October is Speak Up Month
October 15, 2020
October is Speak Up Month and this year, the National Guardian’s Office is drawing up an Alphabet of Speak Up. There are 26 letters of the alphabet and 26 days to explore the issues, the people, the values, the challenges – everything which goes into what Freedom to Speak Up means in health. When things go wrong, we need to make sure that lessons are learnt and improvements made.
This year we will be supporting the National Guardian’s Office looking at the alphabet of speak up, with each day identifying a word and what that means to colleagues across the Trust. We are encouraging managers to use this as an opportunity for discussion with your colleagues and team. Speaking up is an important part of a culture that focuses on safety and quality, and we would like you and your teams to play a part in encouraging these conversations to be part of who we are and how we work.
L is for Listening, Learning and Leaders
Today’s first letter is provided by Ian Galligan, Capital Equipping Manager, Medical Engineering and Speak Up Guardian
We as Guardians will always listen, we will endeavour to defer any judgement, respond accordingly and provide feedback.
Today’s second letter is provided by Richard Burnell, Organisational Development Trainer
Speaking up starts with seeing change that needs to be made. We can only see where change needs to happen when we listen and pay attention to what is going on around us. In order for speak up to work both the Trust and the individual have to listen. The Trust provides many different routes by which people can speak up both on and off the record and the Trust will always listen to anything that is raised. At the individual level we should also listen to our colleagues, what do they tell us about their experiences? What do we hear? What do patients say? Sometimes people with less experience or who are from outside of the NHS may not see a problem or the opportunity for change that you do.
By listening carefully to what we are told by others we can see where change is needed and bring it to the attention of the organisation.
When we speak up we are not being disloyal to our team, we are not being disloyal to the Trust, we are not ‘getting someone in to trouble.’ Speaking up can lead to a level of scrutiny that some individuals may dislike, however, we should remember that we don’t speak up to make enemies, we don’t speak up to make friends, we speak up to make change.
Change can only occur after lessons are learned, learning can only take place when we know what we are getting wrong. Speaking up highlights where there are blind-spots in our organisation and ultimately it helps us to remove them. When we remove these blind spots we improve the care we give to the vulnerable, the sick and the people in our society who needs us most.
Be a speak up hero and help us to learn where we can improve.
Leaders contribute so much to speaking up and perhaps nothing does this more than a leader who shows humility. Leaders who openly apologise for making mistakes teach their teams a very valuable lesson; it’s not a weakness to be wrong. Once a team recognise this, they can openly speak up about problems and find solutions without fear of hostility towards them.
When leaders lack the humility to apologise and seek to blame others instead, a culture develops where speaking up leads to accusations of ‘rocking the boat’ and the person speaking up is seen as the problem.
In order to create a speak up culture leaders should show their teams that instead of putting their energy in to denying there is a problem, it is much better to put the energy in to fixing it. Staff who speak up are a vital part of creating strong teams and providing safe care, leaders who demonstrate humility promote speaking up in everything they do.