Dawn Jarvis – Turnaround Director

Leading in a CrisisHEE Y&H Leadership Awards

8 December 2016

Crisis @ DBH

• 14/15 and for years before in surplus, ended +£3m

• October 15 financial misreporting to Board ended up in Jan 16 as -£50.1m

Over 2 financial years

• Resignations, disciplinary cases, shock to whole organisation

• Performance, quality and safety good and has remained so

Financial Issues - background

• 14/15 – declared £3m surplus• October 15 “discovered” deficit which grew from £4m to

£20m in matter of weeks• Seismic event• 4 disciplinary cases, resignations• Remaining finance function in shock • Interim FD appointed in November 15• January 16 after full reconciliation the two year view was a

cumulative deficit of £50.1m

Crisis in the NHS

• Spend 2 minutes talking to the people around you about the main types of crisis you may need to lead people through

• Quality• Safety• Financial• Regulatory• Reputational• Performance• Personal

Lessons from the past year

Know• Things you

should be thinking

Do• Behaviours

you should be showing

Be• Deeper

ways of getting through

Lessons from the past year

KNOW = HEAD - things you should be thinking

1. However bad it is, something is always good• Never waste a crisis – appreciative inquiry (AI)

2. This too will pass; but you are in for a long haul• Crisis don’t last forever but you will need strength and resilience – if you can’t end it don’t start

3. You are it• The spotlight is on you to do the right thing

Lessons from the past yearDO = HEART - behaviours you need to display

1. Face reality, denial is not an option, starting with yourself• Own up and say sorry

2. Calm reassurance, at pace• Everyone wants to know the person in charge can do it and see progress

3. Speak the truth to power, and everyone else• This isn’t always comfortable, popular or welcome• But only when what has gone wrong is openly discussed, can it be healed

4. Be visible and available to the point of annoyance• Get out there, stay out there, keep talking to people, again and again and again, until they tell you “enough”

5. Have a plan, make it everyone’s plan; take decisions and communicate them• People will follow if they know where they are going

Lessons from the past yearBE= GUT - deeper ways of getting through

1. Be compassionate and directive• Compassion without direction is just everyone being nice to each other, which is nice, but it won’t solve the

crisis

2. Be humble • Others will know what the right thing to do is when you don’t, ask for help

3. Be moral• Listen to your internal compass - head true North, always, no exceptions

Practise

Decline Distress Turnaround Transformation Steady State Growth

MERE RECOVERYSHORT TERM SURVIVAL BUT EVENTUAL

FAILURE

CONTINUING DECLINE

STEADY STATE AND GROWTH

14/15 October 15/Jan 16Jan

16/Dec 17

16/17 17/18 2017 and beyond

SUSTAINABILITY AND GROWTH

RETURN TO NORMALITYSEISMICEVENT

SITUATION ASSESSMENT

SUSTAINABLE CHANGE

INITIAL RECOVERYPROVENQUICK FIX &

TURNAROUND KICK START

DIAGNOSTICSSCRUTINY

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

TIMELINE OF EVENTS LEADING UP, DURING AND AFTER THE FINANCIAL ISSUES BECAME CLEAR

GROWTH ANDDEVELOPMENT

Whatever the crisis, delivery of safe effective services needs to go on;

Your job as leader is to use the crisis to enable your people, your place to be better than before

Warren Bennis 2007

Derived from What the future demands: The challenge of global leadership development, 2007 Mercer/ Oliver Wyman, Harvard Business School Publishing, Mercer and Oliver Wyman

The Parable of the missing Millions........

• I recall sitting in on a client's board meeting, I'd been hired to observe the Moral Compass being deployed by the executives and non executives. The client, a bank, were a little short on their numbers that quarter and thus the year-end. The person in charge of financials slipped out a single piece of plain paper, with just a number on and told the Chair "I have a solution". The Chair nodded and the person explained "We have xxx, xxx, xxx in unclaimed dormant and deceased accounts, we are not legally or by policy required to pass interest payments to these accounts [let's dispense with technically how it is done] and we can, without it ever coming out, 'not pass the interest to these accounts' and make our numbers." The room was completely silent, for minutes. The Chair sat back and waited, then asked "Are you saying it is legal in all senses and no one would ever find out, and we would make our numbers?" "Yes on all three questions" came the reply.

• I wrote two words on a piece of paper, folded it and passed it to the Chair, next to me, who completely ignored it. • The Chair sat forward, looked directly at the finance person and smiled "Genius!" The finance person smiled, and sat back.

"Genius" the Chair repeated, "exactly the kind of genius who explained how to gas 6, 000,000 people. You are fired, get out." Things changed quite a bit on that board in the ensuing months, the Chair didn't like the silence around the table. "Just gut feel, but it felt like 'If I had said yes, they'd all say yes'. Some had to go because I need more heart and gut than head at a board level, we can all count and everyone's an expert on 20:20 hindsight." The Chair never opened or asked about my piece of paper, didn't need to....that Chair has a Moral Compass.

• Thank you for reading this and please feel free to pass it on.....

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leaders-need-all-3-brains-heart-gut-head-use-moral-compass-marais