The Challenge

Our Alchemist programme was designed to help Danish health sector leaders become better able to intervene in their organisations’ systems & deliver change in an era when resources are under pressure and innovation is essential.

The Approach

GameShift’s Alchemist process is designed as ‘a light-touch programme with a Masters-level impact’. In an eight-day programme delivered over nine months, participants go through a senior leader development process based on action inquiry principles, designed and run by GameShift and our Danish facilitation partners. The intent is to help individual leaders develop themselves to work more systemically to address their organisations’ biggest challenges.

During the Alchemist process individuals engage in fast cycles of experimentation and reflective learning based on their own leadership practice. This focus is supported through constant feedback in peer-to-peer support & challenges teams known as PAGs (Practical Application Groups). Underlying these cycles is exposure to the discipline and practice of action inquiry – a rigorous way of learning from your day to day experience. This practice builds reflective capability and supports the potential for exploration, collaboration and innovation.

Throughout the entire cycle of the Alchemist work, participants work with a “Big Question”. These questions provide a living focus against which to test and sharpen the understanding and practice of all the shared perspectives and models. Each Big Question is an issue where the participant has genuine skin in the game, where addressing the issue has the potential to bring real life benefits and where existing solutions don’t seem to be enough.

The Outcome

The outcomes of this programme are significant.  From independent research undertaken after its first five years, 100% of participants interviewed reported:

• The Alchemist Process as “exceptional / exceeding expectations / best lifetime learning experience.”
• Using two or more of the tools, methods & perspectives learnt in practical application in their organisations.
• Specific beneficial outcomes from learning experiments, with approx 60% reporting organisational benefits as the primary outcome.

Participants specifically reported greater confidence about working in situations of ambiguity, an expanded sense of self and leadership and being able to take difficult decisions through being clear about their purpose as a leader.