Creating winning behaviours

Here's what I learnt about how to create winning behaviours at #NHSConfedExpo this week, both as an NHS professional, and as a health coach.

6/15/20243 min read

This week I had the opportunity to attend #NHSConfedExpo 2024, the annual NHS leadership conference. It’s always a great opportunity to connect with old colleagues, develop new contacts, and, most importantly, learn about some of the amazing stuff going on across the NHS to improve the care of our population.

There’s plenty that I took from the experience as a health coach (as well as an NHS leader), not least the importance of listening to those who trust us with their care, and the importance of empowering people to take agency over their own care and the choices they make in their lives.

Time for a grown up conversation

I also took away some really sobering perspectives on the most disadvantaged in our society and the challenges they face to break out of poor health. Their lives are blighted by poor quality housing, and lower educational attainment. But most of all, their health is impacted by poor diet.

Amanda Pritchard, the Chief Executive of the NHS, was absolutely right in her speech when she challenged us all to consider how our society has got itself to such a place where it can be cheaper and easier for a family to feed itself on takeaway junk, than on healthy and nutritious food. As Amanda said, the NHS can only do so much. We do need a serious and grown up conversation in our country about public policy and personal responsibility in this space.

Teamship

But one of the great things about the conference is that they always invite some inspirational thought leaders to address attendees. This year we were fortunate to hear from Sir Clive Woodward, the World Cup winning manager of the England rugby team, and the director of Team GB during our most successful Olympics ever in 2012.

Sir Clive’s speech was fascinating. It focussed on his view of the power of teamship - creating a culture of high safety and high challenge, where everyone is bought into the vision of what you are trying to achieve, and the behaviours you need to embed to get there. Crucial to the success of his teamship concept was the principle of co-design, where the team itself is responsible for developing and agreeing the behaviours and norms that will underpin the team’s progress.

He gave some fascinating examples from the sporting world. For example, the England rugby players co-designed their own behavioural framework including a commitment that being on time meant, as elite sportsmen, being 10 minutes early. Or that Team GB instituted a collective commitment that each individual would never walk past a hand gel dispenser without using it (in order to collectively ensure nobody’s performance could be impacted by illness).

The key to success though was the fact that these teamship rules, or winning behaviours as they were known at the Olympics, were absolutely non-negotiable. They were the cornerstone of each teams' success. Indiviudal commitment and discipline as the foundation for collective achievement.

Creating winning behaviours

As Sir Clive was talking, I found myself drawing the obvious analogy of his team dynamics with how we, as individuals, embed healthy change in our lives. What are the winning behaviours that underpin sustainable and positive action to improve our own health and wellbeing?

And the truth is that what you do is important, but it is not as important as how you do it.

In the same way that for a teamship rule to succeed in the sporting context it needed to be developed and agreed by all the individuals in a team, a winning behaviour in the individual context needs to be a commitment or a rule that you have thought about yourself and are absolutely invested in.

I can give you plenty of rules and must do's if you want to improve your health. But the real power in individual change comes when you work out for yourself what are your non-negotiables that are going to get you to the health improvement that you want. It's when you work out what your winning behaviours will be.

How a health coach can help

And that's where the power of health coaching comes in. A good health coach will help you work out for yourself what your winning behaviours can be, and support you to implement them.

And the fact is that winning behaviours don't have to be big things. They can be as simple as a commitment that you're going to walk up those stairs each morning in the office, rather than take the lift. Or that, you're going to replace that afternoon coffee with a decaf. Positive and sustainable change is the product and compounding impact of lots and lots of little choices and little winning behaviours like this.

Every time a member of that legendary England rugby team got to training 10 minutes early, or a Team GB member used a hand sanitiser, it was a vote for the type of team of team they wanted to be part of.

Work out your winning behaviours (with the help of a health coach if you need it), and each time you fulfil that commitment to yourself it will be a vote for the healthier person that you want to become.Write your text here...