by Stewart R. Clegg, Martin Harris and Harro Höpfl (editors)
The first meeting of the International Fellows Network was held March 22-25, 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand. At this inaugural event we brought together our network of thought and practice leaders from ‘hubs’ across the globe to develop practical recommendations to solve common health and social system change management challenges. Our fellows gathered together from places across the world including Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Beijing, Shanghai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jakarta, Leeds, London, Chicago, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Sydney, Stockholm, and Milan.
'Make a lasting Change' - CIHM Brochure
This purpose of the event was to build identity within the network as a precise social technology for harnessing the collective human wisdom and energy of people working to generate the most effective health systems around the world. From the network will come lasting, locally legitimate, humane, needs-based social change that feels legitimate to people using those services.
The group came together in the face of a range of increasingly difficult management dilemmas. We are all doing cutting edge work in our own countries, which needed to be discussed and shared more widely. Our belief is that solutions will come from CEOs, managers, clinicians, patients, communities, social entrepreneurs and politicians working together. The event was about fostering innovation and new relationships to develop practical solutions to these problems.
Duncan Ross presents to the group.
The event started with a day where we learned about each other, and about our collective view of social change, through an immersion in Bangkok – investigating social change in our host city. We then worked on questions which will be useful locally and internationally, and there was also time to find out more about each others local leadership challenges. We finished with time working out together how we want the fellowship network to work, and the future focus of our collective effort.