Getting acquainted with clinical governance in Sydney

I've been having a wonderful time meeting with folks at the New South Wales Clinical Excellence Commission.  This is an agency with a broad-ranging agenda to improve the safety and quality of patient based care in Australia's largest state.  Today's audience were principally the Directors of Clinical Governance, the people responsible for enhancing clinical care in the 17 local health districts spread across the state.  Also attending was Kim Oates (left), Director of Undergraduate Quality and Safety Education for the CEC.

My primary topic was on leadership approaches that help bring about the cultural change necessary to reduce harm in hospitals, drawing especially on lessons from my book Goal Play!

Following this, we engaged in a negotiation module using one of my favorite exercises, Michael Wheeler's "Win as Much as You Can."  Here you see some reactions of the participants as they experienced relationship changes with some of their colleagues as the game progressed.  It was an important lesson in considering the structure, context, and people engaged in a negotiation, all with an eye to creating sustainable negotiated agreements that can bring value to the parties.