Board Development, the National Committee for Postgrad

Deans & Directors of Dentistry - COPDEND (UK)

Client Issue: COPDEND comprises the Postgrad Dental Deans & Directors of Dentistry in the English Deaneries, together with their 3 colleagues for Northern Ireland, Scotland & Wales. At present they all manage Dental Vocational Training, Hospital Training for the Dental Specialites (as well as Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery) & Continuing Professional Development for all dentists within the framework of the NHS budgets provided for these purposes.  In addition, they have a supportive role in returning & retraining dentists (including overseas dentists, refugees & asylum seekers) & poorly performing dentists. In addition, the Deans will soon to be responsible for all post-qualification education & training of Professionals Complementary to Dentistry. They are all passionately involved in activities which result in improved patient care through postgraduate education & training, including the educational aspects of audit & evidence-based dental care. Given that post of them work part-time as Deans & have other important roles as senior health practitioners, they are keen to ‘work smarter rather than harder’. They contacted Synergy as a well respected effectiveness practice in 2005/06, to help them with some Board Leadership & Team Development.

Solution: Over the years COPDEND had built tremendously strong personal & professional relationships with each other & with key stakeholders outside of the group. They were also extremely capable & hard working professionals, caught in the middle of the politics between academic life & major NHS modernisation & restructuring. Given workload pressures, we focused on re-establishing strategic priorities such as policy development & stakeholder partnerships; Early Years Training for Dentists (including Vocational Training Programs); Career Development & Formal Pathways; Lifelong Learning & Continuous Professional Development for Dental Teams; Recruitment & Retention (including induction, top up training & international issues such as equivalence); supporting poorly performing dental professionals; R&D for Post Grad Dentistry & Educational Effectiveness; & Quality Assurance/Governance (including financial probity).

Outcome: Well evaluated sessions on Action Orientation & Planning; Leading Change Effectively; Performance Management; Dealing with Difficult Behaviour with more than Rapport; Communication Styles; Gaining Cooperation & Senior Support; Unblocking Communication; Performance Management; Advanced Presentation Skills for Selling Ideas (especially to committees); An Introduction to the basics of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP); plus some interactive exercises on major issues for postgraduate dental education. Over the course of several modules we also addressed the COPDEND vision & completed some Board/team observation & feedback for sustainable change, role-modelling the use of the Synergy Behavioural Change Feedback Model.

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