Image of Steve Brennan Why collaborative working is important 

Collaboration and collaborative working are things we seem to talk about more and more. But what does this mean in reality? I want to share my thoughts on how we approach this in Kirklees, the benefits it brings, and some of the challenges.

So what do we mean by collaborative working in Kirklees? Put simply it is about people working beyond the boundaries of their own organisations to deliver the best health and wellbeing outcomes for local people. To do this we need:

  • An awareness of how systems work (they are not machines)
  • Courage to step into the unknown, take responsibility and work in ambiguity
  • A real focus on relationships
  • Preparedness to work for the whole system, maybe even when this doesn’t directly benefit our own organisations or personal interests

Collaborative working is challenging – we are working in a complex system of systems that is constantly changing and evolving. We are asking people to work with a range of organisational and stakeholder cultures, and with people from different professional disciplines. Often there is no direct managerial control and things feel uncertain, messy and emergent. It is difficult to address these, when many of us are facing challenging financial constraints and significant operational pressures with a need to work at pace.

So, if this is challenging, why should we bother? Well, many of the challenges we are facing cannot be solved in the long-term by organisations or sectors working in isolation of each other. Long term cost-savings and sustainability, working with communities and neighbourhoods, and addressing the causes of inequalities require us to work together collaboratively.

Often the thing we are trying to achieve is something that nearly everyone would agree with, for example reducing inequalities. What often happens though is that we disagree about how best to achieve this or whose job it is to do it. These disagreements often run along organisational, professional and cultural lines.

However, when we overcome these and bring people together to work collaboratively to address the fundamental issue then we can make much more of a difference.

In Kirklees we have had most success where we have focused on building relationships and connections between people from across the system, and this has been the focus on our systems leadership work for several years. We also try to help everyone realise that they have a role to play as a systems leader – this is not about a hierarchical approach focused on a small number of very senior leaders in a few big organisations. 

But collaboration isn’t always the right approach, and everyone doesn’t need to collaborate on everything. We have had plenty of false starts where we either picked the wrong thing to collaborate on, or the timing was wrong, or where the interest just wasn’t there. We have got better at recognising this and don’t try to flog dead horses quite as much now – it’s okay to walk away sometimes.

Many of the things we need to collaborate on are big problems or challenges. The language we use to describe these can be quite intimidating: ‘wicked issues’, ‘difficult decisions’, ‘burning platform’ and so on. Often this doesn’t help to engage people in working together to address them. So instead we encourage people to think about “what difference can I make on my own, how much more of a difference can I make by working with someone else and who can we influence together to make an even bigger difference?”

There is a quote from Marvyn Weisbord that helps here as well: “I used to go and ask, ‘What’s wrong and how can I fix it?’ Now I realise a better question is ‘What’s possible, and who cares?’”

So, to help to bring this to life here are some examples of where taking these approaches to collaboration have worked:

  • Community champions, which started during the pandemic and are now an integral part of how we listen to and respond to what communities need.
  • Leadership apprenticeships programme with the University of Huddersfield, which started in Kirklees, and very quickly spread to Calderdale and now to Wakefield. Soon nearly 100 staff from across these health and care systems will have, or will be, undertaking L5 and L7 leadership apprenticeships.
  • Kirklees Tacking Poverty Partnership which supports how we are responding to the Director of Public Health’s report for 2022/23 on poverty and is now helping to make a difference to people across Kirklees.
  • Compassionate cultures programme which, from small beginnings, has grown to include a compassionate leadership programme, an annual conference, community of practice and Community Schwartz Rounds.

Going forward, the ongoing collaboration with the University of Huddersfield on the National Health Innovation Campus will bring significant and far-reaching benefits for the health and wellbeing of local people, and the productivity of the local economy.

If you are interested in exploring collaboration and systems working in more detail, there are some excellent resources available from the Northeast and Yorkshire Leadership Academy. You will need to be registered with the site to access these. If you aren’t already registered then it is easy to do so, and don’t be put off by the NHS branding - it will let non-NHS staff register. Once logged into the site you need to scroll down to ‘Systems and Relational Leadership’ and this will take you to the 10 modules.

Thank you for reading

Steve