Connecting, catching and celebrating

This post is about something we should do all the time but don't. It's interesting that fantastic organisations and services ( both statutory and third sector ) do great work yet don't seem to have an impact in proportion to their work. There are probably many reasons for this. In this post I will suggest one is that we do not connect, catch and celebrate. If we do not do this, we miss so much. If we learn the joy of connecting, catching and celebrating I can assure you you will see everything change - well a lot of things change. Perhaps the most important is how we see our work and indeed our world. So what is connecting, catching and celebrating?

Connecting is seeing with panoramic vision. This means seeing the whole picture and its attendant possibilities. To illustrate this a story may help. I went to a national event last year. In it we talked about partnership work. One service miles away from Leeds which I believe has existed for a number of years and is working with vulnerable people made an astonishing statement. They said that they would need to start to speak to third sector organisations about the work they do. It was good that they were thinking of doing this but struck me that such connecting could have happened from the early days of this service. I wonder why it didn't. My guess ( and I may be wrong ) is that the service did not then have a connecting consciousness. They didn't see connecting as the essence of their work. Connecting means that we can't do our work alone, we do not want to do our work alone and that we don't do our work alone. Deep partnerships where all teach and all learn and all grow together is what connecting is all about. The writer, Malcolm Gladwell, in his best seller 'The Tipping Point' makes the point about Paul Revere. Paul Revere was a hero of the American Revolution who did a famous ride warning the British were coming in 1775. He is revered as a great figure in American history. Malcolm Gladwell makes the point that Paul could only do what he did because he was a 'connector'. He knew the people in the towns he was riding to so his connections made a difference. If he didn't have the connections then they may not have listened to him and American history then may have taken a different turn. If you're reading this and you are not connecting and do not have vibrant effective partnerships then there is some very good news for you. They are only an email, phone call or even tweet away. We can become connectors by taking that step today.

Catching is an interesting word. We often talk about 'catching a cold.' That's the same idea here. This is about catching an idea and unpacking it. Many of the posts I have co-authored have been because over coffee ( coffee features heavily in my life! ) with colleagues from the statutory, faith, business and third sector, they have said something amazing and it has had ricochet effect across my mind. We have then 'caught' the idea and looked at it. This discussion has led onto other ideas and thoughts. These co-creative moments are what inspires us and lift up to us new vistas and openings. The Leeds Food Homeless Map for homeless people started when two people met at York Street Health Practice and talked about food in the city a few years ago. Neither of them had the idea of a map when they entered the room to meet. That arose in the talk and started to take shape. It now is an established system with a paid worker, many organisations taking part and making a difference to food poverty in the city. Meetings with fresh coffee and fresh ideas can produce the incredible.

Celebrating is what we do with the connecting and catching. From the meetings and ideas where do we go? The simple answer is everywhere. We should speak it, write it, blog it and tweet it. If we miss this bit, we miss a key part. Celebrating is actually starting the circle all over again. By celebrating we connect our idea with others and from that other ideas come which need celebrating. So the whole dance goes on and on generating networks, inspiration and positive outcomes. An example from my own life is when I met Steve Keyes, Head of OD at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust. Steve later kindly invited me to speak at the NHS Do OD conference in London with him. This created some great innovative work and dialogue between Steve and me which is still going on. At the conference Steve introduced me to Dr Maxine Craig from South Tees Hospital Trust. The  meeting with Maxine led to emails, great discussion and two articles on service and staff dynamics. It has also led to the start of some of the most exciting and transformative work I have ever known. Maxine linked me to Anne Cooper, Lead Nurse for Informatics at NHS England. I met Anne for coffee and in a very short space she converted me to going onto Twitter. Since then I have linked with some great people through this channel. These include Louise Goodyear, a third year nurse student at Wolverhampton University, who is an real inspiration. Louise and I are just finishing off a blog on what matters in healthcare. I don't usually talk about myself this much and do so only in this post to point out what the possibility, goodness and magic of connecting, catching and celebrating can do. I hope you give it a try.

John Walsh, York Street Health Practice