It’s the hope that sustains (not kills) you
Coming from a family of lifelong Aston Villa supporters, the recent Champions League second leg tie against PSG was epic. 5-1 with 70 mins to play, Villa pegged it back to 5-4 with 25 mins remaining. Cue message from a friend, “it’s the hope that kills you”! The equaliser sadly never came however it got me thinking more about hope.
At CoCreate, we’ve had the privilege over the past 9 years of working alongside talented leaders across the health and social care sector who, day in day out, work tirelessly to improve health outcomes for local residents.
A core focus of our work has been running place-based, system leadership programmes, bringing groups of people together from across a health & social care system and building their capacity to work collaboratively to deliver more joined-up care for the local population. In those 9 years, we’ve delivered 35+ programmes for 1,500+ participants in 9 health & care systems. Peloton, Hampshire 20/20 and Wavelength are three such examples.
These programmes were born out of a shared belief with the leaders in those systems that the people best placed to make progress on the complex problems they’re grappling with – tackling the backlog, reducing health inequalities, hospital discharge delays, etc – are the people closest to the problems. As Ron Heifetz, of Adaptive Leadership fame puts it – with complex, adaptive problems, it’s “the people with the problem who need to do the work”.
What CoCreate brings is expertise, energy and drive to connect these people, create a meaningful learning space and build their capacity (mindset, skills, tools, trust, relationships) to tackle these problems.
I was recently running an alumni event for one of these programmes, bringing together 80+ people from the first 4 cohorts. In the check out, we asked what people leaving with. The first response landed loud and clear – “HOPE”.
When we launched the 9th cohort of Wavelength last week, one participant remarked that she was struck by the level of positivity within the room and how refreshing this is given the current backdrop of cuts and negativity.
Yet again, the NHS is embarking on another round of reorganisations – cuts and restructures that will have a significant human cost, at a time when the demands on health and care services are only increasing. By 2040, approximately 9.1 million people in England are expected to be living with major illnesses, marking a 37% increase from 2019. The system cannot respond to these pressures without a radically different approach.
And whilst coherent policy is vital, what we also know is that two principles will remain constant in making progress:
1. The people closest to the issue are still best placed to know what’s needed; and
2. We need to invest in their ability to come together and do the work.
Tackling complex problems is often hard fought and a slow burn. As Peter Senge notes in the brilliant Dawn of System Leadership Paper, leadership of system change in hard and not for everyone. Sustaining energy – in yourself and others – is tough. So in my view, it’s the hope that sustains you, not kills you. And whilst we can’t offer a ‘magic hope pill’, here are three simple practices that may well help you to re-connect with a sense of hope:
1. See constraints as enablers – former Google executive Marissa Mayer coined the term “creativity loves constraints”. Funding cuts within local authorities have accelerated significant tech-enabled innovation in social care, using digital sensors and wearables to assist older adults in remaining independent. Constraints can sharpen focus and drive innovation. In your work, identify the core constraints — and use them as the foundation for generating creative, high-impact ideas.
2. See reality through someone else’s lens – one of the most transformative elements of our system leadership programmes is the Leadership Exchange, where participants spend time observing a leader from a completely different organisation. This process, rooted in Appreciative Inquiry, helps shift mindsets and unlock new perspectives. Seeing reality through another’s eyes can reignite optimism and uncover new pathways forward.
3. Find and amplify what’s working – in a system under pressure, it’s easy to view everything as broken. And perhaps even easier when our Secretary of State unhelpfully tells it is broken. But the reality is far more nuanced. Across the healthcare system, pioneers and innovators are making real, radical improvements every day. When you seek out and amplify what’s already working, you’re also likely to find the people with the energy, ideas, and passion that can sustain your own hope and drive.
