Tommy’s Centre for Maternity Improvement: a governance review

The challenge

Tommy’s Centre for Maternity Improvement is a partnership spanning funders, executives, clinicians and project leads. The Centre asked Kaleidoscope to review its governance model, making good use of busy executive diaries while keeping the work meaningful for every kind of leader involved.

The review was originally envisaged as a way to shape structures and processes. A key opportunity emerged through the work: to also hold space for reflection on culture, interpersonal relationships, and how trust, psychological safety and empowerment were affecting the dynamics of the partnership.

Our approach

We started with a diagnostic. We invited every partner to a one-to-one interview to explore what was working well and what could improve, and reviewed the Centre’s existing governance literature to understand the starting position. This shaped the key problems and opportunities to explore, and made the design of the event that followed purposeful.

We then brought the senior leaders together for a full-day event, drawing on our experience of designing engaging events for collaborations that span multiple partners. The discussion was energised and forward looking, identifying improvements that could happen quickly and others the group could build on as it developed its forthcoming strategy.

Throughout, we balanced reviewing structures and processes with anchoring governance in shared purpose and a strong culture for partnership working. We held space for people to explore what was helping or hindering them, as individuals and as a partnership, and deliberately did not rush past the challenges that surfaced.

Results

Our report summarised the insights and recommendations from all the discussions, giving the Centre a practical framework to refer back to as it progresses. By the end of their short time together, the group was clearer on the main problems it wanted to address and had identified the next steps to work through them.

Client testimonial

Kaleidoscope supported us with a review of the governance for our Centre for Maternity Improvement. They were a thoughtful, intelligent partner throughout and we really appreciated how flexible they were in the face of changing circumstances and scope. They helped us surface and make sense of our most pressing issues and focused on the all important human elements of change which we needed to work through to be an effective partnership.

Kath Abrahams, Chief Executive, Tommy’s