The Learning Health Leader

Toby Avery
SABPDigital
Published in
5 min readMar 26, 2021

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I’d stopped learning

Recently I’ve started listening to podcasts; it wasn’t really a conscious decision but more as a distraction to take my mind off the pain of a 6am session on my spin bike (yes despite lots of dog walking lockdown has had some consequences and I need more exercise).

So, I found the podcast app on my iPhone, randomly subscribed to some leadership type people and started listening. The area of leadership has always been of interest to me, so this was a natural choice.

After a week or so of listening to something most days I suddenly realised that I was being energised by the learning I was getting from these podcasts. It felt good to be taking in information, to have my thoughts and ideas challenged, to be learning new things. I started telling my wife about a nugget I picked up, I started to share with my team ideas I’d heard, and I started to apply some of the concepts to my work.

In March I was privileged to chair the afternoon sessions for the Digital Health Rewired Leadership Summit (thanks for the invite Jon!). The sessions were great, the people awesome, the platform worked well, and I learnt some stuff. What more could I ask for?

Well, lots actually! While the event was great, I only really attended the sessions I chaired. Despite blocking my diary, “urgent” stuff took precedence and I missed out. I missed out on learning and I missed out on connecting with people that would have inspired me, challenged me and helped me.

If any of you have ever taken the Clifton Strengths assessment (NHS Digital Academy Alumni and students will be familiar with this) one of my top 10 strengths is “Learner”. I love to learn and have always considered myself a lifelong learner. Learning gives me a buzz; it gives me energy.

I suddenly realised I’d lost this energy in the last year. I’d, by and large, stopped learning.

For me I have typically learnt through reading, formal development and through events. In the last year I have read little (the idea of staring at my kindle after a day in Team’s calls doesn’t appeal), have had no formal development/training courses, and events as we knew them have stopped (attending virtual events has been really difficult as mentioned previously).

COVID has definitely impacted on my learning, the energy I get from it and my improving practice as a leader. However, it is easy to blame something external (let’s face it that makes me feel better about myself) when in reality I have allowed it to happen.

Learning Health Leader

This recognition that I had stopped learning got me thinking about Digital Health Leadership, what are we doing as individuals and as a community to ensure we are “learning health leaders”?

Of course, you might be wondering what the heck a learning health leader is. Which is fair enough because I just made up the phrase.

I got it from the idea of the Learning Health System where we think about the concept of continual knowledge capture, embedding learning into daily practice and continually improving/innovating.

Therefore, a learning health leader would be someone who:

· Continually captures knowledge

· Embeds their learning into daily practice

· Continually strives to improve and innovate

Thankfully this isn’t just my idea or constrained to the healthcare environment, Amy Edmondson said “Learning is not a one-time event or a periodic luxury. Great leaders in great companies recognize that the ability to constantly learn, innovate, and improve is vital to their success.”

So now I’m asking myself whether I can go to bed every night knowing that I have learnt something new, embedded learning into my practice and worked to improve or innovate?

I cannot honestly say that I do this everyday or even every week. But I know that if I am going to be the best leader I can be and therefore make the greatest contribution to my organisation and the people we serve, then I need to start to become a learning health leader.

To be clear being a learning health leader is not about cramming your head full of knowledge! If we don’t apply knowledge what use is it?

We should be learning so that we can improve, so that we can innovate, and so that we can make a greater contribution. We need to share our knowledge and apply our learning; we need to take others on the journey with us building the learning capacity that can have the broadest impact.

So, I’m making a commitment to get my learning back on track, to be a learning health leader. But what does this look like?

Learning Health Leader in practice

As a leader I feel that I need to preach what I practice and I’d suggest there is an internal (my learning) and an external (my sharing or others learning) element to becoming a learning health leader:

· My learning — I need to actively pursue knowledge, but I shouldn’t limit the source; this could be through podcasts, books, formal learning, events, conversations and so on.

· My sharing — I need to apply what I learn and let people see it. This isn’t through telling them what to do but through doing it myself, being the example.

So, what am I going to do?

To learn:

· I’m going to build on my new habit of listening to podcasts, reading blogs and articles; I don’t need to read a whole book to learn something (there are plenty of options!).

· I’m going to try and pick up a few books this year and finish them (started working on Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed).

· I’m going to have more conversations with people that challenge my thinking (reverse mentoring coming up soon which should be a great experience).

· And, as soon as possible I’ll be back at events networking and connecting with you all!

To share:

· I’m going to apply my learning, where appropriate, at work and home.

· I’m going to continue my professional development journey with BCS.

· I’m going to have more conversations with people that allow me to challenge their thinking.

· I might even write a few more of these…

In Summary

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir and I’m behind the times (aka lazy) but I think leaders need to be learners, maybe you disagree (you are allowed) but if not, can I challenge you to be intentional with your learning and through it become a more effective leader.

Be a Learning Health Leader! 😊

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Toby Avery
SABPDigital

SABP NHS CDIO, husband, father, servant, leader, public speaker, learner, fun lover and fitness nut (sometimes). EGA, NHSDA #cohort1. All views my own.