Results from the Blue Cross staff survey 2006 highlighted a number of areas for development, one of which was communication and consultation during periods of change. The Blue Cross decided to take advantage of the annual managers' conference to schedule a series of workshops on the key development topics and commissioned Jacqueline Hill of J Hill Associates to run a 1-hour session on Change and Consultation.

• Linking the workshop directly to the results of the survey helped to show participants that their views were taken account of and actions taken as a result.
• As most managers attended the workshops, as did a number of Board members, the key messages and practical tool introduced can become common currency across Blue Cross.
• Jacqueline's understanding of change management and consultation enabled her to quickly identify the most effective design to get across the key messages in just 1 hour.
• Jacqueline's facilitation experience enabled her to run 3 high-energy workshops back-to-back and to manage effectively the strongly held views of some of the participants.

Feedback from participants included the following comments:

• "I hope we will see the formula implemented from top down to enable the rest of us to use it effectively."
• "Excellent, clear, interesting and thought provoking."
• "Quite short in terms of delivering significant content - but excellent taster sessions."
  

Ian Patient, Training & Development Manager commented:
"Jacqueline’s session was very well focussed on The Blue Cross and our needs. The session was participative and engaging, giving delegates the opportunity to use a simple yet effective model that could be applied in a variety of change scenarios. We intend to use this model along with existing good practices to ensure that change is implemented effectively and leads us to greater successes in the future."