'We need to listen to that heartbeat'

A psychologist with a wealth of experience in leadership and governance has been appointed as the new Chair of the British Psychological Society's Board of Trustees. Dr Carol Cole, who has been a member since her undergraduate degree, spoke to Ella Rhodes about her career and hopes for the future of the BPS.

Dr Carol Cole began her journey through psychology at the University of Glasgow and later moved to the University of Birmingham for a Medical Research Council-funded doctorate and Master's degree in clinical psychology. She went on to work in learning disability services, and said she was drawn to this work given her natural interest in human behaviour.

'You don't approach learning disability with the idea of getting rid of a pathology. It is much more positive and is about helping find out what individuals can do and how to enhance their skills to be as fulfilled as possible. I was very fortunate to have that opportunity and worked in LD within the NHS as a clinical psychologist for several years.

'In my clinical practice, I found myself being drawn inexorably upwards  to looking at the culture, how wards were led and what the leadership style was, in order to help individuals in a way that one-to-one therapy, given the psychology team's resource constraints, could not.' Cole later took the opportunity to apply to be trained as a Change Management Consultant within the NHS. Given that learning disability services at the time were largely residential, with small psychology teams supporting hundreds of service users, Cole said her experience of assessing cultures and how organisations were run were invaluable skills she could later apply in the change management role.

'I was appointed as a change management consultant on a three-year contract and it was fantastic… I was able to draw totally on my clinical training. Both roles were all about gathering data, making a formulation, deciding on a course of action, and helping people to implement it, but with the change management work it was about intervening at a slightly higher level in the organisation.'

At this time the NHS was also working with Royal Dutch Shell on an innovative change management initiative, and after three years Cole moved to working with Shell as an organisation consultant. 'We were helping enhance health and safety culture on North Sea oil platforms, for example. After the Piper Alpha disaster we were asking how to get people to think and behave in a safe way, how to change cultures, and look at the leadership around that. We also explored business effectiveness and what makes for a successful organisation.'

After her time with Shell Cole developed her own organisation consultancy practice working with NHS and public sector organisations as well as government, energy and engineering companies, something she did for 25 years. 'The golden thread was about applying psychology to enhance organisational effectiveness. As a result of working with organisations and latterly boards, particularly NHS boards, I became interested in good governance. I realised, in effect, that that was what I'd been doing all my working life – understanding what makes for a successful organisation, team or culture and how to facilitate that.'

Cole went on to work in trustee and non-executive roles for organisations including Deafness Research UK and the Royal National Institute for Deaf people – partly due to her own mother's experience with hearing loss – and with the Royal Air Force Museum. She also served on the board of two NHS trusts, and when her terms of office expired she noticed the vacant role of Board of Trustees Chair.

She said she was naturally drawn to apply to this position given her career-long membership of the society as well as her self-identity as a psychologist. 'I thought I'm going to put my hat in the ring, and I will take my chances and hopefully I'll be able to offer some knowledge, some skills and some experience that the panel might consider relevant. Everyone has already been so welcoming!'

Cole said, during her time as Chair, she hoped to build strong working relationships with her fellow trustees and BPS staff with an aim of making the board as effective, and well-governed, as possible. 'Looking back on my days working in learning disability services, it was all about asking what we can do more of, what we can do better… at the BPS, it's similarly about how we can harness the Society's strengths to make the organisation better. Our members are the beating heart of the Society and as a chair and as a board, we need to listen to that heartbeat. We need to listen to the voices of the psychologists who are our members – if there are no members, there's no Society.

'We have more than 60,000 members with diverse needs and expertise, skills, talents and expectations; they're a hugely rich resource and I would hope that as a board, we can listen to their wisdom and insights to make the BPS a force for good and to have an impact, beyond what the Society is already doing, both nationally and internationally.'