Capture of EHFF Strategy Meeting

Gatwick Hilton Hotel - London 24th January 2015

This report summarizes the EHFF Strategy Meeting held at Gatwick Hilton Hotel London at the 24th of January 2015. In total 23 individuals with various backgrounds and expertise joined us during this strategy meeting, live and by Skype as well. During the meeting we engaged in a search for the EHFF core identity and strategy for years to come. The basis was comprised of sharing our philosophy with the attendees to make sure that we had a productive meeting.

In short, we worked with the following EHFF philosophy and orientation, stated previous of the meeting and shared online with the attendees.

EHFF was constituted in March 2013 following a two year period in shadow form as the ESQH Lisbon Office for Health Futures. The organization is dedicated primarily to helping improve the health of the citizens of Europe, but we see parallels in the fields of education and business and believe that only a holistic approach will succeed.

Enshrined in our statutes are the following five key targets:

Target 0: Holistic Transformation and Disruptive Innovation. This is the overall binding element of our targets.We will support transformational change and disruptive innovation through multi stakeholder collaboration in a holistic context.

Target 1: Forum. We will create an open, interactive forum built as a network of networks.

Target 2: Knowledge Exchange. We will use the Forum as a resource for knowledge exchange on the future of health and healthcare in Europe.

Target 3: Future Tools. We will promote the active employment of futures methodology in the context of European Health and Healthcare.

Target 4: Innovation Community. We will help to build a virtual intergenerational community of healthcare innovators.

With the underlying core values described in ‘target 0’, these are four tasks we intend to carry out. Based on the principle that we want to improve society, in the view of the facts, that current models of health and healthcare are unsustainable and that the value systems prevalent in European culture are wanting. We’ve chosen a group of processes but have no guidance as to their likely impact other than using collective wisdom and intuition. We believe that this enterprise points in the right direction, but have no clear notion of what the outcomes might be. This acknowledges emergence in complex environments that may or may not be influenced and recognizes the trap of reductionism and concrete thinking (but we don’t shout about it!). Implicit in this approach is an iterative process of reflection.

The whole ‘project’ is a form of action research, in this case putting into practice some of the processes studied during fifteen years or more of ‘summer camp’: regular meetings drawn from a community of 100+ mostly European participants interested in transformational change in organizations.

Starting from 2000 and for many years under the stewardship of Bertrand Jouslin de Noray when he was Secretary-General of the European Organisation for Quality, the summer camp movement has been strongly influenced by Stephen Hacker (‘Work Miracles: Transform Yourself and Your Organization’ 1999) and Prof. Shoji Shiba (‘Breakthrough Management’, Shiba and Walden 2006). Both of them have participated in events over the years, although a group led by Bertrand Jouslin de Noray, Marius Buiting, Sean Conlan and David Somekh has taken their advice forward.

EHFF is, by principle, an open source organization built as a network of networks (this principle was already postulated by Marius Buiting when he was President of ESQH back in 2002). Unlike most European NGOs, as a matter of principle as a forward looking organization, it is virtual and has a minimum of structures, i.e. those necessary to carry out its business legally, but otherwise functions as a voluntary community of precursors, made up of friends and colleagues, and connected by common values but diverse interests. It does not have a formal membership, charges no fees but attempts to invite participation in an inclusive manner. What this appears to create is a remarkable flexibility or agility for the group, enabling rapid coming together of individuals to work in collaboration on a relevant task or topic.

Working on the principle of ‘just do it’ there is a strong interest in the applicability of Stafford Beer’s ‘Viable Systems Model’ but mainly as a retrospective framework for examining how EHFF’s activity is evolving.

Because the EHFF uses no fixed structures it is able to maintain flexible, the soap bubble graphic shown below could be a depiction of that concept (and should actually be seen in 3D). The core of the model, which is the EHFF philosophy or values, doesn’t have to be connected to all of its activities, to be effective or impactful. As with soap bubbles, all bubbles are connected, directly or indirectly, big and small. To transfer this concept to the EHFFactivities, only two individuals (bubbles) or an entire community of individuals and/or organization (bubbles)could be involved.

Graphic 1: Soap bubble Model EHFF

What we shared

We come from the 19th century - food, sanitation, etc., then the 20th century - technology and targeted (medical) interventions (mechanistic: “fix-it” principles) → institutionalization is what is to be challenged! And now the 21th century- personalization - what works for individuals(especially with chronic conditions)?

Thus, we are in a very important moment in time, the current century will put the emphasis towards the clients/patients/citizen system, which brings an enormous variety.

How can we accelerate this transformation?

But be careful: there will be resistance to this movement
Science 3.0: …
There will be a need for a complete different governance system.

We don’t have the educational system to support the ‘new’ era, and we lost our ability to use the concept of ‘terroir’, innovate at local level and try to accelerate. We like to think of local communities (all affected by local / regional/ national / European/ global levels).

The power to do all this comes from the community of the EHFF itself. We share an incredible amount of knowledge, networks and passions, too much even to summarize but therefor of the utmost importance. With these assets we are able to influence a enormous amount of people with influence on the depicted themes and topics. [MZ1]

To come to the EHFF core philosophy and values we have to facilitate a cooperation mechanism that that supports collaboration within and outside of the community. This is also the most viable and organic structure to capture emerging themes and topics in the future. The scanning of the horizon to get a grasp of the emerging future of health, health care, education and industry is a therefor a community responsibility and should be on the scope of all participating individuals and organizations within the EHFF. The short cyclic methodwe use in our collaboration and cooperation allows us to respond quickly and flexibly to upcoming and imminent changes in Europe. We don’t need to come up with a structure for that, but we do need to make it visible and transparent for others to see, feel, hear, taste and sense!

The meeting raised probably more questions than it answered and gave us a whole ‘bucket list’ of to be done activities in the coming period.

A short overview of the activities and tasks pointed out during the meeting:

Scanning/telescope: information is power. If we (EHFF) can be an agent to make knowledge available to politicians and policymakers in order to empower them to redesign the system.
We need to build a base.
We want to create a network of networks; we need to synergize and energize.
We are a Swiss army knife
It is a way to bridge gaps
A way to initiative social movements
Multidisciplinary backgrounds
Magnifying glass: knowledge / investigation
Influential connections
Compass → how to get there
Connecting the dots and help people/ideas/competencies to rise
We should focus on bottom-up connection of individuals and small networks and share projects and ideas. → in order to find analogues
We have to be careful of how we use language (“best-practices” will exclude rather than “good-practices” that will include).
Why is there a problem / what is in the way for a solution.
Central question: Who are the different stakeholders at which levels? (micro/meso/macro)
EHFF = brokerage/dating agency between people.
Acceleration is OK but in what direction?
The core values have to be described to define the ‘ tentacles’! or soap bubble model??
Future scenario planning
Constellations
Fundaments
Lobby, influence, effect, propaganda, PR
Making connections across the verticality’s and silos we have to work with.
The process we offer is to give and alternative method to work with change and innovation
Networks of networks is a strong element - viral nature
How do you work in three dimensions? Work with a spiral model for example.
Allow momentum and allow people to tap into solutions in a non-linear way.
How can we help individuals to ‘cross-the-line’?
How to create an impulse for individuals to change or work on peoples defense mechanisms, being reluctant to change?
Be very clear of the center essence; use SoMe and other technology to grasp the innovations and ‘products’ of our networking efforts.
Translating interoperability of ICT with interacting with human beings. (Humans and Technology are one)
How do we create a mandate?
Co-creation
Transferability of innovation, especially for Europe
Building impact through specific products…
The problem is that the system can’t change at the speed that it needs to.
Harness the knowledge that is out there in our ‘network of networks’.
Develop a process to mine knowledge from the current EHFF community (insiders) and clients
Also mine data from the ‘street’ on health care futures.
Define the community of interest! Lobby-group, PR-group, Research-group etcetera…
We can involve our personal/professional networks on a to be created platform?
What is in the end our added value?
Do we really need more structure into EHFF? We all have a purpose (why we are here!) so, isn’t that enough.

style

Graphic 2: Marius Model for EHFF

Feedback EHFF Gatwick Meeting 24th January 2015

Below ae the comments of the participants gathered on post-its at the end of the meeting. They are grouped (subjectively) under sub headings of ‘Liked/Positive and Improvements’.

Unfortunately a few proved difficult to read, and therefore may not be entirely understandable– apologies!

Liked/Positive

Participants - General

Incredible good will and willingness of people to contribute

Commitment of the group

Getting to know new people;

Seeing established friends; meeting new friends

Learning much more about each other’s experience; getting to meet people who were only names before

Pressure cooker – lot of energy and friendship

The people here; the honest effort; the sincerity; the quality of the people

So much experience & competence to learn from

Meeting inspired people and connecting passions and experience

Participants - Diversity

Diversity of input

Great diversity of participants including those resistant to innovative change. Bravo!

Diversity of people - experience & age/gender

Interdisciplinary

The Meeting - General & Process

An enjoyable day.

Overall interaction process and reporting

I liked the openness

The power of sharing

Meeting structure, loosely, nice real people. Energy

Connecting; discussion

Like all post-meeting periods I’ve had – a time to absorb and reflect before I can make a meaningful comment

Overall

Very well organised

Food great

EHFF & Strategy

creating a EHFF strategy

Improvements

The Process

Perhaps looking too much for structure. (I realise that this might have been necessary – but it shouldn’t be pushed too hard)

Output makes my head hurt

A bit ambitious without target to shoot for.

Clear action plan

Too much emphasis on personal background, too little for strategy

Approach

The tendency to stay vague and not actually choosing a strategy (takes time I guess)

Why is there a problem;

what stands in the way of a solution;

what is an inspirational goal; what is a game worth playing

Feels too top heavy; resistance to change (???) seems ironic; I suggest next meeting doing some experimental (experiential?) work

More focus on future management arrangements and viability of organisation

Set priority: must be income? Must be a goal? Can be just a group?

Groups

Not sure small groups developed n that each subject stood alone – maybe more connectedness

Working group

Tasks
Management

Need much clearer objectives in terms of hoped impact

More concrete questions for group working, possible based on an example

Practical

Maybe visuals on screen may help on certain topics

Difficult to involve colleagues participating via Skype without disrupting flow of workshop

I see some escapism when we start to become more concrete

Timing

We might have needed some more time

More time to hear what other people are involved in

[MZ1]During the meeting there were more or less two camps:

1) We have to do stuff in the field to make sure the EHFF is noticeable!

2) We have to give people space and focus on influencing/inspiring/motivating/etc. people in the field without becoming to practical ourselves.

I think we can do both, because we are multi layered and three dimensional, but I find it rather difficult to write that down in a sensible manner!