, the why you're
together as a team, and how collectively
that all supports needs in the system.
Sarah: Part of getting everyone
working together as a team,
like that communication is
really such a, key element here.
amie_1_12-20-2023_110634: really great,
um, to, to, look at role clarity.
so I can't say enough to, in
this stage about the importance
of connecting regularly.
So a lot of research shows that
when teams have established
some kind of regular huddle.
Or means of communication.
team cohesion develops quicker
and the patients and providers
see the results of that
Sarah: Amy's right.
It's communication here and it's creating
opportunities for teams to connect.
We talk about huddles a lot, and you
can find a lot of resources on huddles
in this stage of the toolkit as well.
One suggestion that I love, from the
learning pathway is the idea of using
huddles to reflect explicitly on areas
you know you wanna improve on as a team.
Things that have come
out of your, work values.
A lot of what we've seen.
Particularly around cultural safety
and humility and how to create
space for a team to reflect on that.
I think, the suggestion and the
pathway to use huddles intentionally
to do that work is really interesting.
morgan-_2_01-25-2024_114057: And
I think if people are resistant to
huddles, don't overload them too much.
Keep them really simple and, uh, keep
them simpler than you think you need them.
It's a standup meeting.
It could only be five minutes
just to get you in the habit of
connecting at the beginning of a day.
And then you can start to add in things
if, that's how you want to do that.
So I think it's a great
resource to come back to.
Sarah: And thinking about
interesting activities to direct
folks toward for this stage.
So an activity if you have longer,
the Shared Purpose Facilitation
guide is really great, but we're
also trying to think about things
you could do a little bit quicker.
morgan-_2_01-25-2024_114057: So it's,
great to look at this and think about
what piece you might wanna adapt, and
that's really what it's there for.
It can be done in a longer kind of,
you know, day long retreat style,
or you can cover off parts of it in
different meetings, that you might
have over a couple of weeks or months.
I.
Sarah: And, you know, there is kind of
a short activity I wanted to highlight.
So slide 13 in the facilitation slide
deck, gives some great instructions
laying out a 12 minute activity to
get folks working together on thinking
through the shared purpose, deciding
what values they might share as a team.
We're thinking about Other ways to
do this, you know, in a check-in
or asynchronously on a whiteboard.
I think putting up a question to the team
around, you know, what are our values?
What's important to us?
you could start with a
little bit of a list.
Things like trust, accountability,
equity, quality of care.
The list goes on and there is lists
in the resources, that are in the
toolkit, but you could, you know,
invite your team members to add
to the list or check their top.
You know, three or five values on, on
a whiteboard and asynchronously build
out some of that shared, thinking time.
morgan-_2_01-25-2024_114057: I like that
because it, it allows you to come in
and maybe have an informal conversation
in the, in the lunchroom with somebody
else who's there on a break at the
same time without having a big meeting.
But I also think there's a value
afterwards in coming together to
confirm the, the list as opposed to
saying, great, we did that thing.
Here's the list.
You know, print, we'll put it on the
corkboard, but actually talk about it
and confirm it and what does it mean
for different people, and then you can
pull that together into your purpose.
Sarah: And, you know, a purpose statement
I think can sound intimidating, but
really is pretty straightforward.
Um, here's an example of a
clinic purpose statement.
to provide quality person and family
centered care every day with our
values of teamwork, communication,
compassion and honesty, guiding us.
And I think that's a great
kind of template to follow.
morgan-_2_01-25-2024_114057: And just it
gets the ideas out there without spending
a ton of time wordsmithing, which,
you know, maybe you don't want to do.
So for this short episode, if I
was gonna pick one thing to take
away and do in my clinic, it would
probably be that values exercise.
It.
Putting up a, a whiteboard
or, just a piece of paper and
getting people to add to it.
Let everyone know what the process
is like, what, why we're doing this.
And then at our next, staff meeting,
talk about some of the, the top, ideas
that came out, the different values.
there's lots of other things you
could look at if you wanted to go in
and look at the pathway in the team
building section for other ideas that
you can take and explore in your team.
Sarah: Thanks so much, and as
always, we'd love to hear from you.
We're always open to feedback.
You can reach out to isu@familymed.ubc.ca
with any ideas you might have
for us for future episodes.
The Innovation Support Unit is a
distributed multidisciplinary team.
We work mostly remotely from communities
across the Lower Mainland and
Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Morgan: Sarah and I are both recording
from our offices in the territories
of the Lekwungen speaking peoples, the
Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.
Sarah: And recognizing the colonial
history and the ongoing impacts of
colonization and healthcare systems
and in Indigenous communities in
Canada and around the world, as we
move through the season, we'll work
to bring an equity lens to this work.
And we really encourage you, our
listener, to reflect on your past,
present, and future participation.
On the indigenous lands
where you are situated.
morgan-_2_01-25-2024_114057:
Thanks for listening to Team Up.