Secret Musings of a Change Agent 4 - Carol "Change" Kavanagh
What makes ordinary people great at making change happen? What characteristics do they share? What path have they followed? What’s their attitude to failure? And what advice would they give to others? I’m on a mission to understand more. Join me as I delve deeper in the third of my new blog series to help us all understand how we build change capacity for the future.
I knew Carol “Change” Kavanagh by reputation long before I got to meet her in person. It was one of those situations where you hope the reality matches the folklore. Carol didn’t disappoint. For anyone who thinks kind leadership is soft and ineffective, introduce them to Carol. She is one of life's lovely, kind, genuine, warm, humble people and she’s also formidable when it comes to making change happen. So I was proper chuffed when she agreed to feature in my “what makes ordinary people great at making change happen” blog series.
I met Carol through working in the Manchester Local Care Organisation. Carol heads up Manchester Community Response Service in the North of the City managing urgent integrated care in the community. I’d always (wrongly) assumed that Carol’s professional background was in nursing so it came as a surprise when she told me she’s a qualified social worker with experience working across services for children with learning disabilities and at the sharp end of child protection - an experience that she says “stays in my heart”. After having 5 children of her own, Carol felt the need for a change in direction and moved across into adult’s social care implementing the first Extra Care scheme in the City. After the sudden death of her mother, Carol needed some time out doing something different and jumped at the chance to set up new health services playing a key role in moving acute support into the community.
What comes through loud and clear in talking to Carol is that she knows herself well and she proactively seeks out opportunities to lead change that will move the health and care system a step closer to the vision or sense of purpose that drives her. A vision of positive people care and true integration. And that she does this because it feeds what she most values - making peoples’ lives better. This is where the kind, appreciative, humble side of Carol absolutely shines through. She’s driven by a mission to improve lives and how she does it is just as important as the results she gets.
“I’ve always worked with beautiful relationships and been surrounded by strong women who have given me the space to grow”
Relationships are key to how Carol approaches life. She’s a listener, encouraging people to put forward ideas and welcoming challenges from others as an opportunity to learn. This approach makes the people around her feel safe, valued and able to get involved. Carol is inspired by women like Rosa Parks, Florence Nightingale and Emmeline Pankhurst. She also talks of having always worked with “beautiful relationships” and of being surrounded by strong women who have given her space to grow and haven’t felt the need for a command and control approach. Women like Claudette Webster, Lindsey Darley, Chris Euston and Emma Flynn - each of them stalwarts of the Greater Manchester Health & Social Care system - and people who Carol recognises as having supported her to do what she does best.
The other strong influence in Carol’s life is her father, John Kavanagh, a staunch union man whose passion for the rights of people gave Carol the confidence to challenge. Listening to her dad, gave Carol a real appreciation of what good looks like, how to listen to people and how to treat people. Her experience of growing up in a poor working class family is what Carol believes gives her the empathy she has for others.
Theories of change very naturally weave through my conversation with Carol. She’s clearly well-read and has studied different models and approaches to change. You get a real sense that she takes a very pragmatic approach to how she applies them. She singles out an @aqua_nhs development programme that she did back in 2011 using service improvement methodology to complete a 30, 60, 90 day challenge. This gave her the tools to apply a simple methodological process consisting of a series of interrelated steps: research; vision; determine approach; secure resources; test, and; evaluate, to produce really powerful evidence. This was a key part of Carol’s learning, enabling her to understand why it’s important to evidence what works and how to do it in a way that enables her to say to senior leaders “This is what I tested and this is what happened”. Carol’s clearly got a big kitbag of tools and techniques that she draws on but the overall sense you get from her is one of keeping things simple.
Carol is a natural rebel. She sees opportunities and grabs them. Her rebellion is driven by her passion for changing peoples’ lives and means that she takes calculated risks, doesn’t wait to be told what to do and seeks out solutions. She doesn’t just have a plan A for how she makes change happen, she has a plan B, C and D up her sleeve too so she’s ready to act if plan A doesn’t work out. She knows how to navigate the complexities of an integrated system and instinctively can feel her way through when she can get away with just doing something because she knows it to be right and when she needs to make the case for change and get wider buy-in and agreement.
Not really allowed….
but Carol saw that rabbits would improve the quality of life for people
She told me a story about when she was running a community based urgent care service based at Crumpsall Vale in Manchester and how they weren’t really meant to have animals. But….. someone staying there loved rabbits and Carol saw the potential to improve their quality of life, so they got rabbits. She had a bit of a heart in the mouth moment when at an opening event within Intermediate Care attended by the Head of Nursing together with Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester. Carol fronted it out explaining that they had rabbits because animals are therapeutic and that this is a therapeutic centre. Luckily the Head of Nursing agreed. As Carol says “sometimes you’ve got to be tough and go with your gut that something is right”.
What is clear is that Carol’s credibility goes before her. I suspect that’s why she’s able to bring her rebellious self into her work. Ultimately people know and trust that Carol is acting in the best interests of people and that she’s not going to suggest doing anything that sits outside of this. It’s not without its costs however and she has to work at keeping resilience levels high. She describes that feeling, so familiar to those of us who bring different, that sometimes when she opens her mouth, she can hear people sigh. But as she says, do you seize the opportunity for change or do you sit back passive and wait for someone else to make change happen? And she recognises that sometimes the frustration expressed by others comes from a place of fear and insecurity - what happens if it doesn’t work and we have to stop doing it and do something else? Equally she recognises resistance to change as an emotional journey that we have to take people on with kindness and compassion.
When I asked Carol what her “change super power” is she talks about her ability to bring people with her on the journey of change - co-creating what change looks like, giving people space to contribute ideas and letting people run with it.
“Fear is false evidence appearing real”
Her advice for aspiring change agents learning their craft - believe in what you’re doing and just do it. She finishes our conversation with a powerful quote “Fear is false evidence appearing real” and if we all remember this, we’ll all feel that little bit braver in “just doing it”.
Talking to Carol reinforced more than anything for me that kind compassionate leadership works because it builds trust, respect and credibility which in turn means you can galvanise the people around you to feel confident and empowered to make change happen . If you enjoyed this blog and would like to understand more about what makes a great change agent so we can learn together how to build capacity for the future, check out my blog series for more “Secret Musings of a Change Agent”.
