There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. Nelson Mandela.
Coaching is the art of facilitating the development, learning and performance of another. Its use for improving performance and career progression is well known so it’s great to see FMLM is developing a network of experienced leadership coaches across the UK for members to access.
But coaching is what you make of it. It’s up to the coachee to bring a topic and take responsibility for addressing it, with support but not instruction from the coach. For example, the focus of a coaching session can be about managing a difficult relationship, overcoming barriers, achieving an objective, planning your career, starting a quality improvement project…. or about realising your dreams.
My coaching journey started in 2010 when I attended a 6 day training programme with the former East of England SHA. As well as becoming a qualified coach, the spin off was two large and influential projects in health coaching and female medical leadership.
Health coaching
Health coaching is using the skills from performance coaching, combined with psychological techniques such as motivational interviewing and clinical skills to raise awareness and responsibility in patients to self-care. A good definition is “helping people gain the knowledge, skills, tools and confidence to become active participants in their care so that they can reach their self-identified health goals” (Bennett & Bodenheimer 2010).
The fact is that telling people what to do doesn’t work – and that’s true for patients too where half of patients leave primary care not understanding what their doctor told them, only 9% of patients participate in decisions (although shared decision-making is associated with improved outcomes) and the average adherence rates for prescribed medications are about 50%, and for lifestyle changes below 10%. Also as most doctors interrupt within 12 seconds and attitude and communication are the largest cause for complaints to the GMC, working on our communication skills is a must do to improve patient experience and satisfaction.
Fantastic listening, supportive challenge, a focus on the positive and a belief in every patients potential all help patients particularly with long term conditions feel more confident and motivated to self-care: These are core coaching techniques. The embryonic idea arising from that course has now translated to a £600k roll out of health coaching training across the East of England available to teams from all organisations.
Women and leadership
Just after my coaching training, frustrated at work, I paid for my own personal coaching and identified that I wanted to address the issue of women and leadership - an area close to my heart given my own experience of bias, bullying and being overlooked coupled with being the mum of three girls, thinking about the sort of role model I wanted to be and wanting to make theirs and others experience different.
This led to a national report Releasing Potential; Women Doctors and Clinical Leadership and a post at the NHS Leadership Academy amongst other things, and through this work I hope I helped others as well as learning from them. FMLM is now planning a suite of work to involve members in action to help women progress given their underrepresentation in all sectors, but primarily in medicine – read more about this later.
Improving access to mentoring, coaching and career advice has been recommended in three national reports on women doctors to aid career progression and close the gap, and we know that women use coaching differently from studies in the private sector. For example, they are more likely to use it for influencing skills, having their voice heard, developing greater presence and gravitas, managing organisational politics and improving self-confidence (Praesta). Is this true also of doctors? What would doctors use coaching for? If we knew there may be a greater case for resources and targeting particular needs.
A different conversation
Coaching was the start of all this for me – by identifying the things I’m passionate about, giving me self-belief and ideas and tools to take projects forward to places I otherwise could not have imagined. I’m now doing an MSc in coaching to grow my skills. But more importantly coaching has given me a different way to have a conversation and behave with patients, colleagues and even my children which is more curious, more generous and probably healthier than unrealistically playing the expert – in everything.
Whether it’s to address a burning issue or like me go some way to realising your dreams it helps to find a great coach you trust and FMLM is doing the leg work for you in creating the network. Another quick alternative for those of you who want some free telephone sessions, is to complete the survey below on “Coaching doctors – what for” and hopefully I can help a few of you on the things you’re passionate about.
Because ultimately for those of us who aren’t Mandela, we may need a little help. My experience is that although I’ve still a long way to go, coaching is a great way to start to realise your dreams, whatever they are in life or work, and become the whole person you are capable of.
Penny Newman is a GP and Consultant in Public Health currently Director of Service Integration at Colchester hospital. She is a qualified coach on the East of England Coaching register. The survey is part of her MSc and will inform the work of FMLM.
To contact Penny, please email penny.newman1 [at] nhs.net
Resources
Coaching - what for? To access free telephone coaching as part of Penny’s MSc please complete the following short survey which aims to identify how coaching is or would be used by doctors. Open until 25th November, it will take only a few minutes of your time:
www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z93B7ZC
For more information on the East of England health coaching programme visit: www.eoeleadership.nhs.uk/healthcoaching
Penny was trained in coaching by The Performance Coach.
